But there are cases where, carefully targeted, they can be a force for good. The news that Hungary has received European Commission approval to extend its film incentive program for another six years, until the end of 2030, is welcome indeed. Unless you happen to live on a street that is closed off to allow filming, there are no apparent downsides to this story.

It is not by accident that Hungary is now the second most significant film production hub after Europe. (I enjoyed the verbal maneuvering undertaken by the National Film Institute to reframe this to make Hungary the leading center in continental Europe.) The ability to claim back a large chunk of what is spent in Hungary is an obvious draw, as is Budapest’s chameleon-like ability to represent anywhere from early 1950s Buenos Aires (Evita, 1996) to ’70s Paris (Munich, 2005) to 1980s East and West Berlin (Atomic Blonde, 2017). Occasionally, it even gets to play Budapest (Black Widow, 2021, when it also did a turn as Russia).

The professional quality (presumably with attractive cost benefits over their British or Hollywood peers) of the crew is increasingly important. Hungary has long enjoyed a reputation for its cinematographers, but to that, you can add sound and light technicians and set dressers, best boys and chief grips and all those other behind-the-camera roles that are important enough to receive a credit, even if the general public has no idea what they do. And then there is an increasingly broad group of background actors or atmosphere artists (extras, to you and me) who know what they are doing. That’s hardly a deal breaker, but it surely helps oil the works.

All those home-grown talents get paid, which is good for them, and they will spend that money in local shops and restaurants, which is good for the city. The same applies, on a somewhat more grandiose scale, for the actors further up the food chain, and especially the principles who also, it is to be hoped, take good memories of Hungary home with them and may well return on their own time.

Whether you believe American-Hungarian photographer Robert Capa (“It’s not enough to have talent, you also have to be Hungarian,”) or Anglo-Hungarian filmmaker Alexander Korda (“It’s not enough to be Hungarian, you must have talent too,”), it is clear that Budapest (and environs) has found a niche that it is exploiting for all it is worth.

One of the more remarkable facts about the incentive scheme, overseen as the government’s film commissioner by the American-Hungarian star producer Andy Vajna from 2011 until his death, and adroitly administered since 2019 by Csaba Káel, is its longevity. This year is its 20th anniversary, the scheme having been brought to life as the Hungarian National Film Fund in April 2004, when Péter Medgyessy was Prime Minister of a Socialist (MSzP)-Social Democrat (SzDSz) government. There can’t be many other policies introduced by the political left that still function today under Fidesz. 

Perhaps, though, we should not be surprised by any of this. As Káel told Variety late last year, “I used to say we have a special DNA. This DNA is not in our body, but in our mind. This is our knowledge about the filmmaking. It’s 123 years, and it’s really something.”

Robin Marshall

Editor-in-chief

This editorial was first published in the Budapest Business Journal print issue of Nov. 4, 2024.