Oscar Nominee Lajos Koltai on Returning to the Director’s Chair After Nearly Two Decades for Period Biopic ‘Semmelweis’

It’s been more than 15 years since Oscar-nominated cinematographer and director Lajos Koltai (“Fateless,” “Malena”) helmed his last film, “Evening” (2007), a poignant meditation on mortality, regret and womanhood that featured a star-studded ensemble cast, including Vanessa Redgrave, Glenn Close, Eileen Atkins and Meryl Streep, and was released domestically by Focus Features.

For his return to the director’s chair, the Hungarian-born filmmaker also returns closer to home with “Semmelweis,” a period biopic drama about a Hungarian doctor who turns the medical establishment on its head in 19th-century Vienna. The film opens the 21st Hungarian Film Festival of Los Angeles, which runs Oct. 27 to Nov. 2 at the Laemmle Monica Film Center.

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“Semmelweis” is set in 1847, as a mysterious epidemic is raging in a maternity clinic in Vienna. The film follows the Hungarian-born doctor Ignác Semmelweis, played by rising Hungarian actor Miklos H. Vecsei, in a race against the clock to solve the mystery and save lives while clashing with the city’s medical establishment.

This isn’t the first time that a Hungarian filmmaker has been drawn to the Semmelweis story. In 1940, André de Toth — best known for the 3D classic “House of Wax” (1953) — directed a biopic about the maverick, groundbreaking physician. A decade later, another “Semmelweis,” directed by Frigyes Bán, was released in Hungary, starring leading man Imre Apáthi.

It was a film that left a lasting mark on Koltai. “I remembered it from my childhood,” the director tells Variety, recalling how producer Tamás Lajos presented him with a script for a 2020s reboot of the Semmelweis story a few years ago. “It somehow stuck in my mind.”

How to approach a biopic about one of the most celebrated medical minds in Hungarian history presented no small challenge for Koltai. He also needed to find an actor who could be a “sympathetic person” while also portraying the determination of a man who “goes his own way.” “Every day you fight your war. You’re fighting against someone, against something,” he says. “Every single day you go and fight for your life. Everything is against you. The whole system, the other people [are against you].”

Leading man Vecsei, better known for his stage work, was ultimately tapped to play Ignác Semmelweis after making a strong impression on the filmmaker. In the role of Emma Hoffman, the Austrian midwife who plays Semmelweis’ steadfast assistant — and eventual love interest — the director turned to Katica Nagy, whose credits include Kornél Mundruczó’s supernatural thriller “Jupiter’s Moon.”

Nagy caught Koltai’s eye after starring in a student film at the University of Theater and Film Arts Budapest, where he’s the head of the masters program in film directing. “It’s a bigger role, in a certain way, than Semmelweis,” he says. “Her way is like a rollercoaster. She really goes through hell to get to the end. She gets tried. Life tries her in very different ways, inside and outside.”

Three years ago, Koltai lensed “Final Report,” the latest feature from Oscar-winning Hungarian filmmaker István Szabó (“Mephisto”). It was a return to the 77-year-old Koltai’s roots as a cinematographer, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award in 2000 for the Italian World War II drama “Malena,” from “Cinema Paradiso” director Giuseppe Tornatore.

Five years later, Koltai made his directing debut with the Holocaust drama “Fateless,” described by Variety as “profoundly moving,” “exquisitely modulated and superbly mounted” and offering “a genuinely new way of looking at the Holocaust.” With “Evening,” he found himself directing Hollywood royalty such as Redgrave and Streep, who he hopes will be in attendance when “Semmelweis” opens the Hungarian Film Festival of Los Angeles on Oct. 27. “We invited them all!” he says.

Whatever nerves he might have felt after a nearly two-decade hiatus from the director’s chair, in some ways, says Koltai, it was like he never left. “To direct again, for me, it was a beautiful thing,” he says, adding, with a laugh: “It was great. I didn’t forget anything!”

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