Budapest Classics Film Marathon 2025
zita kisgergely
Since 2017, the Budapest Classics Film Marathon has been celebrating restored movie favourites every year for a week in autumn. This year, as well as commemorating some classic films, the festival also honoured esteemed Hungarian-Canadian director, Robert Lantos, and hosted three great directors he has collaborated with repeatedly over the span of his illustrious career.
Via NFI.
Honouring Producer Robert Lantos
Organized by the NFI (National Film Institute of Hungary), the film marathon this year presented a special retrospective, screening the films of renowned film producer Robert Lantos. Lantos has more recently been one of the driving forces behind the historical epic tv series, Rise of the Raven.
This year’s film marathon also hosted two Canadian filmmakers who have worked in close collaboration with the producer: David Cronenberg and Atom Egoyan, as well as legendary Hungarian director, István Szabó.
Fourteen films that Lantos produced were screened, including Cronenberg’s Crash (1996) and Eastern Promises (2007); Egoyan’s Oscar-nominated The Sweet Hereafter (1997) and Szabó’s Sunshine (1999) and Being Julia (2004).
During a roundtable discussion, the filmmakers shared their experiences and opinions on the delicate relationship between producer and director. Lantos revealed how he has chosen his projects in the past, seeking out films that added to the conversation, rather than rehashing what’s already been said before. In addition to his commercial successes, the producer has also endeavoured to make at least one or two more artistically-inclined films a year, ones that interest him personally.
It was also interesting to hear first-hand about the initial significant controversy Cronenberg’s film Crash stirred when it premiered at Cannes in 1996. Both Lantos and the director remembered being surprised at the scandal it caused among the press corps, especially considering it was based on a well-known novel by J. G. Ballard. In fact, Cronenberg went on to reveal that Ballard, also present at the premier, hit back at critics claiming that he thought the film was even better than the original book.
Picture via Imdb.
Focus of Budapest Classics Film Marathon 2025
This year the festival also paid special tribute to Hungarian director, Károly Makk as well as celebrated Hungarian-born screenwriter, Joe Eszterhas, whose film credits include Flashdance (1983) and Basic Instinct(1992) – and who we’ve recently written about here. Additionally, as part of the festival’s principal aim to bring archived material back to life, a restored 1943 film, Light and Shadow, from one of Hungary’s first female directors, Klára Tüdős Zsindelyné, was also screened and proved to be one of the highlights of the program.
The Lumière Brothers: where it all began
Another high point of the festival was presented by Thierry Frémaux, Artistic Director of the Cannes Film Festival and President of the Lumière Institute, in the form of a screening of Lumière! The Adventure Continues. This featured restored footage from the dawn of cinema 130 years ago.
The Lumière Brothers are widely considered to be the pioneering founding fathers of “cinématographe” using a device they invented – a portable camera, developer and projector which used 35 mmm film. The brothers screened the first cinematic experience in 1895 in Paris: a film of workers leaving the Lumière factory and a train arriving at a station.
This year’s festival included 122 screening, 26 student sessions (where David Cronenberg met with students at the University of Theatre and Film and reportedly revealed aspects of his creative process), six roundtables and four ciné-concerts with live music.
With films shown across a range of venues in Budapest – including a huge open-air cinema in beautiful Szent István square using the basilica as a backdrop – we’re already counting down for the next one in 2026.
Sources & further information
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