Category: Egyéb kategória

“Naturally, we don’t want to ride the waves of nostalgia, but let’s mention a few milestones from the past two decades that we cannot pass by without a word. 

It all started when Kultiplex – formerly Blue Box cinema in Kinizsi Street – was the base of Tilos Radio, where Simon was the all-rounder and Laca, and we took the plunge into the unknown. We did 2 sold-out concerts for Erik Sumo in one night, because we projected it live in the courtyard, which was a full house inside, but there was also a Napra concert and Satöbbi. 

Then the monument building was demolished for some reason, we went to Almássy Square, which was closed after a staging and that’s how we ended up in the Vörösmarty cinema (DocuArt, Kinizsi Koli, Africafé Culture Disco), where we spent 6 great years and it was only closed after that. Finally, just 10 years ago, we arrived at the Puskin Cinema, where the migrant caravan from Keleti Railway Station arrived the following year, so this time it’s a double anniversary. We started with VHS tapes in cardboxes and then we moved on through a myriad of formats to the cloud without physical media, but let’s cut to the chase.”

The 20th BuSho Film Festival will kick off on 3 September at 19:00 in the Verdi Hall of the Italian Cultural Institute with the opening ceremony, officially opened by last year’s international jury member Balázs Szövényi-Lux, film director. After the short ceremony, the Louisiana Double band and György Ferenczi will perform, while the 2023 BuSho award-winning films will be screened in the Fellini Hall.

After the opening ceremony, the competition programme will start in the early afternoon of the next day in the „Amarcord Hall” of the Puskin Cinema, the repetition screeninings of the competition programme will be screened in the evening in the „Körhinta Hall” at Puskin Cinema. The P’art Cinema in Szentendre will be the venue for the rural screenings.

The Italian Cultural Institute will host a programme of side-screenings each evening, with a selection of Portuguese, Italian and Canadian short films, and on Saturday, a workshop screening and the Panorama screenings will take place before the evening awards ceremony.

In the middle of the festival, on Thursday early afternoon, the NMHH Media Awareness Conference will take place here, where admission is free but registration is required. Also on Thursday evening at 22:00, the Danish rock band Raised to Rock will play a concert at the „Három Holló Café”: pop and disco hits in a hard-hitting cover.

By the spring deadline, nearly a thousand short films from all over the world were once again submitted, selected by this year’s expanded jury, coordinated by Levente Galambos, and the others: Anna Dóra Laky, Pál Laska, Bertalan Balla, Dávid Korom, Lilla Gulyás, Tímea Tánczos, Zoltán Debreczeni, Ádám Varga, Beatrix Tordai, Ádám Ladányi, Benedek Matyovszki, Réka Ratter, Zoltán Gergely. After a long deliberation process, 48 short films from 19 countries were finally selected for the competition, which will be shown in 9 blocks, with 31 fiction, 10 animation and 7 experimental films per category.

This time, the Student Jury was composed of 4 higher education institutions and included Ádám Stampf (METU), Tibor Kapás (ELTE), Karim Hema (SZFE) and Lazin Damján (MOME).

Zsuzsanna Bak, Prima Prize-winning writer, director and dramaturg, university lecturer, has again accepted the invitation to join the international jury. The other jury member is Alexa Rodrigues, a former Portuguese actress who moved to the Netherlands some time ago to run the Shortcutz Amsterdam festival. Paul Bruce from Scotland is a second time jury member, but for the first time in person, as he was unable to make it from Edinburgh where he is the founding director of the local short film festival, due to COVID restrictions the last time. Last but not least, Wolfgang Leis, who will be judging the 20th BuSho festival, will be available in the evenings for the public jury consultations, to which all Hungarian filmmakers in the competition have been invited. They will decide on the 3 main prizes, the 6 category prizes and the special prize of 500.000 HUF, which will be awarded three times this year!

