European giant Beta Film, known for ambitious titles such as “Babylon Berlin” and “The Swarm,” has shared with Variety in exclusivity a first-look picture of 1o-part series “Rise of the Raven,” which it hails as “one of the most epic European TV productions of all time.” “Rise of the Raven” weighs in as a passion project of …
Hungarian Film and TV Biz Make Play for Global Stage at Berlin Festival
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For the first time ever, two Hungarian films are competing for the Berlinale’s Golden Bear: “Forest – I See You Everywhere,” a standalone sequel to the 2003 Berlinale hit “Forest,” from veteran auteur Bence Fliegauf, and “Natural Light” from feature debutant Dénes Nagy. Csaba Káel, chairman of the National Film Institute of Hungary (NFI), says, “I believe it demonstrates the vitality and strength of the Hungarian industry flourishing despite the unprecedented circumstances caused by the pandemic worldwide.”
The two films represent opposite poles of current Hungarian filmmaking. Brimming with discourse, the independently funded “Forest” tells multiple complex, engaging stories of contemporary life in Hungary. And as he did in his Berlinale-winner “Just the Wind” (2012), Fliegauf creates deep empathy for his characters who deliver sta
Hungarian Broadcaster RTL Klub Boards Cold War Spy Drama Balaton Brigade (EXCLUSIVE)
Christopher Vourlias, provided by
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Hungarian broadcaster RTL Klub has boarded “Balaton Brigade,” a Cold War spy drama set on the shores of Hungary’s Lake Balaton in the summer of ’86,
Variety has learned exclusively. The series is among the projects that will be pitched this week at the Berlinale Series Market’s Co-Pro Series.
The show follows a secret agent in the elite Stasi unit codenamed the Balaton Brigade, a team tasked with observing East German holidaymakers as they meet their relatives from west of the Iron Curtain on the sun-kissed shores of the “Hungarian Sea.” Forging an uneasy alliance with a local counterpart, he engages in increasingly intense psychological warfare against their target, only to realize that the tables are being turned even as he hatches his own plot to escape with his family to the West.