Brutalist Budapest: The Film (Coming Soon)

via the Hotel Budapest FB page

Here’s some inside information from the backend of this blog: our most viewed post is not about Timothée Chalamet, nor is it about Blade Runner 2049, or Budapest’s luxurious thermal baths, but about the oft-maligned ‘brutalist’ style of architecture popularized in the middle part of last century, and identified with the then reigning Socialist regime.

Despite its unfortunate connotations and unsubtle appearance, Brutalism has a forcefulness and purpose behind its forms that has attracted an increasingly broad international fanbase. And Budapest — while not in league with cities like Moscow or Bucharest for examples of the style — has its share of Brutalist architecture.

This is all a lengthy preamble to announce that heretically Hungarian actor Adrian Brody is in Budapest shooting a film entitled The Brutalist, which follows a Jewish Hungarian architect who flees his Central European homeland during World War II to make a new home in America. IMDb gives us the ‘elevator pitch,’ as such: When visionary architect László Toth and his wife Erzsébet flee post-war Europe in 1947 to rebuild their legacy and witness the birth of modern America, their lives are changed forever by a mysterious and wealthy client.

According to the site Budapest Reporter: Written by Brady Corbet and Mona Fastvold and directed by Brady Corbet, “The Brutalist” is not just a film about the uncompromising vision of an artist and the rebuilding of a nation by a generation of immigrants; it is also a powerful love story about a couple struggling to protect themselves against a patron whose dark influence threatens to destroy everything they have built.

How much this has to do with the actual style of Brutalism is still unknown. And only time will tell if this post brings in the readers Brutal Budapest, or if The Brutalist film attracts the dedicated audience the school of Brutalist architecture did. Until then, enjoy this post and all posts about the great architecture Budapest has to offer, from Secessionist to Art Deco and beyond. Below find a decidedly un-Brutalist example.

Budapest’s Chain Bridge vy Wilfredor - Own work, CC0, via Wikipedia Commons

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

Frigyes Karinthy and the Six Degrees

Hungarians have come up with so many inventions and ideas, from the atomic bomb to the ball point pen, that it would be difficult to list here. Nobody in these parts is surprised when it’s revealed a Hungarian had a hand in the latest technology, from the covid vaccine to the Excel spreadsheet on Windows. But every now and again, even we are shocked to discover certain local ingenuity that has made its way into the big world.

Take for instance the one-time viral game ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.’ Without the inventive imagination of a long-dead Hungarian writer, this game, not to mention Will Smith’s first movie roll (we’ll get to that) would not exist.

That’s because the concept of ‘six degree of separation’ by which it is posited everyone on the planet is only separated from each other by six other people, or as Wikipedia explains it: Six degrees of separation is the idea that all people are six or fewer social connections away from each other. As a result, a chain of "friend of a friend" statements can be made to connect any two people in a maximum of six steps — was conceived of by a Hungarian.

The writer in question was ‘Golden Age’ novelist Frigyes Karinthy. He likely came up with the idea in a grand Budapest coffeehouse as a parlour game. He wrote it down in a short story, but it was poplarized only later, in John Guare’s Broadway play Six Degrees of Separation. In the words of his character Ouisa: “I read somewhere that everybody on this planet is separated by only six other people. Six degrees of separation between us and everyone else on this planet. The President of the United States, a gondolier in Venice, just fill in the names. I find it A) extremely comforting that we're so close, and B) like Chinese water torture that we're so close because you have to find the right six people to make the right connection... I am bound to everyone on this planet by a trail of six people.”

And observant fans of film will remember that the silver-screen version of Six Degrees starred a young actor named Will Smith, in what was his first roll.

Karinthy didn’t live to see the popularity of his concept, but you can read about it in his short story “The Chain” or “Chain Links” as it is sometimes translated. He died in 1938. But not before writing a short story called “Voyage to Faremido,” which was a meditation of the concept of AI. To be sure, this was almost 100 years ago, so to say he was ahead of his time would be an understatement.

These’s no available clip of the ‘Six degrees’ monologe delivered in the film, but we will still treat you to a wonderful scene starring Will Smith while we wonder just how many degrees he is from us right now.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

Hungarians in Hollywood: György Ligeti

Not long ago the famed music website Pitchfork published a list of the all-time best film soundtracks. A few names came up again and again: obviously, John Williams, Vangelis, and Tangerine Dream were well represented. But among those luminaries, a Hungarian composer found himself with an outsized place. That is of course György Ligeti, the Central European avant-garde composer whose work was embraced by serious Hollywood filmmakers, most saliently Stanley Kubrick.

