The Danube River is the defining natural element of Budapest.
It connects Buda and Pest, and it is literally at the center of city life – so it’s appropriate that when director Yvan Tamás Topolánszky decided to make a disaster movie about a catastrophe striking Budapest, he based it on an old nightmare of his – DVNA is a dystopian vision of Budapest with no Danube anymore, because the river ran dry.
The trailer of this debut film of the director, who graduated from the media design department of MOME, can already be seen on YouTube. The empty streets, bridges, gas stations, and parking garages make the viewer feel tense, just like the desperate character who we can hear panicking in English throughout the trailer, and who fears being left all alone in Budapest. According to the story, only six people remain in the deserted city, who eventually have to find each other. The film is a production of Halluci-Nation, and is set to be finished by November of 2017.
The film’s producer, Claudia Sümeghy, told We Love Budapest that their goal is to get the finished film into cinemas by late 2017. They will also enter the Incubator Program of the Hungarian National Film Fund, and are already negotiating with co-production partners. Just like in the case of many American and some European productions, they also want to assess how audience-friendly the film’s theme and tone are through the above teaser trailer, and how interested the audience would be in a picture like this. Fortunately, the views indicate exceptionally good results – this is one blockbuster that we can’t wait to see!
