Freedom's Fury
| Freedom's Fury | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Directed by |
Colin Keith Gray Megan Raney |
| Produced by |
Kristine Lacey Thor Halvorssen Quentin Tarantino |
| Written by | The Sibs - Colin Keith Gray and Megan R. Arrons |
| Narrated by | Mark Spitz |
| Music by | Les Hall |
|
Release date
|
2006 |
|
Running time
|
90 min. |
| Language | English, Hungarian with English subtitles |
Freedom's Fury is a documentary film about the Melbourne, Australia 1956 Summer Olympics semifinal water polo match between Hungary and the USSR, and the events that led up to the violent battle, the match that what would later be known as the "Blood in the Water match."
The documentary was narrated by Mark Spitz, who as a teenager had been coached by Ervin Zádor.
The film debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2006, in the year of the 50th anniversary of the match.
Near the close of World War II in 1945, Hungary was liberated from the Nazis by the forces of the Soviet Union. While there was initial jubilation amongst the people of Hungary, they soon found that they had only exchanged one totalitarian regime for another. As Hungarian educator Karoly Nagy puts it in the film, "yes, we were liberated from one devastating, dictatorial, extremist, horrible creature called Nazis [clears throat], but, during that course, a lot of people were also liberated from all their belongings, they were liberated from their rights, they were liberated from their freedom and life, women were liberated from their honor..."
By 1956 (the year of the Melbourne Summer Olympics), Hungarian tensions with the satellite government installed by the Soviet Union had risen to the point of mass uprising and, eventually, outright revolution. The film documents the meeting (and subsequent battle) between the representatives of these two rival nations, and in a larger sense, became a globally televised embodiment of the Hungarian people's fight for independence under the communist regime.
The documentary tells the story of the young star of the Hungarian Olympic waterpolo team, Ervin Zador, who finds himself the unwitting focal point of one of the most politicized sports matches ever played, popularly known as the "Blood in the Water" match.
The journey of Zador and the Hungarian waterpolo team to the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne becomes the film's through-line as "Freedom's Fury" explores the larger human tragedy of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.
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Wikipedia