Ilona (2026)

Ilona Tóth and her co-defendants’ trial, a post-1956 reprisal case that drew intense public attention and still sparks debate today, is revisited in this true-crime film. Prosecutors alleged that Tóth, a young medical student, used her professional standing to carry out the exceptionally cruel killing of an innocent man. Yet despite the confessions, the bizarre trial details and glaring contradictions point to the young people condemned to death as victims of a staged show trial. Using modern investigative techniques, the film examines the machinery of reprisal, the brutality of show trials, why those in power needed this spectacle, and how they tried to use it to turn international public opinion against the revolution.