Hungarian Film Fund Obtains Production Assets

MOSCOW – The Hungarian National Film Fund, headed by Andrew G. Vajna, is obtaining film industry assets as part of a debt settlement with the Hungarian Motion Picture Public Foundation (MMKA), its predecessor as the country’s main film body, and plans to turn them into profitable operations.

A Budapest court has approved an agreement between the National Film Fund and MMKA, under which the fund is taking over MMKA’s previously accumulated outstanding debt of 6.3 billion Hungarian forints ($27.7 billion). In exchange the National Film Fund is acquiring two companies, Mafilm Zrt. and Magyar Filmlaboratórium Kft.

“Those are a studio and a laboratory," Vajna told The Hollywood Reporter. “They are in pretty bad condition and are losing a lot of money per annum.”

“We are trying to revitalize them to make sure they are used to support Hungarian movies of the future,” he went on to say.

According to Vajna, he hopes to cut the two companies’ losses to zero by the end of this year and make them profitable in 2013.

“Whatever profits these companies would make, they would go support the Hungarian film industry,” he concluded. “In other words, they will be spent on making movies.”

Hungarian-born Vajna spent almost two decades as a producer in Hollywood, with his credits including Terminator, Basic Instinct and Rambo. He was appointed the government commissioner in charge of renewing the Hungarian film industry last year. The National Film Fund was founded in May 2011 and began operation later that year.