“Italy is also our home, it’s good that we’ve returned to Europe,” Prime Minister-elect Peter Magyar said on Tuesday evening at the Riviera International Film Festival in Sestri Levante, according to a report by the Italian news agency Ansa.
Péter Magyar: “we’ve returned to Europe,”
Magyar attended a screening of the documentary Spring Wind: The Awakening alongside the film’s director, Tamás Yvan Topolánszky, and producer Claudia Sümeghy. The film was screened for an Italian audience for the first time. A group of Hungarians greeted Magyar outside the Ariston cinema, the festival’s venue.
Magyar highlighted the long-standing friendship between Italy and Hungary, agreeing with earlier speakers that Italy was also a home for Hungarians. “It is good that after 16 years, we’ve returned to Europe,” he added.
He said the documentary had played a decisive role in the Tisza Party’s election victory, noting that 3.3 million people watched the film within two days, and the party received 3.3 million votes in the election. “In a way, it helped open the eyes of the Hungarian people,” he said.
Tisza fought against a kind of a mafia in Hungary
He said that during the Hungarian election campaign, he had repeatedly mentioned Sicilian prosecutor Giovanni Falcone and Judge Paolo Borsellino, both of whom were assassinated in mafia attacks. “We had to fight a different kind of mafia in Hungary,” he said.
“We also fought against the mafia, the political-economic mafia,” he said. “That’s why I saw a parallel with them… They didn’t survive the fight, but the entire Italian nation owes them a debt of gratitude. That’s why I referenced them often during the campaign. I know the Hungarian people understood the comparison, and we will succeed.”
Spring Wind: The Awakening, produced by Juno Pictures, premiered on March 12. The Budapest-based film production and distribution company was founded by Claudia Sumeghy and Tamas Yvan Topolanszky, who also directed the documentary. The company previously announced on Facebook that the film would open the RIFF festival.
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