KINCSEM
Gabor Herendi, writer-director of the outstanding Hungarian box-office hit A Kind of America (2001) and A Kind of America 2 (2008), is to direct his first feature film after a break of 7 years. The Fund has granted production of Kincsem, a period romantic drama portraying the life and success of the world-famous racehorse, to the amount of 2.2 billion HUF.
The central storyline in Kincsem is provided by a blood feud between the Hungarian aristocrat Ernő Blaskovich and the Austrian military man Otto von Oettingen, set against which we follow the outstanding career of one of the greatest racehorses of all time. A tempestuous love affair between Blaskovich and von Oettingen’s unruly daughter, Klara, plays out on the racetracks of Europe in the years of Habsburg reprisals following the failed 1848 Hungarian Revolution.
72-day shooting on this period romantic drama began in the Hungarian countryside end of July. Shot in Hungarian and starring Hungarian actors, the makers of this film also have great hopes for its success beyond Hungary’s borders. In much the same way as the mighty Puskás, Kincsem is a name renowned throughout the world and inextricably linked to the fame, fate and fortune of Hungary.
Kincsem is produced by Tamas Hutlassa (Kontroll, Land of Storms, War of Wits) and coproduced by Gabor Herendi.
Main cast: Ervin Nagy (Chameleon, White God), Andrea Petrik (Afterlife)
DoP: Peter Szatmari (Dealer, Womb, Liza the Fox-Fairy)
Technical details: HD, 120 min., CGI
Expected release: 2016 3Q
Grant for pre-prod: 97.8 million HUF
Grant for production: 2.078 billion HUF
GAS STATION (Kút), 2nd feature film
The Investigator (2008) writer-director, Attila Gigor (1978) has begun principal photography on his second full-length feature film, Gas Station.
Synopsis: Gas Station in the middle of nowhere: a young man arrives to meet his father he hasn’t seen for 30 years. On the same day, a van with four prostitutes breaks down on the very same gas station, on the way to Switzerland. The three days they spend together in the station change their lives forever.
Attila Gigor studied acting at various Hungarian drama schools. In 2000, he enrolled at the Budapest University of Film and Drama, where he was a student of director Sandor Simo and, after the latter's death, of Ferenc Grunwalsky. His first feature, The Investigator (A nyomozó), a Hungarian-Swedish-Irish coproduction, was awarded Best Genre Film, Best Actor, Best Screenplay and Best Editor prizes at Hungarian Film Week in 2008, and won the Don Quixote Prize in Karlovy Vary and FIPRESCI Prize at Warsaw IFF the same year. It also went on to receive the Central and Eastern European Competition Award at the Cleveland IFF (Ohio, USA).
Cast: Zsolt Kovacs, Peter Jankovics, Roland Tzafetas, Csaba Horvath, Nora Trokan, Milovic Irma, Lia Pokorny, Zsolt Laszlo, Dorottya Udvaros
DoP: Mate Herbai, Set design: Pater Sparrow
Produced by Ferenc Pusztai (KMH Film) – Agnes Kocsis’ Fresh Air and Adrienn Pal, Gyorgy Palfi’s Free Fall
Expected release: 2016 2Q
Grant for pre-prod: 6.5 million HUF
Grant for production: 315 million HUF
BRAZILIANS (Brazilok)
Directorial debut feature by Csaba M. Kiss, co-directed by Gabor Rohonyi,
Brazilians is an ethno-tale with lots of humour and tears - the chaos begins in the remote village of Acsa, where the local mayor has been urged by the new young priest to allow the Gypsy football team, called the Brazilians, to enter the local football cup. This year, the winning team is to be invited to Rio de Janeiro, thanks to funding from a local millionaire. The championship begins. Events, emotions and anger take the story in all kinds of unpredictable directions until those who finally win, shouldn’t be the winners, and those who find love, shouldn’t be together.
Cast: amateurs alongside Franciska Farkas (Victoria – A Tale of Grace and Greed), Gergo Banki, Erno Fekete, Zoltan Schmied, Gergo Kaszas, Judit Schell, Judit Rezes, Kata Dobo, Dorka Gryllus, Laci
Produced by Monika Mecs and Erno Mesterhazy (M&M Film).
Expected release: 2016 2Q
Grant for pre-prod: 7.5 million HUF
Grant for production: 362 million HUF
1945
Emblematic Moscow Square (2000) writer-director, Ferenc Torok adopts Gabor T. Szanto’s short story, Homecoming (Hazatérés), for the big screen in his seventh full-length feature film, 1945.
Synopsis: It is the summer of 1945 and preparations are being made for a wedding in a Hungarian village. Arpad, the son of the influential town clerk, Istvan Szentes, is getting married. He is marrying Kisrozsi, the former fiancée of his friend, Jancsi. The girl believes her former lover has been killed on the frontline and that is why she gets engaged with Arpad. Jancsi has returned home as a communist, and now he is taking part in the redistribution of lands. However, the town clerk, who was a “substitute father” to the half-orphan Jancsi, hopes that the previous status quo in the village can be maintained. The town clerk has not only acquired the drugstore of his Jewish friend, Pollak, who had already been denounced and taken before the deportations began, and helped Arpadfind a suitable wife, but has also made many of the locals indebted to his person by distributing the possessions of the deported Jews amongst them.
Amidst the wedding preparations, two Orthodox Jews arrive at the village train station with mysterious boxes labelled "fragrances".
In two parallel narratives, we follow the arrival of the Jews to the village and how the news of their coming upsets the order of things. The town clerk fears that the men may be heirs and he may have to return to them the store that he had acquired for his son. Receiving word of the strangers, others too begin to fear that more survivors may come, posing a threat to the possessions they had acquired. In some of them murderous thoughts arise, but others are filled with remorse.
Cast: Peter Rudolf, Eszter Nagy-Kalozy, Tamas Szabo Kimmel, Dora Sztarenki, Bence Tasnadi
DoP: Elemer Ragalyi, Set design: Laszlo Rajk (Son of Saul)
Produced by Ivan Angelusz and Peter Reich (Katapult Film)
Expected release: 2016 3Q
Grant for pre-prod: 15 million HUF
Grant for production: 316 million HUF
COJOTE (Kojot)
Mark Kostyal, a succesfull commercial directors’ debut feature film, Cojote, is an eastern movie with spectacular visual affect.
Synopsis: Muggy heat, small-town bleakness, unspoken social problems, hierarchy fights. This is Tuzko town, somewhere in Hungary, nowadays. Here comes Misi who inherits his grandfather’s house and his property. Misi is a disillusioned, frustrated, constantly refugee young man. He can’t find his role in his life, his job and relationship. He starts to build and renovate the house with some men from the town, but it violates the local oligarch’s interests. Hard struggle begins for the property, for the love and for the life. Misi becomes a real coyote in every aspect.
DoP: Csoboth Attila, Mark Kostyal
Technical details: anamorph
Produced by Gabor Kalomista, Dorottya Helmeczy (Megafilm)
Expected release: 2016 3Q
Grant for production: 320.6 million HUF