A MEDIA Salles - Magyar Filmunió

PRESS – international press reactions
Blanka Elekes Szentágotai:
Hungarians target foreign producers
during Film Week
Screendaily (2004 January)
Twenty-three new Hungarian features will be
presented at the annual Hungarian Film Week
to local audiences and the approximately 120
foreign guests invited to the country’s most
important film event.… A large number of foreign
producers have also been invited. Thanks
to the Film Law, Hungary is hoping to lure some
major foreign productions that might otherwise
consider shooting in surrounding countries
such as Romania, the Czech Republic or
Bulgaria.
Eddie Cockrell: Kontroll
Variety (2004 February)
U. S.-born helmer Nimród Antal is well-traveled
in genre conventions and keeps a firm hand on
the throttle throughout the smartly-paced saga
taking place in the familial yet eccentric world
of ticket inspectors and their hostile populace,
a world where a hooded killer is running loose.
Crowd-pleasing, darkly comic joyride — top
Magyar earner of 2003 — is on track for a worldwide
trip via well-timed stops at fests, arthouses,
and ancillary.
Nick Holdsworth: Coalition touts
Hungarian film
The Hollywood Reporter (2004 February)
Organizers of a coalition of Hungarian filmmakers
spanning three generations and led by iconoclastic
director Béla Tarr said Monday that
they have joined forces to find ways to overcome
barriers to independent production here.
Eddie Cockrell: Dealer
Variety (2004 February)
Sophomore effort from Budapest-born Benedek
Fliegauf, whose eye-catching 2003 debut,
„Forest”, won prominent fest prizes, is sure to
polarize auds. Some will hail pic’s technical
proficiency and sheer length as a meditation on
the destructive power of drugs, while others may
summon scripter Alan Sharp’s quip that the
experience is like watching paint dry. It’s a pic
fests and distribs will clamor for — and distribs
then hold their breath over, as auds either reach
nirvana or experience one bummer of a trip.
Florence La Bruyere: The seventh
art is young again
Radio France Internationale (2004 February)
Young Hungarian filmmakers give us one sur -
prise after the other. They are thirty years old,
extremely talented and their first films are
invariably a success… The filmmakers of tomorrow
are aware of the fact that their films will
not be viable if they can only get through to
Hungarian audiences. Has a „new wave” been
born? Yes, in the sense that young filmmakers
have a common past and they often play a small
part in their friends’ films… Hollywood productions’d
better watch out…
Nick Holdsworth about „Kontroll”
The Hollywood Reporter (2004 February)
American-born Antal won the Simó Sándor Prize
for best first film for „Kontroll”, his unusual and
innovative story of metro ticket inspectors. The
film also picked up the Gene Moskowitz Prize
given annually by foreign critics visiting the festival.
„Kontroll”, which tells the Orpheus-like
story of a character stuck in the underworld, was
the most successful domestic film released in
Hungary last year, notching up more than
150,000 admissions and more than $500,000 in
boxoffice receipts through the year’s end after
its late-November release.
Eddie Cockrell: After the Day Before
Variety (2004 February)
This is uncompromising, risk-taking contemporary
Euro arthouse filmmaking at its best …
This unsettling item, which Janisch says is about
„the psychology of sin”, summons feelings and
images from work as diverse as Bram Stoker’s
„Dracula”, the canon of experimental icon Maya
Deren and Stanley Kubrick’s „The Shining”.
Jean Roy: Spring on the Danube
L’Humanité (2004 February)
The 2004 crop of Hungarian films is the best
that we have tasted in the past few years. … Yes,
it seems Hungarian film is undergoing some
serious renovation this year. The directors are
young; they have often made their first films
with different means and ambitions. The will
by no means make do with just telling a story.
They are reflecting upon the most „cinematic”
language possible to use.
Nick Holdsworth:
Hungary film law fuels hopes
The Hollywood Reporter (2004 February)
Hungary’s new film law, which offers producers,
investors and filmmakers a host of attractive
tax incentives to shoot on location here,
could double the annual value of foreign co-productions
to more than $80 million, supporters
of the new measures said Monday.
Derek Elley: Tamara
Variety (2004 February)
With his sophomore feature, „Tamara”, 31-year-old
Szabolcs Hajdu confirms himself as a stylish
young writer-director …. Mime-inflected, bizarre
modern fairytale about four people sorting out
their emotional makeup in an isolated farmhouse
is often as frustrating as it is mesmerizing ….
Festivals are the natural first platform for this
strikingly lensed but troublesome head-scratcher.
Blanka Elekes Szentágotai: Awards and festival
invitations galore for Attila Janisch film
Screendaily (2004 February)
The new feature by Attila Janisch was the big
winner at last night’s awards’ ceremony that
closed the 35th edition of the Hungarian Film
Week. … The film was also much appreciated by
the attending foreign guests and is expected to
receive several festival invitations…
Joel Chapron: Hungary:
a law to lure investments
Le film francais (2004 March)
After over 10 years of waiting a new film law will
come into force in the spring. However, the long
expected reforms have already started to take effect.
Bobbie Whiteman, John Nadler:
Hungary rebates a lure to foreign filmmakers
Variety (2004 February)
The law, passed by Hungary’s parliament last
month, includes documentaries and animation
and may extend to TV projects.
The country will be even more of a bargain for
filmmakers beginning May 1, when it joins the
European Union and becomes eligible for EU
grants and subsidies.
Joel Chapron: Hungarian cinema
is waking up
Cahiers du cinema (2004 March)
The 35th Hungarian Film Week held in Budapest
between 27th January and 3rd February had a much
more optimistic atmosphere than the years before
due to the Film Law that was passed by Parliament
on 22nd December 2003. Its main objective is to
lure Hungarian and foreign investments to
H u n g a r y .
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