The Inner City Parish Church of the Blessed Virgin stands directly on the Pest bank of the Danube, wedged against the approach ramp of Elisabeth Bridge, and it is the oldest building on this side of Budapest. Its site was occupied by a Roman fort guarding the crossing, and excavation has brought parts of that fortification to light beside the church. Above it, the building accumulated the history of the city almost without editing: a Romanesque core, a Gothic choir with fine net vaulting and sedilia, and - most remarkably - a mihrab niche preserved in the sanctuary wall from the period when Ottoman rule turned the church into a mosque, followed by a Baroque reconstruction of the nave and towers. Few buildings in Central Europe display so many regimes in one interior. The film reads the church layer by layer, using the excavated Roman level, the medieval stonework and the Ottoman niche to tell the story of Budapest itself from a single vantage point on the river.