We’d like to offer viewers a sneak preview of the international competition programme. „Crack of Dawn”, nominated for an Oscar in the Best Student Film category in 2023, is presented by director Anna Llargués: “a film about a house falling apart, the fate of the people who live in it, the idea of isolation and the driving force of curiosity.”

The Italian Daniel Daquino will personally accompany his award-winning short film „Benzina / Gasoline” to Budapest with his co-creators. The Icelandic short „Fár”, winner of a special prize at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, is by Gunnur Martinsdóttir Schlüter. French fiction film Marie-Lola Terver’s „The Mysterious Adventures of Claude Conseil”, which was screened in Budapest in a festival collaboration in January, and then Dutch director Ruwan Heggelman’s experimental dwarfs made a big impression on our pre-screening. The Berlinale’s short film programme included the French/Turkish „Bye Bye Turtle”, directed by Selin Oksuzoglu, which Cineuropa described as “a wonderful story about the fateful meeting of a young girl and a young woman.”

In keeping with the tradition of Hungarian animation, the young people once again came with excellent works, such as the KAFF award-winning film by Anita Kühnel-Szabó: „Apád / Your Dad” or the animation of returning competitor Luca Tóth: „Vegan Mayo”. A glimpse into the life of a struggling family in Hunor Demeter’s short film „Frosting”. And a previous BuSho winner, Péter Karácsony, also submitted his new film „A kis hatalmasok / The Low and Mighty”, which is winning festivals around the world. Kálmán Nagy started out as an amateur short filmmaker and last year won the FIRST STEPS AWARD Best Short Film at the Berlin FIRST STEPS AWARD, which focuses specifically on the next generation of filmmakers with his film „Az utca másik vége / The Other End of the Street”. Finally, we would like to mention a Czech experimental film directed by Marie-Magdalena Kochová, „3MWh”, and a Finnish animation „Bright White Light” by Henna Valkky, Erik Lehtola.

At BuSho Festival, all films are shown in their original language with English subtitles and purchasing tickets is only necessary for the competition screenings on site or in advance online, the other programs are free.

All are welcome to attend the opening ceremony on Tuesday 3 September at 19:00, the awards ceremony on the evening of 7 September at the same venue, Italian Cultural Institute, Verdi Hall.

The organisers would like to thank the supporters for making the event possible for the 20th time: National Film Institute, the National Media and Infocommunications Authority, the Hungarian Academy of Arts, the National Cooperation Fund, the Italian Cultural Institute, the Embassy of the Netherlands, the Camoes Portuguese Institute, the Embassy of Spain and Sziget Kft, media sponsor is Magyar Hang. Equipment support is provided by 2.8 Rental.

All programs and the timetable are available HERE.

We have changed the usual setup. Instead of the typical 12 blocks with 75-minute runtime, this year we have 9 blocks with 80-minute runtime. They have 5-6 films each from different countries, with fiction, animation and experimental. There’s a featured block leader as well based on the recommendations of the pre-jury.

We have less films in the competition than previous years, but we have longer breaks (“coffee & cigarette”) between the screenings, so that everyone can enjoy a nice coffee during these breaks.

All the competition screenings will take place in Puskin Cinema from 4 until 6 September in the following order:

The long-awaited moment has arrived when the official selection for the 20th anniversary BuSho Film Festival is revealed. Once again, fiction, animation and experimental films under 30 minutes in length and in the usual categories will compete in this year’s festival.

As in previous years, we have introduced some minor changes to the way the festival is run.  A “pre-jury” of 11 people selected 16 hours of films from the nearly 1000 films entered, from which a “post-pre-jury” of 3 people decided on the 12 hours of short films that would be selected. This year’s festival will thus be screening these films in 9 blocks of around 80 minutes from 3 to 8 September at the Puskin Cinema, Budapest.

As we reported earlier, the registration period for the 20th BuSho Festival is now closed, the pre-jury is now working hard and the announcement of the competition program will arrive on Labour Day.

