By Franziska Schuster. In German cinemas the current movie by Hungarian director Béla Tarr, The Man from London (2007), has only just opened – a hypnotic and dark crime story based on the novel by Georges Simenon. Tarr is one of those directors with massive influence on the Hungarian film history, having made his appearance on the scene with socially critical and aesthetically innovative films in the late 70s. In Hungary, as compared to other states in Eastern Europe before 1989, filmmaking was an artistically much more free and cosmopolitan affair – these circumstances lead to some movies that turned out to be major works of the European art film. The Hungarian new wave created a lot of excitement with directors like István Szabó (AGE OF ILLUSIONS, 1964, FATHER, 1966), Miklós Janscó (THE HOPELESS ONES, 1965) or Dezsö Magyar (THE AGITATORS, 1971). The foundation of the Béla Balázs Studios by alumni of the Budapest Film Academy in 1961 was an important milestone and heralded a “Golgen generation” of Hungarian cinema, including Pál Gábor, Sándor Sára und István Szabó. The studio grew to become a lively workshop not only for filmmakers but also for artists, writers and musicians from the immensely active underground scene.

The Hungarian Film Week is the most important platform for Hungarian filmmaking - and has been just that for more than forty years now. Its director Éva Vezér is not only manager of the Magyar Filmunióbut since May 2009 also chairwoman of the European Film Promotion (EFP). In 2009 the festival's main award, the “Golden Reel“, went to Aron Matyassy for Lost Times. The programme also featured György Palfi (Hukkle, Taxidermia) with his new film I'm Not Your Friend and Kornel Mundruzcó, whose film DELTA already bagged the FIPRESCI award at Cannes 2008. Also highly acclaimed was Own Death by Péter Forgács, the Stanislaw Lem adaptation “1“ by Peter Sparrow and Eszter's Inheritance by József Sipos based on a novel by Sándor Márai.

Prior to the 2009 Hungarian Film Week the Hungarian parliament declared its will to adjust the national film subsidation law to EU standards, following the general trend to even out the basic conditions for all European film productions. These measures will be put in place by the Motion Picture Public Foundation of Hungary which is the home of the film funding agency of the Hungarian Film Commission as well as of the Magyar Filmunió, which is responsible for location marketing and representation of the Hungarian filmmaking abroad. The foundation has had some success: The world wide financial crisis may have hit Hungary especially hard, but the film industry seems to have gotten off lightly. In 2008 alone 26 feature films and 120 short films were produced, and a record crowd went to see the Hungarian Film Week in Budapest (more than 32.000 tickets sold). They saw more than 100 new movies, some of which are bound to come up on other international festival screens still this year.

Links

• Motion Picture Public Foundation of Hungary
• Magyar Filmunió
• Hungarian Filmweek
• CinePécs (debut films from Eastern Europe and the Balkans)
• Budapest Short Film Festival
• Kecskemét Animation Film Festival

• CATMAN 0 (H 2008. Juli Szabó, Tamás Lehoczky)