Ligeti’s life, though triumphant, was fraught with hardship. Born Hungarian in a Hungarian enclave of Romanian Transylvania in 1923, as Jew, he was poorly positioned to thrive. Indeed, once WWII approached, much of his family was deported to German concentration camps. Ligeti himself was sent to a forced labor camp, an experience he survived. Once the war ended, Ligeti was able to attend Budapest’s renowned Liszt Ferenc Music Academy. With the help of his mentor, composer Zoltán Kodály, he found a position teaching at the academy upon graduation.

Once it was clear Hungarians would be violently suppressed by the Soviets in their homeland, Ligeti fled with his wife to Vienna in 1956. It was there he would embark on a path to being one of the century’s most important composers, teaching and working around Western Europe and the Baltic States. But it would take Stanley Kubrick’s inclusion of his work (at first, unlicensed) in his seminal film 2001: A Space Odyssey to bring Ligeti’s work to the world at large.

Kubrick would return to Ligeti’s work for future films, the most famous of which was The Shining. Other directors like Martin Scorsese and Michael Mann would follow suit, making use of Ligeti’s eerie atmospheric music in films like Shutter Island and Heat. The Killing of a Sacred Deer used his cello concerto and piano concerto and his piece Requiem found its way into the Godzilla soundtrack. That’s a list that is both prestigious and popular. While Ligeti never made it to Hollywood, Hollywood most certainly found Ligeti.

Below find the use of Ligeti’s Atmospheres in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

"Twilight," the Classic Film of György Fehér to get Broader Audience

via Arbelos

György Fehér is perhaps best known for his collaborations with art-house legend Béla Tarr, including production work on such classics as Sátántangó and the Werckmeister Harmonies. Fehér was actually an accomplished director in his own right, but in his lifetime, his films saw little distribution outside of his native Hungary. Real film buffs have always found ways — usually illegal ones — of wrenching such films from the Internet and watching them at home. Luckily, this need not be the case for much longer with Twilight, as Fehér is getting something of a revival, in the form of film restoration and showings in proper theaters.

More specifically, the Film Society At Lincoln Center in New York City will be screening his ‘lost’ classic Twilight, from 1990, in 4K restoration, accomplished by the National Film Institute – Hungarian Film Archive and FilmLab, supervised by Gurbán. The site Indiewire describes the film as such: “After discovering the murdered body of a young girl deep in a mountainous forest, a hardened homicide detective pushes himself to increasingly obsessive ends in his quest to catch the serial killer — known only as “the Giant”—responsible for the crime. A much admired but long unavailable masterpiece by influential Hungarian auteur and regular Béla Tarr collaborator György Fehér, Twilight (Szürkület) is at once an existential murder mystery and an expansive meditation on time and space.”

If you have a look at the trailer below, you can see how like-minded Fehér and Tarr were. Long ponderous shots in austere black and white; minimal dialogue. But Fehér clearly stood on his own two feet, crafting a film that is tense and suspenseful. Such films were made for the big screen, and its New York debut will no doubt prove that. The director was quoted as saying: “I want to show to what extent the search for justice stands in ridiculous contrast to the eternity of nature. Meanwhile, it is precisely this search that I am so fascinated by.”

Whether this month’s New York showing will lead to a full-scale Fehér revival remains to be seen. But seeing how long it’s been since audiences have had a chance to view Twilight on the large screen, this restoration — which was previously shown at the 2023 Berlinale in Berlin — and the attention it is getting can only be a good thing.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

Kempelen Farkas and the Hoax of the Century

If you have ever spent any time in Hungary, you know that native Hungarians are proud of the numerous inventors who have originated from their country. From the ball-point pen to the atom bomb, Hungarians can take credit for inventions both practical and revolutionary. But not all famous Hungarian inventors were so pragmatic. Take, for instance, Kempelen Farkas (better known by his German name, Wolfgang von Kempelen), a lifelong inventor and creator of the ‘chess robot’ known as ‘The Turk’.

These days, you can play chess against a computer, and, unless you are a grandmaster, it is likely the computer could beat you. The Turk, however, used no software. In fact, there was no such thing as software when The Turk was invented, back in 1770. Yet the life-sized metal ‘chess robot’ defeated challengers drawn from esteemed ranks of world leaders like Napoleon Bonaparte and great thinkers like Benjamin Franklin. The Turk was unveiled by Kempelen in an effort to impress Hapsburg Empress Maria Theresa. She was impressed, and fooled, as were spectators for a full thirty years, until it was revealed that The Turk was a hoax: hidden inside a wooden box beneath the chess board sat various chess masters, operating The Turk’s hands. The Turk will go down as one of the greatest all-time hoaxes, and was made all the more believable due to Kempelen’s reputation as an esteemed man of science.

