One billion dollars spent by foreign filmmakers in Hungary last year
The coronavirus epidemic has also played a big role in the succession of superproductions coming to the country.
May 27, 2024
Almost a billion dollars was spent by foreign film productions in Hungary last year, quadrupling the amount spent in 2018.
Almost a billion dollars was spent by foreign film productions in Hungary last year, quadrupling the amount spent in 2018, said Csaba Káel, the government commissioner responsible for the development of the Hungarian national film industry, and producers Ildikó Kemény, Robert Lantos and Mike Goodridge at the 77th Cannes International Film Festival.
Following a discussion on the challenges of the fast-growing film industry in Hungary on Friday, Káel told MTI that Hungary was the first Central and Eastern European country to launch a tax refund system for film production twenty years after joining the European Union. Thanks to tax breaks, film productions spent almost a billion dollars in Hungary last year. The amount quadrupled compared to 2018, which also generates significant tax revenues for Hungary, and has a very significant advertising and promotional impact for the country, as many super productions are returning," the government commissioner stressed. In his opinion, the rapid growth is partly due to the fact that when the coronavirus epidemic halted many shoots in Hollywood, Hungary developed a regulatory system that allowed certain film projects to continue during the epidemic. This allowed the super-production Dune to resume filming in Hungary at a time when it was not yet possible to film in the United States, bringing many big-budget films back to Hungary.
We had to concentrate on not losing the productions that came back to Hungary, which we supported very strongly from a professional point of view, and we started to strengthen co-production projects, which resulted in dozens of co-produced films.
– he pointed out.
In addition, the development of the Hungarian film laboratory has also started, which Káel says is important because there are hardly any places in Europe where they work with analogue film material. With the increase in the number of productions, Hungary has also started to expand its capacity, and as part of the economic development tenders after the coronavirus epidemic, studio development has begun: this year, four new studios will be completed in Fót, covering an area of 10,000 square metres. In total, studio capacity in Hungary will increase by 22 percent, the government commissioner said.
This is a translation of a Hungarian article by 24.hu.