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11-03-2009

Hungarian Istanbul in preproduction

By Gyorgy Karpati
    Rising young Hungarian director Ferenc Torok (Overnight) has signed on to make Istanbul, a Hungarian-Dutch-Turkish-German co-production.

    The film about a middle aged woman's crisis will be produced by Hungary's Új Budapest Filmstudio (www.ujbudapestfilmstudio.hu) with managing director Laszlo Kantor, Germany's Neue Mediopolis (www.mediopolis-online.de) with producer Alexander Ris, and Holland's Phanta Vision (www.phantavision.com) with producer Petra Goedings. Negotiations are underway with Turkish co-production partners. The psychodrama's estimated budget is €1.4 million.

    The story of Istanbul was pitched at Sarajevo's CineLink and also at Utrecht. The original story was written by Torok, with further input from Kriszta Esztergalyos, Kantor and Franz Rodenkirchen. Filming begins in the fall in Hungary and Turkey.

    Dutch actress Johanna Ter Steege stars.

    Release is planned for 2010, when Pecs (Hungary) and Istanbul (Turkey) will be two of the Cultural Capitols of Europe.