Other inventions of Kempelen were less frivolous, and indeed, at least one was ground-breaking. His ‘Speaking Machine’ was constructed of such curious parts as a reed from a bagpipe, a bellows (used to blow a fire), and the bell of a clarinet, all constructed to imitate a human voice. Kempelen would spend much of his life attempting to perfect the machine, making several different versions. Ultimately, the machine was not able to fully replicate natural speech, though it was able to utter phrases in English and French. Its one huge limitation was that the speech was delivered in a wheezy monotone. But at the time it was as close as any inventor had come to mechanically imitating the human voice. And no, there was not a tiny man inside the Speaking Machine doing the talking. This one was legitimate.

Like many great Hungarian inventors before and after him, Kempelen died penniless, having fallen out of favor with the Monarchy. His great automaton The Turk also suffered a tragic fate: it was destroyed in a fire. Kempelen’s name lives on, however, and is oft uttered by automaton-obsessed writers and fans of ‘Steampunk’ literature. His legitimate contributions are also remembered in the form of The Wolfgang von Kempelen Science History Prize.

Old Budapest Uncovered

Budapest Ring Road, 1916, via Fortepan.hu

An old Austrian tourist film from over a hundred years ago was recently uploaded to Vimeo by The Hungarian National Film Institute’s Archives in their efforts to share the amazing historical footage they have accumulated. In watching, you can see just how little the city of Budapest has changed in over a century, with perhaps the only site no longer around being the Sió Fountain, which was destroyed in World War II. Of course, it’s not totally true that the city hasn’t changed. Budapest has modernized along with the rest of the world and is loaded with modern architecture, but it’s also true that much of what you could find in 1916 can still be found if we’re talking about the city’s illustrious landmarks.

So when you watch the video below, it may appear like modern-day Budapest, only shot to look old. Like today, you can see the Anonymous sculpture at the City Park, you can see rowing teams skimming along the Danube’s surface, and tourists swarming Fisherman’s Bastian.

The film is part of the National Film Institute’s archive, which maintains an excellent website loaded with blog posts on Hungarian films and film history (it’s in Hungarian, but can be automatically translated). As a resource for those interested in Hungarian film past and present, the site is invaluable.

So, enjoy this old short film touting Budapest’s excellent sites, and know that for the most part, if you want to see them in color and in person, they look pretty much the same. And that’s a good thing.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

Hungarians in Hollywood: Jamie Lee Curtis

Just when we thought Hungarians had somehow been excluded from the major honors of the 94th Academy Awards, Best Supporting Oscar winner Jamie Lee Curtis opened her mouth at the post-ceremony press conference and sang a little in Hungarian, revealing that Hungary is the “country of my family.”

This is because the grand dame scream queen is the daughter of Hollywood legend (and child of Hungarian immigrants) Tony Curtis. According to Wikipedia, Curtis’s parents “were Hungarian Jewish emigrants from Hungary: his father was born in Ópályi, near Mátészalka, and his mother was a native of Nagymihály (now Michalovce, Slovakia); she later said she arrived in the U.S. from Válykó (now Vaľkovo, Slovakia). He spoke only Hungarian until the age of six, delaying his schooling.”

Jamie Lee Curtis famously got her movie debut as the innocent heroine Laurie Strode in John Carpenter’s Halloween, a role she reprises to this day. Halloween led to a slew of roles in slasher films, then later iconic comedies like Trading Places and A Fish Called Wanda. Her award was for the role as an IRS inspector in Best Film winner Everything Everywhere All at Once.

Curtis is known to return to Budapest from time to time, and was a major force in fund-raising for the Dohány Street Synagogue renovation. Not stopping there, she further honored her Jewish Hungarian roots by contributing to the renovation of the local synagogue in Mátészalka, where her grandparents lived and worshiped. In the same town, she attended the opening of the Tony Curtis Memorial Museum and Cafe. There is no word if she treated that audience to a song in Hungarian.

In her post-Oscar interview, Jamie Lee Curtis conceded that the win was at least “a semi-Hungarian Oscar,” and that’s good enough for us. See the full interview, with a snippet of the Hungarian song, below.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

Hungarians in History: Baroness Emma Orczy

On this night of the 95th Academy Awards, with Hungary’s entry Blockade failing to make the shortlist for Best International Film, we thought we’d take a great departure from the present and look back in history, away from California and towards the United Kingdom, where one of film’s most reprised heroes was born onto the page by playwright and novelist Emma Magdalena Rozália Mária Jozefa Borbála Orczy de Orci, or more simply and commonly known as, Baroness Orczy.

The famous character she created was the Scarlet Pimpernel, the swashbuckling hero of no less than eighteen books, and seven films, not to mention numerous stage and radio plays, television series, and even a musical. The Pimpernel ‘Universe’ was broad indeed. The Scarlet Pimpernel was a French aristocrat, but also a kind of patrician ‘Anonymous’ figure of the French Revolution, undertaking daring missions in Batmanlike fashion.

