Seventeen new Hungarian cinema films, the first large-scale TV film series, more than fifty international festival awards and fifty winning film production competitions: this is the balance sheet of the Hungarian film industry this year. In 2024, new remarkable motion pictures will arrive in all genres, we have selected them.
Now or never!
In March 2024, on the 176th anniversary of the 1848 revolution, a work known colloquially as the Petőfi film will be released in theaters. Now or Never is the most grandiose Hungarian film venture of recent years, made with nearly five billion forints in state funding. Director Balázs Lóth said about it:
"Authenticity, recreating contemporary objects and locations were important cornerstones of our film, but in order to tell an entertaining adventure story about March 15, we had to go beyond the textbook descriptions that everyone knows. We had to imagine that, if we remove the pathos of historical memory, what the youth of March could actually be like. We think that young people are like any other age.
They are energetic, ready for action, while enjoying everything that life offers them: love, adventure, friendships.
Based on the screenplay by Philip Rákay, Vajk Szente, and Márk Kis-Szabó, in this film we undertook to bring the heroes of March 15 closer to people today and at the same time bring them to life. In addition, this film shows that the big day could have happened anyway. That is why Now or never! it presents the events by emphasizing action, excitement, and fast-paced plots."
Filming took place in Budapest, at the Hungarian National Museum, Andrássy út, Buda Castle, Sopron, Esztergom, Komárom. The two-billion-dollar set of the production was built in Fót; the reform-era building complex remains the property of the state.
Porcupine hunting
The second feature film by the director of I hope you manage to die next time:-).
through the events of a day full of twists and turns, he talks about responsibility, raising children, and the difficulties of the twenty-first century triple of career-family-child.
Its heroine is Bogi, who moved from the countryside to Budapest a few years ago to study classical singing at the Academy of Music. Bogi can only get by in the capital if he takes care of his cousin Tamás (Csaba Polgár)'s two children in his free time besides school. Even on the day of the big end-of-year singing exam, Bogi has to commit to a few lessons with the children, but under the extreme pressure, he makes a fatal mistake. The main character of the film, which previously ran under the working title A bébissitter, is Dorottya Mari, alongside her the director's children, Schwechtje Matild and Jónás Schwechtje, as well as Csaba Polgár and Jakab Juli, the producer Zoltán Mártonffy, and the executive producer Hajdu Szabolcs.
The Lefkovics are mourning
Tamás Lefkovics (Zoltán Bezerédi) stars in Ádám Breier's bittersweet dramedy, produced as part of the Incubator Program of the National Film Institute. The big-hearted but stubborn boxing coach has not spoken to his son Iván (Tamás Szabó Kimmel), who fled to Israel from the conflict with his father, lives there as an Orthodox Jew and started a family, and only keeps in touch with his mother (Ágnes Máhr) from Budapest. When his mother dies unexpectedly, Iván returns home with his six-year-old son (Leo Gagel) to spend a week of mourning and shiva in his parents' house, according to Jewish traditions.
Through the two men, two worlds strain against each other, the stake of which is the reunification of the family.
Hunyadi
The TV series based on the novel series by Bán Mór has been prepared for more than ten years by producers Robert Lantos and Tibor Krskó, the individual episodes are written by Orsi Nagypál and Attila Szász in addition to the Austrian director Robert Dornhelm. The premiere of the ten-part historical series will take place in the fall of 2024, the broadcasting rights have been bought by the Hungarian TV2 and the Austrian ORF TV channel, the former will show the production in Hungary and Slovenia, and the latter in Austria. During filming, Robert Lantos said about Hunyadi (in English Rise of the Raven) that "a historical production of this caliber in the non-English language category has not been made anywhere in the world" and that it will be
"like Game of Thrones, only without dragons".
The mega-production about the life of János Hunyadi (Kádár L. Gellért) was made for HUF 10.5 billion, with a Hungarian and international cast, the historical figures of different nationalities speak in their own mother tongue.
Csongor and Tünde
The full-length movie was produced by Cinemon Entertainment, which has also produced successful international productions, under the leadership of producer Réka Temple, and directed by Csaba Máli and Zsolt Pálfi, based on Attila Dargay's plans with the support of the National Film Institute. Among others, the dream of the creator of Matyi Lúdas, Vuk and Szaffi fifty years ago is coming true with the adaptation of the Vörösmarty classic, the current creative team used his figure designs and full-length screenplay.
For the storyboard, Dargay used the original text of Mihály Vörösmarty's poem as a basis, but changed it dramaturgically in many places to bring the story closer to the audience.
"I feel that we fill a gap, and I'm not afraid of big words, we fulfill a cultural mission,
when, by making the film, we make Vörösmarty's not-so-easy-to-understand and enjoy richly symbolic masterpiece available to millions.
The toolbox of the animated film is endlessly rich, and we now have the opportunity to realize it worthy of the work," he concluded back in the eighties.
The complete list can be read on Mandine!
