09-09-2008

Hungarian crime comedy sets October release

By Gyorgy Karpati

    Hungarian thriller comedy Para (www.szupermodern.hu/paraafilm) is in post production and will be released October 16, director Peter Fazakas told FNE.

    Shooting lasted for 26 days in Hungary. The production partner of the film was Szupermodern Film Studio (www.szupermodern.hu) which, with producer Peter Barath, made Miscalculation from the novel of the Nobel Prize awarded Imre Kertesz. Co-production partners are commercial channel TV2 (www.tv2.hu) and Film Positive Production (www.filmpositive.hu).

    The budget of the movie is €625,000, with €210,000 from the Motion Picture Public Foundation of Hungary (www.mmka.hu) and the rest from sponsors.

    Para will be the feature debut from Fazakas who previously made the award-winning short film Mice. Para won the Hartley-Merrill screenplay contest's Hungarian round.

    Well-known Hungarian actors and actresses Imre Csuja, Ivan Kamaras, Judit Halasz and Ildiko Bansagi star as four people connected to each other through a common interest in spiritualism and life on the other side of death.

    The festival debut of the movie will be in 2009 at the Hungarian Film Week. The Hungarian distributor of the film is Budapest Film (www.budapestfilm.hu), with ongoing negotiations for international distribution and festival participation.

    Fazakas' next project is Budapest Noir, currently in the screenplay writing phase, a 1930's story of a mysterious killing in Budapest. Fazakas plans the movie to be an international co-production with the budget of €2 to 2.5 million.