The Creator of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy, was born in Tarnaörs, Hungary, of aristocratic stock. Under the threat of a peasant revolution, her family fled with her, at age 14, across Europe, eventually settling in London. Determined to be a painter, she graduated from art school, but soon found herself married and with child. To supplement her husband’s meager income, she turned to writing: first literature, then detective stories, before creating the character of Pimpernel.

The novel the Scarlet Pimpernel was written in 1904 with her husband and based on Orczy’s stageplay of the same name. The play would go on to be produced on in London’s West End, and the novel would eventually be published and become an international phenomenon. The site Goodreads summarizes the short book as such: Armed with only his wits and his cunning, one man recklessly defies the French revolutionaries and rescues scores of innocent men, women, and children from the deadly guillotine. His friends and foes know him only as the Scarlet Pimpernel. But the ruthless French agent Chauvelin is sworn to discover his identity and to hunt him down. The book and its sequels’ success in the UK and around the world would ensure that Baroness Orczy could once again live the aristocratic lifestyle she had to abandon in Hungary.

A champion of aristocracy but also an exile and immigrant who knew hard times, Baroness Orczy was clearly a complicated person., as her politics evinced. Though she spent WWII in Monaco, she greatly favored England’s involvement in the war. In her own way, she had influence in her birth country of Hungary, where, according to Wikipedia, “Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish diplomat, was directly inspired by "Pimpernel" Smith, a 1941 British anti-Nazi propaganda thriller, to begin rescuing Hungarian Jews during World War II.”

The Baroness died in 1947, but her character, The Scarlet Pimpernel, will no doubt be resurrected time and time again.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

Filming in Hungary -- Alien: Romulus

With final casting just completed, the latest installment of the Alien horror/sci-fi franchise will begin shooting in Budapest this week, as reported by many sources, including the venerable Daily Variety. This will be the fourth sequel based on the original Alien, not counting the two Alien vs Predator crossover films. Ridley Scott, who directed the original Alien, will be producing the stand-alone Alien: Romulus. This won’t be the Hollywood icon’s first time in Budapest. He had a huge success almost a decade ago with The Martian, much of which was shot in Hungary. Moreover, his Scott Free Films had a hand in producing Blade Runner 2049, which was shot at the state-of-the-art Origo Studios in Budapest. To complete the Budapest pedigree, the director of Alien: Romulus, will be Fede Alvarez, whose smash horror film Don’t Breathe was shot in both Detroit and near Budapest, in Pomáz, at the Stern Film Studio.

A plot for the latest Alien installment has been kept under wraps, but according to an Aliens wiki, “The film, an original standalone feature based the original sci-fi horror movie released in 1979, will follow a group of young people on a distant world, who find themselves in a confrontation with the most terrifying life form in the universe.” Other sources report that economic inequality will play into the script.

Hungary has become a go-to spot for horror films, with Midsommar, The Rite, Underworld, Howling V, Season of the Witch, Hellboy 2, The Raven, World War Z, and the series The Witcher all having at least some of their production here. With all those scary companions, the big-budget ‘Alien: Romulus’ will feel right at home.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

Filmed (and Written) in Hungary: Fateless

It happens every so often that you look out your window in Budapest to see the city transformed: not by snow or rain, but entirely changed into another city or another time. If the year was 2002 and you were living on Lórinc Pap Tér, an unassuming square in the inner Eight District, instead of mothers and baby carriages, newly planted shrubbery, and a sign for a cellar pub, you might see rubble, billboards in German, a line of goose-stepping soldiers, and a small boy wearing prison garb. The entire scene would have looked like you had time-traveled back to WWII.

In fact, what was transpiring was a shot for the film Fateless, derived from Nobel Prize-winning author, late Imre Kertész’s book Fatelessness (also translated as Fateless in some editions). The novel was lauded by the Nobel Prize committee as containing “writing that upholds the fragile experience of the individual against the barbaric arbitrariness of history,” and is considered both a cornerstone in Holocaust literature and a modern classic. Indeed, the story, though written as fiction, was based on Kertész’s own childhood experience. The narrative follows György “Gyuri” Köves as he is sent to Auschwitz, Buchenwald, and Zeitz; documents his trials there, and ends with his eventual release and return to Budapest.

Academy Award-nominated director Lajos Koltai used Kertész’s own screenplay to shoot from, making use of locations in and around Budapest. With a 12 million dollar budget, it was one of the most expensive Hungarian films ever made and garnered a Golden Berlin Bear nomination for its director. It is rumored that when the late author Kertész visited the set, he had to leave after just half an hour, because he was so disturbed by the accuracy with which the filmmakers had recreated WWII Hungary. Just one look out on Lórinc Pap Tér would affirm that every care was taken to get terrifying details down to the point where even onlookers felt a chill.

