Péter Haás Vander

Sacra Corona

The story of three women - a famous prostitute, her housekeeper and their new maid - living in Budapest of 1910s, whose passionate, bizarre and complex relationship can only lead to one thing: murder.

Budapest, Hungary, Christmas 1957. The state, insecure after the defeated revolution of 1956 and increasingly put under the influence of a renewed Stalinist atmosphere, has decreed that all security officials must pass an exam to verify their loyalty. But to be actually effective in a shadowy world where suspicion and secrets reign, the subjects must be unaware that they are being tested.

When a female barn-owl's home - an old disused barn - is demolished, she has to seek a new place to live. On the way, flying through forests and across grasslands, she encounters most of the common owl species in Central Europe.