Debate of Directors and Producers

At their latest public meeting directors and producers debated the proposal outlined in June in which the Association of Hungarian Producers determined the ratio of normative and selective state funding in 70- 30%. The proposal aroused strong disapproval among directors, since according to many of them it is against the principles of the film law and many see it as a direct declaration of war against cinematic art as such.

Changing Hungarian Movie Market

The number of movie-goers has decreased not only in Hungary but also in other parts of Europe and in the United States this fall. Hungarian movies are also less popular than they were last year. The art-movie theaters proved to attract the same amount of people, or in the country even more than last year. According to Károly Kozma, distribution expert, the redistribution of the Hungarian market is already underway.

Media 2007 Program Accepted

The representatives of the member states have reached a political agreement in the Cultural Council as regards the two major cultural programs of the EU, Culture 2007 and Media 2007. Whereas with the lack of an accepted budget proposal it is not known yet exactly how much funding each program is going to operate with, in the case of the first one it is an estimated 408-600 million Euros between 2007 and 2013, while in the case of the latter, 1 billion Euros. The new media program will make state funding of movies easier in Hungary.

European Audience Decreases

In the first 9 month of 2005 there has been 73,9 million less movie goers in the movie theatres of 11 European countries according to the figures of the Research and Statistics Office of the British Film Board. Between January and September there has been a general recession in the number of moviegoers all around Europe. The figures show a 7,4% decrease in Denmark and 21,5 % in Germany (including the data of October). The decrease was around 30 % in the Check Republic.

Discussion on European Film

The 10th Europa Cinemas conference was held in Budapest this year with the participation of more than 300 professionals to have a discussion on the present and future of movie theatres. Despite the inauspicious figures and diagrams, and the threat of pirate copies on the internet participants remained optimistic and stood up for the important role movie theatres play in cinematic art.