If the Glove Fits: Hungarian Hand-wear Finds Fit on World Stage

via the Pécs.hu website

Last week’s Superbowl, the US ‘football’ event that has fans worldwide, was watched by over 100,000 million people, and while the game may have been exciting, most of the post-game hype was around the halftime show, which featured Barbadian superstar diva Rihanna. Stunning the audience in a bright red leather outfit, it wasn’t long before it was revealed that the fire-engine-red kidskin gloves she clutched the mic so capably with were of Hungarian origin.

While it seems unlikely that with any and every major brand lining up to dress the singer, she chose gloves by Karma Pécsi Kesztyű — known internationally as Pécsi Gloves International — it’s true. For readers not familiar with Hungarian geography, Pécs is a small city in the south of the country, known for its great university and proximity to Villany, one of Hungary’s prestigious wine-growing regions.

Apparently, it wasn’t the first time the superstar sported such gloves. According to Hungarian news-site Telex, “several versions of the spectacular accessory were made for the singer, but in the end she and her stylists chose the fiery red, soft lambskin model. It's not the first time Rihanna has worn the label's products, but during her 13-minute concert at the sporting event, she chose the set shown in the footage as a form of tribute to fashion mogul Andre Leon Talley, former editor-in-chief of Vogue, who died last year.”

The hype around the gloves drove so much traffic to the glovemaker’s site, that it crashed.

Will it be long before Pécs gloves are added to the list of Hungaricum, or things that define Hungarian cultural heritage? Time will tell. In the meantime, hats, and gloves, off to Rihanna, for captivating a worldwide audience with her voice, while keeping Hungary at her fingertips.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

Hungarian/Slovak Co-Production Sci-Fi Film to Compete at Berlinale

via the White Plastic Sky official site

This week marks the commencement of the 73rd Berlinale, the prestigious annual film festival that runs in Berlin, Germany. This year will see an adventurous entry in the form of a Hungarian/Slovak co-production entitled White Plastic Sky, an animated science fiction feature.

The film, partially funded by the Hungarian National Film Institute, is the latest effort from the Hungarian creative team of Tibor Bánóczki and Sarolta Szabó, both graduates of Budapest’s famous Moholy-Nagy University of Art. While White Plastic Sky is their feature-length debut, their previous shorts: Les Conquérants and Leftover were met with acclaim and screened at venues like the Sundance FIlm Festival; both being short-listed for the César Award.

Daily Variety, which reported on the film’s inception way back in 2018, summarized the plot as such, “White Plastic Sky takes place in Budapest in 2220. The soil of the earth hasn’t been fertile for 100 years, causing the extinction of wildlife. In Budapest, the survivors are sheltered in a large bubble that protects them from the ultraviolet light and pollution. The future of humanity relies on a mysterious plant created from genetic experiments that people must absorb by the age of 50, leading them to transform themselves into plants. The story is told through the lives of a young couple, Stefan and Nora, who are grieving the loss of their son.”

via the White Plastic Sky official site

via the White Plastic Sky official site

The stills and trailer — below — display striking and detailed animation work, compliments of the painstaking rotoscope technique used to draw the characters one frame at a time. The Berlinale is an ideal venue for screening, as it’s a festival known for being both artistically adventurous and political. White Plastic Sky is both.

The film-makers were quoted in Budapest Reporter as saying: “We are delighted and honored to have our film debut at the Berlinale, one of the world’s most prestigious festivals, in the Encounters section, which is specifically designed to showcase innovative films that seek new perspectives and depart from the traditional. The work of many, many people over many years is finally being brought to the audience, and we are excited both for the festival and for the Hungarian premiere at the end of March.”

Below is the intense Hungarian language trailer with English subtitles.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

Filmed in Hungary: FBI International

With series like Russian Doll and Homeland being partially filmed in Budapest, it’s no surprise that more recent shows that center on international crime have alighted upon our shores to take advantage of the favourable filming conditions and spectacular locations. One of the more recent is the American series FBI International, which is currently in its third season.

The premise, according to Wikipedia, is as follows: “The series follows members of the FBI's international "Fly Team", elite Special Agents headquartered in Budapest who locate and neutralize threats against American interests around the world principally in Europe.” The series follows the increasing trend of Budapest being used as a location in its own right, and not as a stand-in for another European city (as seen in Homeland, for instance).

In its time here, the show has taken full advantage of historically great locations, and found a few new ones as well. From Budapest’s Fisherman’s Bastion (see clip below) to the Chain Bridge and Liberty Bridge, to the Great Market Hall and ‘distant’ places like historic downtown Szkésfehérvár, a small city southwest of Budapest, and Szeged, a city near the Serbian border.

via CBS

While many of the plotlines focus on kidnappings, bombings and espionage that take place in Budapest — Poland, Czech Republic, and other European cities like Paris are also featured.

