02-06-2008

Hungary's MMKA fund pledges €450,000 for film production

By Laszlo Kriston

    On May 28, Hungary's main state film funding body, the Hungarian Motion Picture Fund, MMKA (www.mmka.hu), pledged over €450,000 (HUF110 million) in refundable grants for five feature films with principal photographing underway. Each received €83,000, with the exception of Mihaly Gyorik's Swiss-Italian-Hungarian co-production, The Valley of Fear picking up €125,000. Nordic sales agent Non Stop Sales (www.nonstopsales.com) has come on board to sell the film worldwide.

    Among the grant recipients are the much talked about urban romantic comedy, Chameleon by Andy Vajna protege, Krisztina Goda (Children of Glory, Sex and Nothing), currently filming in Budapest on a budget of about €7.2M. Another potential blockbuster receiving funding is Gabor Herendi's comedy, A Kind of America 2. The first part broke all post-communist era records by reaching 540,000 admissions in 2002. In an earlier allocation round, the two comedies each received €250,000 in non-refundable grants in April.

    The remaining two subsidized films are Bence Gyongyossy's Paper Dogs, and the €1 million budget Colorado Kid (Sixth Coffin), a 1950s period piece by Andras B. Vagvolgyi. Refundable grants are normally given to films with large commercial potential obliged to pay the grant back from box office receipts and further revenue streams.

    On May 23, as part of a system set up by the 2004 film law, other departments of MMKA has decided to ratify credit points already earned by 16 short films and 50 educational-scientific films. The directors of these films can automatically receive grants for those points to be used on their upcoming works.