LYON, France — Hungary was featured as an honorary country at this year’s International Classic Film Market (MIFC) in Lyon, spotlighting institutions that tell an extraordinary story of cultural renaissance.
In the absence of a national cinema, the National Film Institute (NFI), together with the Film Archive and FilmLab, set out to restore, digitize and share Hungarian films. “When I took over in 2017, it was starting from scratch. It was in ruins,” György Raduri, director of the Hungarian National Film Archive, told Variety. “The most difficult thing was changing the mindset. After 10 years of no development or change, people were really on the ground.”
Eight years later, Radourie said the system now works like a “Rubik’s Cube.” “It’s the perfect model. We’re putting the whole picture together as a team,” he said, describing the close collaboration between archives, labs and foundations.
At a roundtable discussion held in Lyon entitled “Inverted Model: Concrete Actions to Promote Hungary’s Cinematic Heritage”, Radoury was joined by Viktoria Sovac Lelièvre, director of the Film Lab, and Csaba Belecki, director of international relations and sales at the National Film Fund, who explained how the system has evolved, all in fluent French.
“We choose titles (to restore) based not only on their era, but also on their relevance today,” Ladurie said.
Approximately 30 feature films are restored each year, ranging from silent productions to titles from 1989 onwards. The selection is based on the condition of the film stock, anniversary, or distributor interest.
Since 2017, NFI has restored more than 350 films and digitized hundreds more. Many are available on the national streaming platform Filmio and the national online catalog for schools. The film will have English subtitles and the goal is to reach audiences across Europe, even in areas where distribution is weak, Berecki said.
Belecki traces the origins of this integrated system to the 2011 reform, when the Film Fund was established to unite a fragmented sector. Berecki said the results now extend beyond restoration, with Filmio combining the rights to pre-1990 films in the NFI catalog, which the association holds, with new releases that producers have opted in to. “Our ambition is to make Hungarian films accessible all over the world and ultimately overcome regional restrictions.”
For Sovak Lelièvre, who emphasized that her team works on both traditional and new films, the lab is the heart of the system. “We manage the entire process from start to finish, including photochemical and digital restoration, color correction, and reverse scanning,” she said. “We are in a fortunate position because the laboratory and the archive belong to the same institution. We can work closely together in selecting the best elements throughout the restoration chain.”
She also emphasized the importance of preserving analog originals, saying, “Hungarian cinema is very well preserved.”
Hungary doesn’t have a cinematheque, so creative solutions are needed. NFI holds around 3,000 screenings a year in partnership with cinemas and schools, and a grant scheme with the Ministry of Education allows students to attend for a symbolic 1.5 euros ($1.75), filling off-peak times and turning screenings into classrooms.
Festivals and partnerships play an important role for international exposure. The restored films are now being screened in Cannes, Berlin and Annecy, and the Budapest Classic Film Marathon has grown into a landmark event. The six-day festival, held each September, features more than 120 films and attracts tens of thousands of attendees.
This year’s guests included David Cronenberg, Istvan Szabo, and producer Robert Lantos. “The heritage of film plays this strange role as an intermediary between times. It is not our mission to promote modern cinema, but of course we are open-minded. When people look at 125 years of film production in Hungary, they realize that it is a country of film production,” Radoury said.
European cooperation was essential. Christian Jacques’ recent restoration of Un Revenant brings together Hungary, Belgium and France.
“The only surviving copy of this 1922 silent film was discovered in Belgium,” Ladurie explained. “As it is based on the French novel by Gaston Leroux, we have collaborated with the Cinémathèque Française and thanks to the financial support from Europe this wonderful collaboration has been made possible.”
Hungarian restoration works have become tools of cultural diplomacy and have been shown at Il Cinema Ritrovato in Bologna, MoMA in New York, and even in Japan. “Every time we’re able to show a modern restoration, we open a window into a filmmaker and an era. We’re talking about film culture as a whole,” Ladurie told Variety.
That visibility is paying off. “The decision to invite Hungary as an honorary country at this year’s Annecy Animation Festival in France was born out of a meeting at a film marathon,” said Radoury. “We started with the legacy of film and went far beyond that. But the guiding light has always been the legacy.”
Plans for Budapest’s Cinematheque are currently taking shape: a site has been found and plans are being drawn up. But final approval and funding remains a political decision. This progress is important in countries where cultural institutions operate within highly centralized systems. However, within that framework, collaboration between archives, laboratories and foundations, with a focus on preservation, education and access, has managed to be successful.
For Ladurie, that mission is profound. “Even in 1917 and 1918, Hungary was producing more than 100 feature films a year,” he says. “It’s in our DNA.”
MIFC will be held in parallel with Lyon’s Lumière Film Festival and will close on October 17th.
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