In the meantime, the BuSho team will not be idle as we will be rowing in international waters again shortly with last year’s Hungarian short films.

At the end of February, the screening of the best Hungarian films delegated from the 19th Busho Film Festival was successfully held again in Sofia. The enthusiastic staff of the Bulgarian Liszt Institute are preparing another screening for April with the TaM Art Association in Veliko Tarnovo, not only the old capital of Bulgaria but also a very attractive city in terms of architecture and nature, with a very lively university life.

At the beginning of March, our old Polish partner, the ZOOM festival, selected some of our delegates, or rather a large delegation, as they invited 3 animations to participate, in addition to 3 fiction films, Dániel Füzes: Hogy ne győzzünk, Anna Gyimesi: Affrikáta and Bianka Szelestey: Pragma. Domonkos Erhardt’s From The Corner of My Eyes and Daniel Bárány’s Dániel Vacsora (Dinner) are competing alongside Balázs Turai’s Amok.

We’ll soon be showing up in Istanbul with a selection including The Sunday Kidnapping directed by Péter Karácsony, Zénó Mira’s Fox Tossing, and last year’s Hungarian Cinema Award nominee Café Marylin in the Panorama section of the IFSAK festival.

We’re also in the planning stages for a screening near Porto and one in Pescara, as well as another one in Beijing in May at the UCCA Center.

In addition, we’re preparing for further Turkish venues, with a visit to Aksanat in May and one at Izmir in the autumn.

There are also plans to present Hungarian shorts in Germany in 3 locations, on the Stuttgart – Düsseldorf – Munich axis, and then, of course, we will be preparing for the jubilee festival and the summer workshops as well.

On 1 March, the registration period was closed for this year’s 20th edition of the BuSho Film Festival. As usual, we received almost a thousand entries. In addition to the Filmfreeway platform, this year we made a trial run in the East and accepted entries via a Chinese platform as well.

Let’s have a look at the numbers and statistics. The majority of submissions are fiction films, along with approximately 70 experimental films and 130 animations.

All continents are represented, and we received submissions from 64 countries. Not surprisingly, the Spanish sent the largest number of works, 97, as they continued to coordinate distribution in well-organized regional units. We were delighted to count 84 Hungarian entries.  On the 3rd place of the podium is Germany with 71 submitted short films. In the top 10, Iran and China were notable, while the others, in the usual order, were French, British, Italian, Russian, American, and Canadian short films. Among our neighbors, Austria sent the most films. Finnalnd submitted the most films from Scandinavia, and all the previously awarded Visegrad countries were also represented. Of course, this year there are plenty of films from the exotic ’Not Specified’ or ’Other’ countries, but the jury will be able to pick and choose from films submitted from all over the world. Some of them are Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Egypt, Haiti, Hong Kong, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Lebanon, Mexico, New Zealand, Pakistan, Philippines and Singapore.

The pre-jury started processing the films at the beginning of the year, and the official competition program will be announced on 1 May, after which all selected filmmakers will have 1 month to send in their screening copies.

A detailed screening program will then be finalized by 15 June, after which there will be another month for accreditation for in-person participation.

But we’ll come with more information when the time comes.

The 20-year-old BuSho International Short Film Festival participated in an international film festival meeting in Edinburgh not long ago, where we were invited to organise the national presentation of an annual Dutch short film selection.

Each year Shortcutz Amsterdam provides an opportunity for emerging Dutch film talent to showcase their work, interact with national and international audiences and meet renowned film industry professionals. In collaboration with international partners, audiences worldwide are invited to vote for their favourite Dutch short film of the year in a public vote. This special Audience Award will showcase the six Dutch short films nominated for Best Short Film of the Year in an annual global tour. Until 19 January, cinema fans can attend one of the screenings worldwide, from Berlin and London to Athens and Maputo.

