Hungarian film industry flourishes

This was the second consecutive year when movie production exceeded 100 billion HUF in Hungary, Origo.hu reports.

The biggest single production was the American period drama television series The Alienist, based on Caleb Carr’s eponymous psychological thriller. Production cost in Hungary was HUF 20.8 billion. Budapest was also the main location of the spy thriller Red Sparrow, starring Jennifer Lawrence with a Hungarian budget of HUF 11.3 billion and the action comedy The Spy Who Dumped Me starring Mila Kunis and Kate McKinnon with a budget of HUF 9 billion.

On account of its qualified film professionals and the 19th century architecture of downtown Budapest Hungary has often been chosen for major international productions since the 1990s, but the current boom is mostly credited to Hungarian-American producer Andy Vajna.

Andrew G. Vajna

Born András György Vajna in Budapest in 1994, Vajna fled Hungary after the 1956 anti-Soviet uprising and studied cinematography at UCLA to later become a well-known producer of mainly action movies. These include the first three Rambo movies, Evita, Red Heat, Total Recall and Air America.

He returned to his native Hungary and was appointed Government Commissioner for the Hungarian film industry in 2011 and essentially reformed movie production along market requirements, while also establishing the state-financed Hungarian National Film Fund that recently financed such titles as the Oscar-winning Son of Saul.