The first Hungarian film to be shown at Berlin, it also made Marta Mészáros the first woman to be awarded the Golden Bear at the festival. Adoption follows Kata, a 43-year-old factory worker who wants to have a child with her long-term lover, but he rejects the idea. When she meets the teenage Anna, abandoned by her parents, she becomes interested in neglected children and tries to adopt one. Favouring wide shots and sparse dialogue and drawing on her own biography — Mészáros herself is an orphan — the director weaves a subtle but effective critique of communist Hungary and the patriarchal system of the time.