The forgotten story of the women who killed their husbands The Angelmakers is an observational portrait of the sleepy village of Nagyrev in rural Hungary. We meet its inhabitants, who share with us their daily life as well as their memories of the village's tainted past. We gradually come to understand the extent of the 'arsenic murders' which took place in 1929, when a large group of women were held responsible for poisoning their husbands with the so-called 'flypaper' method. An intriguing web of stories unfolds through the characters' memories which recapture old but ever-lasting tales of life, death and the struggle between the sexes.

Astrid Bussink (Eibergen, 1975) studied several disciplines at the Academy of fine Arts, AKI in Enschede. She graduated with a project consisting of an art magazine and organisation 'Het Ei'. Besides her studies she was active in several art organisations and the local radio.

After her studies she was involved in the fireworks explosions of Enschede and had to flee her burning house. This experience and the aftermath of the disaster she closely followed and documented, from a personal as well as a creative point of view. This is where her fascination for documentaries developed.She moved to Amsterdam and for several years worked as a picture editor for the glossy business magazine Quote. However, it eventually became clear that her real interest lay in film-making. She studied the technical aspects of filmmaking at Open Studio in Amsterdam. To deepen her knowledge and ideas she consequently did a Masters in Film at the ECA. During this master she stayed in Budapest for four months to work together with the Budapest Filmschool (ZSFE) to shoot her first documentary 'The Angelmakers' that has won several prizes (First Appearance Award IDFA, Amsterdam, Best young author award, Zagreb, Best short Documentary, European Independent Fimlfestival Paris and more) and is still screening on many, many festivals.

Her second short documentary is called R?ckenlage / Upside Down about the mysterious flight of deputy F?hrer Rudolf Hess to Scotland. It will be screening at Edinburgh Filmfestival and New Zealand Documentary Filmfestival, among others.

Astrid Bussink now lives and works in Amsterdam where she just finished another short documentary 'The 9 lives of my car' (premiere Dutch Filmfestival october 2006) and is currently working on a feature length documentary.

In her work as an artist and filmmaker, Astrid is interested in the theme of escape. She is intrigued by how people make certain decisions that appear incomprehensible outside the specific contexts they were taken in, why do people make certain choices, how do they handle limiting and disturbing circumstances and how far will they go to escape, these are reoccurring themes in her work.