MATE (19) a promising long-distance runner grows up with little chance of making a break from the world of an industrial Eastern European town blighted by crime and unemployment. His beloved older brother, JOCI (21) is a leader of the local gang. They are a group of kids with no prospect who pass their time by causing trouble.

A charismatic new chief of police JANOS ACS organises the young men into a Youth Protection League. To exploit the latent aggression in the group Acs convinces the boys to take a stand against crime in the town. The boys begin to patrol at night, guarding building sites and shops that have been regularly robbed. Acs encourages them to recruit more and more young men and they are soon the size of a small army.

Joci throws himself heart and soul into playing soldier, but Mate has no intention of joining, until Acs offers him a scholarship to train. At first Mate enjoys going out on patrol with the boys as they seen by many as heroes for having restored law and order in town. However things very slowly start to get out of hand. The guys feel that they have power in their hands and become overconfident. They start by chasing away gangs who look about to commit a crime, but this soon turns into a campaign against Gypsies regardless of whether they have committed a crime or not.

When Joci is accused of a racist attack, Mate provides him with a false alibi, but eventually realizes that his brother is far from innocent and that he acted on Acs’s command. This is the last straw for Mate and he decides to turn against the guard but Acs orders his men to stop him at whatever cost.

Krisztina Goda studied screenwriting at UCLA, and graduated in fiction direction at the National Film and Television School, UK.

Her directorial debut “Just Sex and Nothing Else” a low budget independent comedy became a commercial success in Hungary and participated in a number of A-level festivals. Film was awarded a.o: Special Jury Golden Remi 2007 at WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival and Best Screenplay Award 2006 at the Hungarian Film Week.

After that she went onto direct “Children of Glory”, a period war drama about the 1956 revolution, produced by Andrew G. Vajna. Film was awarded a.o. Best Feature Audience Award 2008 at Stony Brook Film Festival and Audience Award, Best International Feature Film Award 2007 at St. Louis International Film Festival.

Her latest feature “Chameleon” is a contemporary drama about a compulsive liar. The film was Hungary’s Official Entry Best Foreign Language Film Academy Awards® 2010 and it was awarded a.o. with Best Feature Film Award at the International Film Festival “ZOOM – ZBLIŻENIA, Best Drama Silver Remi Award 2010 at WorldFest-Houston International Film Festival, The Hungarians In Hollywood Award at The Hungarian Film Festival in Los Angeles and Audience Award 2009 at the Hungarian Film Week.

Since her daughter was born in 2009, Krisztina has concentrated on writing screenplays one of which is Home Guards.

Réka Divinyi is an award winning Hungarian screenwriter. She graduated from the Hungarian University of Film and Drama in 1999. She wrote scripts for „A Kind of America 2”, “Cameleon”, “Children of Glory Young”, “Dumb and Full of Love” and “Just Sex and Nothing Else” (for that script got Best Original Script Award at the 37th Hungarian Film Week 2005).