20-09-2011

Call for Grants in Hungary

By FNE Staff

    BUDAPEST: More than one year after the Hungarian Motion Picture Foundation (MMK) stopped supporting the Hungarian film industry, the Hungarian National Film Fund (MNF, www.filmalap.hu) has published its first call for grants.

    The MNF is accepting scripts for features, documentaries and animation films with a minimum of 70 minutes running time from 21 September 2011. From 3 October 2011 the MNF will also accepts applications for script development.

    The MNF will give money to those projects that did not get any support from the Ministry of National Resources earlier this year, and the supported projects will not be allowed to request additional funds from the Ministry. The MNF allotted the maximum amount of support, 7.5 million HUF (26,000 EUR), for script-development and pre-production, and 150 million HUF (535,000 EUR) for production. If the script is recommended by the reader of the MNF, the five-member committee decides whether to support the project. The MNF has a support budget of 1.6 billion HUF (5.7 million EUR) for 2011.

    The call for grants was published just a few days after the Ministry of National Resources and the MNF signed an agreement that would clear their competition in financing the film industry. The content of the agreement is not public yet, but according to the information on www.index.hu, the Ministry of National Resources will go on to support films in the future, but the MNF will control the finances of these projects.