Now that the dust has settled on longtime strongman Viktor Orbán’s landslide electoral defeat last month, Hungarian industry figures are charting a course for what one leading producer describes as a “new day” after 16 years of Orbán’s authoritarian rule.
The election-day shocker set off waves of jubilation across the Hungarian film community, with Oscar-winning “Son of Saul” filmmaker László Nemes, competing for the Palme d’Or this week with the French-language WWII biopic “Moulin,” telling Variety that his country was “thrilled to wake up from this nightmare.”
Now the work begins. Normally buzzing Budapest, which hosts the second-largest production hub in Europe after the U.K., witnessed a slowdown in the second half of 2025, partly due to doubts cast by the Orbán government on the future of Hungary’s usually reliable 30% incentive scheme.
The first order of business for the incoming administration will be to “provide stability to the incentive program that will give our clients the confidence they need to keep coming,” according to Adam Goodman, managing partner of Mid Atlantic Films, which recently wrapped production on Ron Howard’s “Alone at Dawn,” starring Adam Driver and Anne Hathaway, for Amazon MGM.
Production has already seen an uptick this year, and that trend is likely to continue under the new administration. Ildikó Kemény, managing director of Budapest-based “Moulin” co-producer Pioneer Stillking Films, notes that “the new leadership has been supportive of our industry during its campaigning,” with incoming PM Péter Magyar promising wholesale reforms that will “restore the predictability and international competitiveness of the Hungarian film industry.”
Expected among those reforms will be changes at the National Film Institute (NFI), the powerful body that controls film financing in the country, and whose politicization under the Orbán regime was blamed by many Hungarian filmmakers for stifling critical voices. An entire generation of industry professionals has come of age in an era of cronyism and crackdowns against dissent, with Dorottya Helmeczy, of Megafilm Service, noting that “many young Hungarian filmmakers have lacked opportunities for years.”
Even before last month’s election, the domestic industry has shown its resilience, with emerging talents like Ádám Farkas (“Growing Down”), Hajni Kis (“Wild Roots”) and Gábor Reisz (“Explanation for Everything”) making the most of the financial and political constraints. And the industry had already begun to shift away from the wave of big-budget historical dramas and jingoistic biopics that marked the Orbán years.
That shift wasn’t purely ideological: Most of those flag-wavers flopped at the box office, with audiences increasingly turning to lighter commercial fare, such as Dénes Orosz’s musical rom-com “How Could I Live Without You?,” which topped the box office last year. The Cannes slate of the NFI’s sales arm suggests more is on the way, with comedies including “Just One More Wish,” “Cheaters Welcome” and the sequel to “How Could I Live Without You?” all on offer for foreign buyers.
Hungarian producers are turning in new directions, dabbling with genre — Megafilm is developing the “grotesque,” Western-style shoot-’em-up “Chili Pepper and Gunpowder” — and trying to meet the international market on its own terms. Helmeczy, for one, sees untapped potential to export Hungarian IP: She’s currently shopping remake rights to “Just One More Wish,” a film, she says, that “follows a classic American blockbuster formula” in the vein of “13 Going on 30” or “Groundhog Day.”
Perhaps emblematic of this new dawn for the Magyar film industry is the period drama “Embers,” the latest from producer Robert Lantos and Oscar-winning director Istvan Szabó (“Mephisto”). The film is adapted from Hungarian author Sándor Márai’s celebrated novel and features Ralph Fiennes, Viggo Mortensen and Charlotte Rampling among its star-studded cast. It’s a film that again brings A-list talent to Budapest — but this time, to tell a distinctly Hungarian story.
Viktoria Petrányi, of production outfit Proton Cinema, notes that the a more liberal regime might open the floodgates for the many projects that were shelved during the Orbán years. It’s now the industry’s responsibility, she says, “to rebuild and reestablish some values that we lost.”
“We won’t be able to make up for the last 16 years. It won’t be a quick process,” says the veteran producer, whose slate includes new titles from up-and-comers Kis and Reisz. “We need to be somewhat patient. We just need to start a new day.”
