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Yorgos Lanthimos’s ‘Poor Things’ filmed on soundstages in Budapest
The Hungarian film industry is abuzz with what is being described as a “cultural reawakening”, as a new government ushers in a plethora of fresh appointees and stabilises a crucial financial incentive for producers.
Led by new prime minister Peter Magyar, who took office in May, the government has appointed producer Viktoria Petranyi of Proton Cinema as ministerial commissioner with a brief to oversee the renewal of the Hungarian film support system. The wider aim is to bring back transparency and democracy to public life after what many regarded as the authoritarian excesses of the Viktor Orban era, when the right-wing, populist Fidesz party was in power for 16 years.
“There are burning issues in the film industry, and even more pressing problems in film culture,” says Petranyi.
Over the summer, Ervin Nagy, Hungary’s state secretary for culture, dismissed the entire directorial board of the National Film Institute (NFI) state body as well as its commissioner Csaba Kael. By July, a controversial cap placed on the 30% tax rebate for productions – a move introduced in 2025 that spooked international producers, studios and streamers, who have long flocked to Budapest to make films and series such as Denis Villeneuve’s Dune trilogy, Brady Corbet’s The Brutalist, Yorgos Lanthimos’s Poor Things and thriller seriesThe Day Of The Jackal– was removed.
“We trust the industry will soon be booming again. The tax rebate system is back on track,” insists Petranyi.
Leading producers will not specify which projects were lost because of the cap but Gabor Sipos, whose Laokoon Filmgroup produced 2016 Oscar winner Son Of Saul, confirms his company missed out on two features due to issues with the tax rebate, one from the US and one from Europe. Other local producers faced similar setbacks.
On the cultural side, Petranyi is looking to establish a new leadership of NFI.
“We want to completely isolate it from politics, rebuild the application system, analyse and integrate the film communities’ feedback into the new structure. It is essential to build trust,” says Petranyi. “The ultimate goal is to create a multi-tiered funding system and reintegrate Hungarian film into the international stream.”
There will no longer be a film commissioner leading NFI, a reflection of the wariness about “relying on a single individual to dictate outcomes”, she adds. A new director, whose appointment is due to be announced this month, will be politically independent and chosen by a jury whose members include two representatives from the film community.
Loss of trust
Many Hungarian producers have had their own trust in their national funding system shaken over recent years. During the latter part of the Orban era, many say they were cut off from support through NFI which, several claim, backed films as much on the basis of their ideological content as their artistic merit.
A generation of young filmmakers have not been able to make their debut films because of the public film policy, claim these producers, suggesting that NFI funding (which was $18m last year for fiction features including production funding, development and marketing, and will be considerably less this year) was reserved for a small circle of producers. Others were still able to use the 30% tax rebate but rarely received direct public support either through NFI or broadcasters.
Historical nationalistic epics such as Janos Szikora’s 2023 film Hadik, produced by Endre Nagy, were heavily supported by NFI while many more contemporary dramas were overlooked. Ousted commissioner Kael – who assumed the role in 2019 in the wake of Andy Vajna’s death – fiercely defends his record, telling Screenthe NFI application process was fully transparent.
“The demand for state film funding we have received applications for is much higher than the allocated amount of state support,” he says. “Those who did not receive support usually sought and thought to discover political reasons – both on the right and on the left.”
During his tenure as commissioner, he points out, more than 90 films were supported by NFI and many were selected for category-A festivals. They also attracted local viewers. In the Kael era, the market share of Hungarian films rose to more than 10% while inward investment through studios and streamers increased until the slowdown caused by the rebate cap. (In 2023 alone, Hungary attracted more than $1bn in international film industry spending.) There was also heavy investment in new facilities and infrastructure.
However, both established producers and newcomers confirm they felt frozen out. “Over the past four to six years, securing film funding has required political loyalty to the system,” insists Sipos, who is also leader of the Hungarian Producers Alliance, which recently compiled its own 125-page white paper with proposals for reforming the industry. “That does not mean every producer who received financing was aligned. The National Film Institute was occasionally – but rarely – attentive to funding projects outside of that circle.”
“I have produced all my films and have built a company without national funding, which is extremely hard,” says producer Patricia D’Intino of Good Kids Productions, which she co-founded with Leo Pinter in 2017 to focus on young talent and first and second features.
Even a strongly established company such as Petranyi’s own Proton Cinema, which has produced numerous award-winning films from directors including Gabor Reisz and Kornel Mundruczo, was “really affected” by the shift in funding strategy at NFI, she confirms. According to Petranyi’s colleague, producer Julia Berkes, Proton received support for only a couple of minority co-productions during Kael’s leadership of NFI.
To keep their companies going, independent Hungarian producers have turned to shorts, documentaries and low-budget features, with many relying on service work to cover overheads. Producers acknowledge there may now be a stampede for public funding as producers apply en masse to NFI. Money is tight and many are bound to be disappointed.
“A lot of great directors have been parked; they’ve been waiting. We have so many projects piled up,” says one source.
Positive response
Filmmakers, however, are encouraged by the change in mood and approach at NFI. “They have been responding, they have been curious,” says D’Intino, who received support to attend Venice with Horizons short film Test Track by Lydia Cornett.
“We are expecting more strategic thinking and a more open-minded funding body – a funding body that will be for the independent producers,” says Genoveva Petrovits of Kino Alfa, the company behind Oliver Rudolf’s upcoming feature My Mother, The Monster.
“This generation of producers of which I am a part is very resilient,” she adds. “We figured out how to function in the previous era and I am looking forward to working with a system that is actually supporting its filmmakers.”
“After six years of not getting financed, I am not worried about anything anymore,” agrees Berkes of the newfound optimism among Hungary’s independent producers. “Compared to nothing, at least there is now a hope for something.”
Petranyi is striking a pragmatic note and is careful not to promise too much. “No money will be enough to fill the gap of the last years, so the goal cannot be to make up for lost time,” she says. “The goal is simply to create a next-level support system, with no political bias, purely based on the standards of our culture and the international market.”
Under its new director, NFI will support a broader range of films and provide opportunities for voices from marginalised communities. “Diversity, like independence, must be a fundamental baseline,” says Petranyi. “The primary way to guarantee it is by keeping politics far away from decisions, ensuring that voices can be born freely. All stories have to be told. Applications must be evaluated exclusively on professional merit.”
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