This comes at a time when Hungary is seeing historic rises in revenue from the film industry. As reported in local film news source Budapest Reporter: “The Hungarian film industry’s revenues are at an all-time high, exceeding HUF 250 billion, a 20% increase compared to last year, according to Csaba Káel, government commissioner for the advancement of the Hungarian film industry and chairman of the board of the National Film Institute.

“Budapest has recently become Europe‘s biggest film production base after London, with top producers shooting with the world’s biggest stars. The same professionals who worked with Ridley Scott, for example, are available for Hungarian productions,” said Káel in an interview with Hungarian news outlet Origo.”

It doesn’t take an international investigation to conclude that filming in Budapest and Hungary just makes good sense.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

Lyon King: Hungarian Cuisine (almost) Conquers France

photo via The Budapest Times

Hungarian cuisine: if you are familiar with it, that usually means you live in Hungary, or have Hungarian heritage. With the exception of international staples like paprikás or gulyás (goulash) it’s not widely known abroad. You can put this down to health trends (Hungarian can be lard-heavy) and the relatively small emigrant populations, who — if we can generalize — tend to assimilate into their adopted culture.

That’s a long-winded introduction to get the welcome news that the Hungarian team came home from one of the most prestigious fine-dining competitions in the world having won third place. The Bocuse d’Or is named for French legend Paul Bocuse, who did a lot to solidify France’s reputation as having the international cuisine to beat in terms of fine dining.

photo via the BOCUSE D'OR FINAL 2023 Facebook page

This year’s competition, held in Lyon, France, was participated in by twenty-four countries, with the Hungarian team headed by coach Tamás Széll and a team comprised largely of chefs from Széll’s Michelin star restaurant, Budapest-based Stand. It’s important to note that of all the Michelin-star restaurants in Budapest, Stand’s menu is closest to traditional Hungarian cuisine, and even features gulyás.

While perennial favorites Denmark and Norway took the top two places — Scandinavian cuisine has been having quite an extended moment — Hungary topped recent winner USA, not to mention strong teams from Japan and Mexico.

via the BOCUSE D'OR FINAL 2023 Facebook page

It’s worth noting that in a relatively short time, Hungarian cuisine and the local dining scene have risen from the imagination-killing Socialist regime that saw recipes and innovation pounded down to its industrial basics. Hungary now has many destination restaurants, and teams like Széll’s to represent Hungarian cuisine on an international platform. It may have won bronze, but it certainly has come the farthest, the fastest.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

Hungarians Abroad: Max Herz, an Architect in Cairo

photo by Zoltan Horvath.

While Budapest and Hungary are known for their spectacular breadth of architectural styles and ambitious, ornate buildings, it’s important to note that great feats have been accomplished abroad as well. We are thinking of late Max Herz, a Jewish Hungarian who settled in Cairo, Egypt, and before the outbreak of WWI was instrumental in renovating and preserving any number of Egyptian landmarks and monuments.

Born Miksa Herz in Ottlaka Hungary (now Romania), in 1856 to a poor family, Herz would eventually make his way north to Budapest for university, and study architecture at Budapest’s Technical University and Vienna’s Technical College. Like many youth, he was restless and took to travelling, first to Italy, and finally down to Egypt.

Despite his foreign nationality and his young age, Herz was invited by the head of the Ministry of Religious Affairs to stay on in Egypt and join a department that oversaw the renovation of the country’s landmark mosques, a post he would keep for 25 years, until the outbreak of World War One, when the British would oust him as ‘enemy alien.’

But in Egypt, he held significant influence and oversaw the renovation of any number of important Egyptian landmarks. According to Wikipedia, “on account of his qualification, experience, the devotion to his job, his capacity for work and last but not least his position, Herz played a decisive role in the Comité, which soon extended the sphere of its activities to monuments of Coptic architecture too. (The preservation of monuments of ancient Egyptian [pharaonic] architecture was the task of a different government agency.) Max Herz filled this post for a quarter of a century (1890–1914), and in this capacity he played an outstanding role in the preservation of monuments of Arab-Islamic and Coptic architecture.”

Such examples include:

The Fatimid gate of Bab Zuwayla with the twin minarets of the adjoining mosque of Sultan al-Muayyad Shaykh. Via Wiki Commons

The Aqmar Masque, via Wikipedia Commons.

The interior of Sultan Qalaun's mausoleum after restoration. Via Wikipedia Commons

Sultan Qayitbay's funerary mosque after restoration. Via Wikipedia Commons

Pulpit in Sultan Barquq's mosque, renovated by Max Herz. Via Wikipedia Commons.

While Herz never returned to Hungary to live, he considered himself a patriot until his death in Switzerland in 1919. As his wife wrote upon his death, "Looking death straight in the face with noble calmness of mind, he remained to his last breath a caring husband, a tender father to his daughters, and a true son – consumed by sorrow and grief – of his dearly beloved Hungarian fatherland.” This did of course refer to the war, which not only ousted him from Egypt, but kept him from returning to his beloved Hungary.

