Budapest as you’ve never seen it: new film album brings the city’s lost past to life!

A remarkable new hybrid publication is offering a fresh perspective on Budapest, combining the tactile experience of a book with the immersive power of film. Short movies start automatically on a built-in screen, guiding viewers through vanished or dramatically transformed districts of the Hungarian capital.

The project features 25 short films, each between two and four minutes long, created from more than 700 archive photographs, most of them sourced from the renowned Fortepan collection. Rather than relying on artificial intelligence, the team at Animatiqua Studio painstakingly animated every image by hand to bring the past to life. The films were directed by András Kondacs, with narration by Gabriella Hámori in Hungarian and Rebecka Johnston in English.

A book that turns into cinema

Titled Budapest Filmbox, the unusual release sits somewhere between digital media and traditional publishing. At first glance, it looks like a book, but once opened, it transforms into a miniature cinema. The embedded screen automatically plays short films that take viewers through the city’s golden age, the period when Budapest evolved into a true world metropolis.

Rather than presenting a chronological history lesson, the films offer a form of visual memory: fragments of a city whose face has changed almost beyond recognition.

Lost districts and vanished landmarks

Most of the episodes focus on neighbourhoods and buildings that have disappeared or been radically altered. Among the featured locations are the elegant structure of the old Elizabeth Bridge (Erzsébet híd), the temporary pavilion city of the Millennium Exhibition, grand palace interiors from the turn of the century, and domes and roof ornaments that were never rebuilt after wartime damage.

The films also explore the phenomenon of the “scalped city”, the scars left by the Second World War and the 1956 revolution, as well as the industrial boom of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy and the long-standing rivalry between Budapest and Vienna. All of these themes circle a single question: what did the city’s golden age mean then, and what does it mean in today’s collective memory?

Archive images, human craft

More than 700 historical photographs form the backbone of the project. By subtly animating these stills, viewers can almost step into the city as it once was, moving through both space and time.

The creators deliberately avoided AI.

For director Kondacs, this was not a technological decision but a matter of trust. They wanted to avoid generating false images or artificially reconstructing details for which no reliable sources exist. In their view, historical imagery requires human judgement to prevent the past from becoming a spectacular yet inaccurate illustration.

Four creators worked on the films for over three years, combining extensive research with meticulous, frame-by-frame animation. This slow, handcrafted approach shapes the rhythm of the films, which allow the images to breathe rather than rushing the viewer.

When the city speaks

The narration follows the same philosophy. Instead of academic explanations, the voices guide audiences gently, aiming to build an emotional bridge between past and present.

Reflecting on the films, Kossuth and Jászai Mari Prize-winning actor Pál Mácsai said he felt as though every image showed the spaces of his own life, as if old photographs had suddenly begun to move through a kind of modern magic.

In tone and style, the shorts recall the studio’s earlier film Budapest Születése (Budapest’s birth), created for the capital’s 150th anniversary. You can watch it below:

The Budapest Filmbox album is available in an A5 edition containing all 25 films, as well as a smaller mini version featuring 12.

Read more about Hungarian history on Daily News Hungary!