To mark Hungarian Film Day tomorrow, 30 April, the National Film Institute is putting eight classic comedies online with English subtitles, free to watch for ten days until 10 May.
Timeless movies such as Hyppolit, The Witness, Dollybirds and five others can be enjoyed by non-Hungarian speakers among the 20 comedies selected in total. See the choice of English-friendly films here, available between 30 April and 10 May.
Hungarian Film Day commemorates the first screening of a Hungarian film in 1901, A táncz (The Dance), directed by Béla Zsitkovszky. In some 120 years since, many talented filmmakers have achieved celluloid immortality thanks to scores of classic works.
In 2019, Hungarian Film Day featured more than 100 events including screenings, discussions, Q&A sessions with the audience and concerts of film scores. These took place around Hungary in cinemas, film clubs, schools, libraries, cultural centres, even performance venues. Hungarian institutes, consulates and embassies around the world joined this successful initiative. This year, given the pandemic, this annual celebration of Hungarian film is being conducted digitally.
To mark Hungarian Film Day 2020, the National Film Institute (NFI) is making 20 classic comedies available for free. These include Mágnás Miská (Mickey Magnate), the most viewed Hungarian film of all time, and arguably the most revered, Károly Makk’s Liliomfi.
A fully restored and digitalised version will be released of A tanú (The Witness), a gentle parody of Socialism, Csinibaba (Dollybirds), one of the biggest box office hits of the 1990s, and Moszkva tér, a cult film from 2001 that epitomised a generation.
Experts from the NFI Film Archive made their selection from different periods of Hungarian film, choosing these outstanding Hungarian comedies over the past eight decades. Of the 20 films, several are being shown online for the very first time.
