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Despite the quantitative increase in Hungarian films amid growing state subsidies, fewer people actually watch domestic flicks in cinemas, according to research by G7.
While state support for domestic film projects is on the rise, it seems like the popularity of Hungarian films failed to recover to pre-COVID levels. According to data by the Hungarian Central Statistical Office (KSH), the box office performance of cinemas in Hungary amounted to approximately HUF 17.7 billion in 2022, far below the over HUF 22 bln levels registered about a decade ago.
The decline is even more pronounced in the case of domestic films as these only managed to rack up some 600,000 admissions last year, a bit more than the peak figure of 1.5 million 5 years ago. Last year, 427,000 of the 611,000 tickets sold for Hungarian movies were for movies made with the support of the National Film Institute (NFI), a key player in deciding on state subsidies. These figures reveal that the increasing amount of subsidies for domestic films (HUF 10.8 bln in 2020, HUF 16.5 bln in 2021, and HUF 25.7 bln last year) did not result in increased viewership.
According to NFI’s own data, in 2021, this meant that the amount of subsidy distributed per cinema-goer watching an NFI-backed film came to just over HUF 3,000. A 2022 survey shed light on the movie-watching habits of the viewers of Hungarian films. Only 13% of views happened in cinemas, while 16% of views took place on streaming services, lagging considerably behing TV views (60%).
While NFI encourages showing Hungarian films on streaming and TV. The institute’s streaming service Filmio.hu has an impressive selection of Hungarian films at a very low price, but according to G7, the platform, at the moment, still fails to generate profits. G7 also revealed that “Explanation for Everything”, a movie made without state funding managed to generate a better box office turnover than NFI-backed films “Blockade” and “Hadik”.
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