AWKWARD QUESTIONS ABOUT FILM SUPPORTS

The Association of Hungarian Film Producers has turned with an open letter to the Board of Trustees of the Hungarian Motion Picture Public Endowment (MMKA). The film producers warn the trustees that the film law is not a joke but a law and it is desirable to attain the goal that decisions are influenced by real standards and not by the individual taste of some people.

The letter emphatically deals with the fate of Imre Kertész’s film ’Fateless’, with the anomalies of the production and with the disappeared public money, asking whether it is true that András Hámori, the new producer’s salary is the equivalent of the complete budget of an average Hungarian film. (The predecessor of Mr Hámori was Péter Barbalics, brother-in-law of Ibolya Dávid, chairperson of the Hungarian Democratic Forum.) This year renowned film directors like Péter Gothár or Béla Tarr have not received any support for their films while the script of Tilos Rádió, notorious for its anti-Christian campaign, has received HUF 80 million. The Association of Hungarian Film Producers feel the public endowment functions as an office of censorship.

Translated by Péter Szentmihályi Szabó