His hard work and expertise live on in Egypt, and have been viewed by countless locals and tourists. At one point the Hungarian government made efforts to elevate Herz’s status to that of royalty, but that too was halted by the war. His modest grave is in Milan, Italy, with his family.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

Location Spotter: Hungarian State Opera

Photo by By PDXdj via Wiki Commons

It is a prominent spot on any tourist’s itinerary, and a much-loved piece of the Budapest cityscape. What’s more, it is actually a historical site that is used continually throughout the year, hosting one of the most prestigious opera companies in the world. We are, of course, talking about the Budapest Opera House, also known by its more formal title, the Hungarian State Opera House.

Commissioned by Emperor Franz Joseph when Hungary was still part of the Austo-Hungarian Empire, the construction took 10 years to complete and opened in 1884: it was then called the Hungarian Royal Grand Opera. The emperor’s involvement probably accounts for the royal stairway, which is off to the side, by the still-existing ramp for horse-drawn carriages. The architect, Miklós Ybl (also responsible for the St. Stephen’s Basilica), planned the Opera House in neo-Renaissance style, in line with the prevailing taste of the age. The first director was Ferenc Erkel, composer of the Hungarian National Anthem. His position was later filled by an up-and-coming young composer named Gustav Mahler.

Photo by Chad K via Wikipedia Commons

The interior was designed to produce acoustics suitable for world-class singers. Indeed, in a recent study by a group of sound engineers, the Budapest Opera House was determined to have the third best acoustics in all of Europe, following Paris and Milan.

The decoration of  the Opera is a sumptuous affair. Over 7 kg of gold went into the gilded interior, which is adorned with over a hundred statues and paintings. Frescos and mosaics greet the opera-goer in the ornate, luxurious grand front hall.  But this is not just a luxury for the rich. It was designed with the people in mind, and is still affordable these days: about ten euro will get you a ticket, though you can spend much less if you want to sit in the upper balcony.

Photo by Chad K via Wikipedia Commons

The Opera House was renovated in the late 1990s and again in 2022, and it shines with the splendor of a polished jewel.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach

Will Wednesday Arrive Soon? Popular Series Rumoured to Be Filmed in Hungary

Wednesday, which is currently one of Netflix’s most popular series, has been making sounds about filming some of its second season in Hungary, moving production from their original Romanian locations. Though nothing is confirmed, the move would not be surprising, as the series’ immense popularity indicates that it may be around for multiple seasons, and many long-running series have found a home with the expert production offered in and around Budapest, including Tom Clancey’s Jack Ryan and FBI: International.

And, while the entire first season of Wednesday was filmed outside Hungary, there were still many Hungarian connections to the work, as reported by local source Daily News Hungary. For starters, while the main character, Wednesday, herself is played by American actor Jenna Ortega, her younger primary school-age self is played by Hungarian moppet Karina Váradi. And, moreover, the same outfit that helped score the pandemic smash Squid Game — Budapest Scoring — was also tasked specifically by Wednesday director Tim Burton with the music for the series.

Professional reasons aside, Wednesday — a dark spinoff from Charles Addams-inspired TV show The Addams Family, and the film of the same name which starred Christina Ricci as Wednesday — just seems to fit Hungary. With its gothic themes, it would be at home with projects that have already taken advantage of Budapest and Hungary’s naturally atmospheric locations, from the reboot of The Munsters to cult-classic vampire film Underworld.

So, time will tell if Wednesday indeed arrives in Hungary for season two and beyond. Until then, creep out to the trailer.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

New Hungaricum: Teqball Scores Big in Home Country

Natalia Guitler / Teqball via Wikipedia Commons, photo by WynWork

Hungaricum is defined as “a collective term indicating a value worthy of distinction and highlighting within a unified system of qualification, classification, and registry and which represents the high performance of Hungarian people thanks to its typically Hungarian attribute, uniqueness, specialty and quality.” In simpler terms, it’s something particularly Hungarian that represents the culture at home and abroad. Things like gulyás soup, Zsolnay porcelain, and the fruit brandy pálinka. Every year, a few cultural artifacts are added to the list.

This year is unique in that Teqball, which only came into existence in 2012, has in record time achieved the distinction of being designated a Hungaricum. Indeed, many people still don’t know what Teqball is, or if they do, that it originated in Hungary. But unsurprisingly, Hungarians can add this sport to their long list of inventions.

