Two Hungarian projects amongst the Budapest Debut Film Forum finalists

Two Hungarian projects amongst the Budapest Debut Film Forum finalists

Katalin Moldovai, who competed in Cannes last year, will present her debut feature-film project, Total Eclipse and Borbála Nagy’s Nothing to See Here is also amongst the eight film project that were selected to this years Budapest Debut Film Forum, an international forum for first film projects.

Budapest Debut Film Forum (BDFF) will take place once again within the framework of Friss Hús Budapest International Short Film Festival in 2020. The event, which is held this year for the second time, will welcome debut film projects that are in development stage but already have a producer and/or director on board..

BDFF was scheduled to take place during this year’s edition of Friss Hús between the 24th and the 26th of March: however, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the  project development tutoring sessions will be held online. Representatives of the selected projects will get a chance to participate on one-on-one sessions with mentors from the 6th until the 10th of July. The pitch-presentation, the award ceremony, as well as the professional programs will take place during the festival, to be held between 10th and 16th of September.

BDFF helps producers and directors working on their first feature film to take further steps in their project’s development. The aim of the initiative is to help creators exchange experience and knowledge amongst their colleagues from the CEE region, as well as receiving professional guidance from BDFF’s international mentors for the successful  implementation of their forthcoming project 

Amongst the projects selected in 2020 are two Hungarian film projects. Total Eclipse from Katalin Moldovai, who competed in Cannes last year, is about is about a small-town literature teacher who recommends a classic film about the gay relationship between Rimbaud and Verlaine to her students, sparking the anger of parents and management alike. Borbála Nagy’s Nothing to See Here revisits a well known story. It follows a high-school student who created a viral video of his school’s headmaster, posing as Hitler. After the video becomes a meme, the boy has to face witchhunt on a national level against his person. 

2000: Post-War Odyssey (Kosovo) is a coming of age story of a young Kosovar boy in the times following the war.  No More (Georgia) follows the last months of a terminally ill musician.  Blue Banks (Romania) is a family drama, in which a woman leaves her son and her partner and moves to the West in hopes of a better life.  Banan (Poland) is the story of a young woman dreaming of a luxury wedding, who starts working in Germany as a caretaker of a nearly hundred-year-old SS officer, to earn enough money for the ceremony. Turn Right! (Slovakia) is about a boy living with intellectual disability who gets involved in the robbery of the century, during which he has to steal Tutankhamun’s diamonds: he will also have to fight dinosaurs and dangerous mummies during his adventures. Retention (Ukraine), a sci-fi, is the story of a man who is cloned on the basis of his wisdom tooth, but after resurrecting into a young body, his own daughter falls in love with him…

The selected directors and producers will take part in group sessions led by renowned international experts, which will be held online this year due to the coronavirus pandemic. Mentors include Eszter Angyalosy, screenwriter and story editor (working on the development of In Treatment and Golden Life, amongst others); Matthieu Darras, director of First Cut Lab and of the Pop Up Film Residency; director and screenwriter Balázs Lengyel (Lajkó - Gypsy in Space, Coyote) and Croatian award-winning director-screenwriter Ognjen Svilicic.

Following the workshop, the project considered the most promising by the mentors will receive a development grant of 1000 euros. The winning project will be announced in September.

The initiative is supported by the Visegrad Fund and the Hungarian National Film Institute.

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