What did we write about Hungarian films in 2024?

In 2024, we covered the achievements of Hungarian filmmaking and the challenges of state funding for filmmaking several times.

Last year’s winners, both professionally and in terms of revenue, were independent films. In these cases, the state film fund did not contribute to the costs, but the general VAT exemption for filmmaking was available.

Fifteen feature films were released in cinemas in 2024, of which five were state-funded, but ten were made from independent sources.

Sales figures show that the most-watched film was Gábor Herendi’s “I Went Running”, which is considered a completely independent production, and has attracted more than 330,000 viewers to cinemas so far.

Bálint Szimler’s film “Black Dot” also achieved a higher than usual number of viewers, with 278,000 tickets sold.

Director Szabolcs Hajdu made two films, “Kálmán’s Day” and “One Percent Indian”, which boast slightly less than 50,000 viewers. We wrote about Szabolcs Hajdu here.

Overall, it can be concluded that independent films, which have a freer choice of subject matter and focus on important social issues, have a place on the screen, as they achieved higher ticket sales overall than state-supported films.

Among the state-funded films, we highlighted the full-length animated film “Blue Pelican”, whose success is a reminiscence of the 1980s with the tools of animation, presenting a kind of retro feeling to the viewers. We wrote about the film here.

We wrote about the Budapest Film Marathon in this article.

We also wrote about the further successes of Hungarian filmmakers: set designers Zsuzsa Mihalek and Zsuzsa Sipos received a shared Oscar award for their work on the film “Dune”.

We also wrote about the success of a young but experienced costume designer and production duo: András Dániel Tóth and Attila Godena Juhász achieved serious professional success with the execution of the costumes for the film “Saints” directed by Scorsese. The article can be found here.

Overall, Hungarian film had a good year, and we can hope that among the big-budget historical films, more and more films by previously independent directors will be supported.