The end of MMKA?

08 November, 2010 - Zsolt Gyenge

Though the official decision about the liquidation – promised for 31st October – hasn’t been announced yet, the future of Motion Picture Foundation of Hungary seems at least uncertain. However – as Index.hu has shown it - certain directions can already be seen from the newly published budget-plan of Hungary for 2011.

As we have written previously irresponsible financial practices and huge debts have been discovered this spring by the new management of the organization which handled almost all public funding for cinema in Hungary. The new Hungarian government after seeing the results of the internal investigation in June has blocked all finances of MMKA, which caused serious problems for many films in shooting or post-production. According to Népszabadság, the biggest Hungarian daily newspaper, MMKA will be liquidated completely next year together with other public foundations.

In next year’s state budget of Hungary only a quarter of this year’s amount (1 billion HUF, cca. 3.2 million Euros) is allocated for MMKA mainly for the support of cultural tasks and organizations. This means that MMKA – and together with it the Ministry of Culture, called now Minsitry of National Resources – will loose its primary position in the Hungarian film financing. Instead substantial amounts (2 billion HUF, cca. 7.3 million Euros) dedicated for “Hungarian film subsidy” can be found in the budget of the Ministry for National Economy. According to rumors among Hungarian film professionals this is the amount which will be accorded to Andrew Wajna for the “restructuring of the Hungarian film industry”.

Overall the amount of public funding for film will drop substantially from 5.42 billion HUF (cca. 19.8 million Euros) allocated previously to MMKA to 4.1 billion HUF (cca. 15 million Euros) in 2011 allocated to several institutions.