This year, the tour has also arrived in Spain, Hungary and Uruguay. In Hungary there will be almost simultaneous screenings in 2 venues. On 17 January at 19:00 at the Cirkogejzír cinema in Budapest and at 20:00 at the Apollo cinema in Debrecen. The short film selection is one and a half hour long.

Screenings and voting locations:

– Amsterdam, The Netherlands
– Athens, Greece
– Berlin, Germany
– Budapest, Hungary
– Bueu, Spain
– Debrecen, Hungary
– Den Helder, The Netherlands
– Edinburgh, UK
– Leeuwarden, The Netherlands
– Lisboa, Portugal
– London, UK
– Luanda, Angola
– Lustenau, Austria
– Maputo, Mozambique
– Montevideo, Uruguay
– Paramaribo, Suriname
– Pescara, Italy
– Rotterdam, The Netherlands
– Santa Catarina, Brasil
– Skopje, Macedonia
– Utrecht, The Netherlands
– Willemstad, Curacao

These short films were selected by Shortcutz Amsterdam’s distinguished Jury Team, featuring industry luminaries such as producer Jan Harlan (‘The Shining’), Christopher Mack from Netflix International Originals, actress Elise Schaap (‘Ferry’), director Roel Reiné (‘Marvel’s Inhumans’), actress Willeke van Ammelrooy (‘Antonia’s Line’), director Eddy Terstall (‘Simon’), Head of Drama NTR Marina Blok, former Eye’s senior programmer and head of acquisitions René Wolf, actress Nora El Koussour (‘Layla M’), and street artist Laser 3.14.

Film Compilation:

– A CAPPELLA IN D MINOR, Malu Janssen | Live-Action | 20’00’’
– FLY, Patty Stenger | Animation | 02’25’’
– GNOMES, Ruwan Heggelman | Live-Action | 05’56’’
– I’M NOT A ROBOT, Victoria Warmerdam | Live-Action | 20’00’’
– JAMMED, Isis Cabolet | Live-Action | 17’24”
– NEW BABYLON, Gideon van der Stelt | Experimental | 20’00’’

The grand winner will be unveiled at the 11th Shortcutz Amsterdam Annual Awards on January 21, 2024, at 20:00 (CET) at the Eye Filmmuseum.

We thank the Embassy of the Netherlands and the Dutch-Flemish Centre Debrecen for their cooperation. Shortcutz Amsterdam and the BuSho festival welcome all those interested to vote for the Dutch short film of the year. Let’s discover together the gems of Dutch short films! The films will be screened in their original language with English subtitles and admission is free!

Entry period will start again on December 1, this time for the jubillee 20th BuSho Film Festival!

Again, as for some time now, you can submit through Filmfreeway. We accept fiction, animation and experimental works, don’t forget, that they have to be shorter than 30 minutes and made after January 1, 2022.

ATTENTION! The submission deadline is March 1 2024, the announcement of the competition program is 1 May 2024, and we’re going to announce the screening program on 1 June 2024.

We’d like to draw your attention to a recent change:

From this year if a film is selected, we ask the copy of the film in both DCP and h.264 formats! (if you submit your film, be prepared that you may have to have both of them).

All the necessary info is available  HERE!

We would like to ask all entrants to have a reminder engraved for themselves due to spam filters in different mail systems, and if you do not receive the notification, take a look at our website where we will also post the results!

IBIZA CINEFEST, IBIZA (but not SEAT), Tamás Gábeli

It was February 2023, it was snowing at home and I was part of the international jury on the Spanish island where German and British tourists only go to party from spring to autumn! But it was winter, which meant it was relatively calm and after a transfer in Barcelona I was there in just 6 hours. Maria was waiting for me at the airport, although I was told Sandra would, then it turned out they were sisters and the two of them were organising the travel logistics for the whole festival, which is not so easy.

