.png)
5 hours ago
3
The office of Proton Cinema lies on the ground floor of a modernist house in Budapest’s 13th district, where during the second world war Nazi troops forced Jewish people into a ghetto. The independent production company was a great match for The Brutalist, Brady Corbet’s Holocaust drama, which won four Baftas and will be a strong contender at the Oscars on Monday with 10 nominations.
“We couldn’t imagine The Brutalist being shot elsewhere,” said Viktória Petrányi, the Hungarian co-producer of the three-and-a-half-hour hit and Proton’s co-founder.
Proton Cinema is behind multiple international movies such as Midsommar, a 2019 award-winning horror featuring Florence Pugh, and its co-founder Kornél Mundruczó’s Pieces of a Woman.
But unlike in many countries where film companies producing such blockbusters would expect generous state funding or fiscal incentives for at least a portion of their financial backing, the company’s domestic films are “mainly self-financed”, Petrányi said.
Hungary’s National Film Institute (NFI), a government-controlled body, overwhelmingly sponsors movies that align with the rightwing ideology of Viktor Orbán’s ruling Fidesz party. Dávid Jancsó, the Oscar-nominated editor of The Brutalist, said: “Governments can decide whether to spend taxpayers’ money on propaganda films or on films that will win awards. In Hungary, the decision was for propaganda movies.”
The golden years of post-socialist Hungarian film were shaped by the film producer Andy Vajna. He emigrated from Hungary after the 1956 revolution and worked on the Die Hard and Terminator franchises before returning to Hungary as the Fidesz government’s commissioner tasked with the renewal of the national film industry from 2011.
Jancsó said it was partly owing to Vajna’s work that Hungary raised “surprisingly many talented film-makers”, including the film director and screenwriter László Nemes, whose Son of Saul (2015) won a Bafta for best foreign-language film.
But after Vajna’s death in 2019, the semi-independent establishment dispersing governmental funding was replaced by the NFI, which operates directly under the auspices of the prime minister’s cabinet office and is controlled by a state nominee.
Now, although Hungary is a sought-after destination for US, Asian and European film-makers for its picturesque locations, relatively well-built infrastructure and a 30% tax exemption, Hungarian creatives say they struggle to get their own ideas off the ground.
Gone Running, a film released last year about a grieving mother who sets out to run a marathon, proved the most popular Hungarian movie since the fall of the iron curtain. But its director, Gábor Herendi, said it was filmed with minimal funding patched together from donations, favours and below-market wages, as the NFI refused the script.
Herendi, who suspects he has been blocked from state funding, said this model of alternative funding was not sustainable. “The film was definitely made on a very tight budget, which doesn’t make for a good atmosphere,” he said.
Jancsó said one group disproportionately affected by the centralised financing was young artists, who struggle to secure a place in the well-paid government-funded productions.
Andor Berényi, a young director whose first movie has not received NFI support, agreed. “They say this is the golden age of independent film. But this model doesn’t work for new directors, who can’t ask for favours or funding,” he said.
Berényi suspects political reasons for the refusal to back his film, about a man turning to illegal activities to fund a spot in a care home for his father. He is now looking for a way to shoot it, even if only as a short film.
after newsletter promotion
“If someone wants to create art and express something about society, they won’t be silenced. They will share their story, even if it means going broke in the process,” he said.
In 2024, the NFI spent 6.5bn Hungarian forints (£13m) on movie production. The largest sum, 2.7bn forints, was awarded to a drama based on a rescue operation for Hungarian soldiers in Kabul in 2022, Operation Sámán, which is being filmed in cooperation with the Hungarian army.
Other recipients of state funding are often historical works, which Dorottya Helmeczy, a producer at Megafilm, said were important for national identity. “Through historical films, we can find ourselves and our roots in the past,” she said.
Many of Helmeczy and Megafilm’s productions received funding from NFI. They include Fairy Garden, a series about the history of Transylvania, which belongs to Romania, and Peace – Above the Nations, a docudrama about a 1921 peace treaty that detached the territory from Hungary after the second world war.
“Hungarian film production is not a self-sustainable system but one that requires state support,” Helmeczy said of films made for the Hungarian audience. She said these seldom generated significant profit in a country of 9 million people who are used to the standards of Hollywood blockbusters.
At the opening ceremony for a studio in Fót, 30 minutes from Budapest, Orbán celebrated the capital’s status as the second most sought-after filming location in Europe. The government had invested 42bn forints (£87m) to expand the Fót site, which served as a backdrop for The Witcher and Poor Things.
“Film is not only an industry but also an art, and art is free,” Orbán said, adding that every Hungarian film-maker would profit from the expansion.
NFI did not return a request for comment.