What exactly is Teqball? It’s a kind of combination of football technical skills and ping-pong. According to the sport’s official site: Teqball is a football-based sport, played on a specially-curved table (the Teq table), which is attracting a new generation of athletes and amateur enthusiasts (teqers), whose ambition is to develop their technical skills, concentration and stamina. The sport, which was created in Hungary in 2012 is a truly gender-equitable game, as the rules define that teqball shall be played between two (singles) or four players (doubles), irrespective of gender. The sport follows a points-based scoring format and can be played on various surfaces such as sand, acrylic or indoors. Teqball allows players a maximum of three touches before returning the ball to the opponent, so if you can juggle a football three times, you will excel at teqball as well. Teqball is the purest use of a football, with the rule of no physical contact allowed between the players, or between the players and the table, helping eliminate the risk of impact injuries.

Teqball had been very successful since its inception, with over 2000 clubs established worldwide, and organized tournaments and world championships. It may be only a matter of time before it makes a bid as an Olympic sport. Not surprisingly, Hungarian players dominate the rankings, but the USA, Serbia, and Brazil also make strong showings in the Teq world.

But enough chit-chat. Below is an extended rally from an exciting Teqball match.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

Dance with the Devil: Sátantangó Makes Mark

Even those with but a passing interest in the film world this week were made aware of a film called Jeanne Dielman, 23 quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles, by Belgian director Chantal Akerman, when it was named the greatest film of all time by the British Film Institute’s Sight & Sound poll, conducted every decade. Critics and other experts participated in the poll, ensuring that it is less populist than the taste of the average film fan, who wouldn’t have heard of many of the films on the list.

Another challenging film consistently lauded on the Sight & Sound poll sits at number 78, the only film on the list that was shot in Hungarian (though Hungarian director Michael Curtiz landed at number 65 with classic Casablanca). The film, Sátántangó, has a special place in hardcore film lovers’ hearts. At over seven hours long, shot in black and white with long ponderous takes (150, according to the director), it is as rigorous a film as any on the list. (While at over seven hours, it is actually not the longest film on the list. That would be Shoah, which clocks in at 9 1/2 hours long.)

Directed by iconic Hungarian film-maker Béla Tarr, Sátántangó was released in 1994. It would take some time for it to catch on, or perhaps for viewers to find the opportunity to see it in the pre-streaming era, as it failed to capture a spot on the 2002 poll. Based on a novel of the same name by Hungarian uber-literary writer László Krasznahorkai, the plot revolves around a failing collective farm in the Hungarian countryside. The director had to wait many years, until the regime change, to begin filming due to political themes and the repressive environment in Hungary.

Immediately and fervently embraced by critics, the film has also been a hit with art-house viewers, garnering an almost unheard-of 100 % approval rating on the film site Rotton Tomatoes. Cultural critic and novelist Susan Sontag was quoted as saying Sátántangó was "devastating, enthralling for every minute of its seven hours," adding she would be "glad to see it every year for the rest of [her] life." High praise for any film.

Below find the English language trailer for Sátántangó, long may it thrive.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.

Building Bridges: Stunning Chain Bridge Video Captures Viewers

The Chain Bridge via Wiki Commons

It was brought to our attention by news-source Daily Hungary, that the Hungarian trade magazine Magyar Építők (Hungarian Builders) has a particularly cool You Tube channel, which covers videos of the construction and reconstruction of local structures, from monuments to bridges and castles.

Their recently posted video (below) is particularly compelling. Therein you can find the still-under-renovation Lanc Híd (Chain Bridge) in Budapest being tested for its load capacity with 24 trucks, weighing 20 tons each. That all the trucks are new and painted in a uniform green has a striking effect, looking like the shoot of some dystopian film.

The test signals the approach of the bridge’s reopening - for vehicles in December 2022 and for pedestrians in August 2023. The bridge has long been a staple location for local and international films, being featured in the films Spy (2015), Gemini Man (2019), I Spy (2002), Gloomy Sunday (1999), and many more.

But it’s worth pointing out that there is also a film (Híd Ember, or Bridgeman) about the man who was responsible for the bridge’s initial construction, Count István Széchenyi (indeed, the bridge’s official name is the Széchenyi Bridge). With the plans of British engineer William Tierney Clark, and supervised Scottish engineer Adam Clark, the bridge was completed a decade after its inception. At the time, the Chain Bridge was the second-longest suspension bridge ever built and proved one of the age’s great engineering feats. The bridge served to connect Buda and Pest, and brought the two separate communities into economic competition with one another, spurring huge growth for the city on a whole.

We doubt even Széchenyi could have imagined 24 green trucks rolling across his bridge, but we’re here with the video to prove it. So, without further adieu.

Flatpack Films has many years of experience dedicated to offering expert servicing. It has brought the best of Hungary to countless brands, agencies, and production companies through its unique locations, exceptionally skilled crews, top of the line equipment and technical solutions. Backed by an impeccable track record, Flatpack Films has worked with world-class clients including Samsung, Samsonite, Toyota, Braun, Chivas Regal and many more - bringing their projects to life through a highly bespoke approach.