We’re talking about a small island, with no railway, I didn’t see any buses that could fit in the narrow alleys, but there are plenty of boats, so we drove everywhere. The accommodation and the festival centre were about 10 km apart, so there wasn’t much choice. The small street cafés had a special Mediterranean atmosphere, the local uncles were playing dice where the coffee was accompanied by a local aniseed liqueur, and then the young people at the festival were not lying to themselves, because duromg lunch you definitely need a DJ.
And finally, of course, as I was here as a jury and to present BuSho at the invitation of Xavi Herrero, who visited us last year.

Let’s mention a few sought-after words about the films. And indeed only in headlines, because all 3 of the films I have selected have been screened at last year’s 19th BuSho festival. The beautifully photographed Georgian film ‘Runaway‘ by Salome Kintsurashvili and the Spanish tourist satire ‘Las Visitantes‘ directed by Enrique Buleo will be screened in the competition. And Araque Blanco’s short film ‘The (Other)700 Club‘, a 10-minute documentary about Brooklyn bikers, is in the Panorama section.

Come to the cinema!

IFSAK, ISTANBUL, Zalán Bata

Due to the unfortunate earthquake in Istanbul, the IFSAK Short Film Festival had to be delayed, but fortunately, it wasn’t canceled. The best of the Hungarian selection of last year’s BuSho was screened at the festival with a small presentation at the beginning. We’re glad the Liszt Institute (Hungarian Cultural Centre) in Istanbul was once again opened to our collaboration and helped to organize this screening. The Turkish filmmakers were quite curious about the Hungarian films and it seemed they enjoyed them pretty much. We are looking forward to continue this collaboration in the future.

IN THE PALACE, SOFIA, Levente Galambos

At this year’s In The Palace Short Film Festival I participated as a jury member of the Student Fiction category – you can imagine how much my imposter syndrome was raging when Tami asked me to take on the task.
From the first day of the festival, we bonded with the participating filmmakers and some jury members, and we attended screenings and visited the nearby pubs until the end of the festival. Based on my interpretation, the films I saw can be divided into two categories:
There were in a classic sense fictional films that were made for entertainment purposes, and there were works that aimed to present highly realistic situations with a great deal of sensitivity.
The unanimous winner in the student film category came from the latter group – I still get goosebumps:

‘Trenc d’Alba’, directed by Anna Llargués, portrays a close-knit sibling duo and their family in the days when they have to leave their long-inhabited house because it has become structurally dangerous.

Two Hungarian-directed films were featured in the Student Competition program:
‘Winners’ (Hogy ne győzzünk) by Dániel Füzes and ‘The Other End of the Street’ (Az utca másik vége) by Kálmán Nagy – the latter work received a special mention at the award ceremony for its pacing and relatable story.

The 19th edition of this year’s festival has just ended, but in less than 2 weeks’ time entries for the jubilee 20th BuSho International Short Film Festival will open, with the usual minor changes, to give the season a little more flair. What this means exactly will be revealed on 1 December, but of course we’re not giving away any bargains, so fiction, animation and experimental filmmakers can prepare their works for the festival with a running time of less than 30 minutes. More info on how to apply: HERE.

And we’ve been busy since the festival, with various reports, articles, feedback from guests, a gallery and a short film of this year’s festival.

The now usual Hungarian bestof has started its journey around the world, with various festivals selecting the best Hungarian films for their next events and the International Hungarian Institutes presenting them. One of the most successful collaborations continues to be with the Liszt Institute in Istanbul, where they send their works translated into Turkish to at least 5 festivals a year in this not-so-small country.

In addition to the deservedly popular BuSho trophies awarded at the festival, other prizes from the 19th BuSho also arrived, with artists from Montreal, Singapore, Bern, Ludwigsburg, London and New York, among others, all awaiting their prizes with great pleasure, and we have put together a nice gallery of them.

So now, for the 20th time in a row, we welcome you to the heart of Europe with the original slogan:

Come and sniff some culture!