As Production Booms, Top Hungarian Projects Head to Cannes

The Hungarian film industry is booming, with a record 241 domestic productions — including feature films, shorts, documentaries and TV series — produced in 2021. Here’s a selection of top projects in the pipeline or being sold during the Cannes Market:

As Long as the Grass Grows
Director: Áron Gauder
Producer: Réka Temple (Cinemon Entertainment)
Annecy main prize winner Gauder (“The District”) spins an alternative creation myth, in which mankind is but one of many creatures in the animal kingdom, and offers a hopeful story that it’s not too late to correct course and save the planet.

Blockade
Director: Ádám Tősér
Producer: Tamás Lajos (Film Positive Productions)
Based on the true story of the country’s first democratically elected prime minister, the film follows József Antall’s journey from a freedom fighter during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to the infamous 1990 taxi blockade that shook the nation.
Sales: NFI World Sales

The Game
Director: Péter Fazakas
Producer: Tamás Lajos (Film Positive Productions)
A standalone sequel to Péter Bergendy’s 2012 hit movie “The Exam,” the spy thriller follows the intrigues among the secret police in 1960s Budapest.
Sales: NFI World Sales

The Grandson
Director: Kristóf Deák
Producer: Tamás S. Zákonyi (Flashback Media)
The feature debut of Deák, who won an Academy Award for best live-action short, is a coming-of-age drama, disguised as a crime thriller, with darkly comic undertones.
Sales: NFI World Sales

Master Game
Director: Barnabás Tóth
Producer: János Szurmai (Innoplay Kft.)
Oscar-shortlisted in 2020 in the international film race for “Those Who Remain,” Tóth’s next feature is based on a novel by the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig and follows a young, revolutionary couple aboard the last train leaving Budapest after the Russian invasion of 1956.

Not a Thing
Director: Fanni Szilágyi
Producer: Ági Pataki, Edina Kenesei (Partnersfilm)
In a dual role, breakout Hungarian star Natasa Stork (“Preparations to Be Together for an Unknown Period of Time”) plays identical twins who fall in love with the same man and must face the lies they tell themselves in order to take fate into their own hands.

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