From Budapest to Lyon: Hungary steals the spotlight at the birthplace of cinema
At the renowned Lumière Film Festival in Lyon – the birthplace of cinema – Hungary took centre stage. The international audience discovered a story that could be described as a cultural rebirth: in just a few years, Hungary’s film heritage has become one of Europe’s most successful restoration and preservation programmes.
István Szabó in the spotlight
In 2025, Oscar-winning Hungarian director István Szabó was the main focus at the Lumière Film Festival in Lyon. The event celebrated his remarkable body of work with screenings of three restored films – Father (1966), Mephisto (1981) and Being Julia (2004) – all presented in pristine quality for an international audience.
Alongside the screenings, Szabó gave a masterclass, while the National Film Institute (NFI) took part in a professional programme titled “An Inverted Model – Concrete Actions to Promote Hungary’s Film Heritage”. Panellists György Ráduly, Viktória Sovák Lelievre and Csaba Bereczki outlined the NFI’s new preservation and distribution strategies.
“This is an enormous honour and once again a great opportunity for Hungarian film heritage to receive wide international attention,”
said György Ráduly, Director of the NFI’s Film Preservation and Technology Division.
The new system that saved Hungary’s film heritage
When the National Film Institute took over the National Film Archive in 2017, the situation was bleak.
“For ten years, nothing really happened, and people had lost motivation,” recalled György Ráduly.
The turnaround came when the Archive, Filmlabor, and the film fund were merged into a single, complementary system.
“Today it’s like a Rubik’s Cube – every piece fits where it belongs,” said Ráduly.
The collaboration enables the restoration of around thirty feature films each year, ranging from silent classics to post-1989 titles. Beyond technical criteria, the team also considers each film’s cultural relevance and its resonance with contemporary audiences.
Since 2017, more than 350 films have been restored and hundreds more digitised.
Many are available on Filmio, Hungary’s national streaming platform, as well as through an online educational catalogue.
“Our aim is to make Hungarian films accessible worldwide and to overcome geographical barriers,” Ráduly added.
Where the classics come back to life
Led by Viktória Sovák Lelievre, Filmlabor is the true centre of Hungary’s film restoration efforts. Everything happens here: repairing damaged frames, restoring colours, and digitising material so that the classics can return to the big screen.
“We’re fortunate that the lab and the archive belong to the same institution,” said Sovák.
“It allows us to plan every step together and choose the best possible elements for each restoration.”
Hungary may have a national film archive, but unlike France or Austria, it still lacks a dedicated cinémathèque. To bridge that gap, the NFI collaborates with cinemas and schools, organising around 3,000 screenings a year where students can watch restored classics at reduced prices.
A cultural success story
Over the years, Hungary’s film heritage has become a genuine international success story. Restored Hungarian works have been screened in Cannes, Berlin, Annecy, and at New York’s MoMA, while the Budapest Classics Film Marathon has grown into one of Europe’s leading retrospectives. The Lumière Film Festival in Lyon once again confirmed its role as a major platform for celebrating Hungarian cinema and film heritage.
“Film heritage builds a bridge between past and present,” said Ráduly.
“When audiences see 125 years of Hungarian filmmaking, they realise this is a filmmaking nation.”