Hungary’s film community is no longer speaking in the polite language of sectoral adjustment. Filmreform2026, a new initiative backed by major industry bodies, creative organisations and film schools, has released a white paper calling for a transparent, politically independent and professionally led film financing system. Presented on 8 May at the Eurocine Festival, the proposal demands a new Film Act, reform of the National Film Institute, open tenders for senior NFI positions, institutional audits and a multi-window support structure led by professional committees rather than political appointees.

Last year, Hungary’s documentary community, through MADOKE, warned that the proposed «On the Transparency of Public Life» bill threatened independent media and civil organisations receiving foreign funding, with critics arguing that it could function as a mechanism of censorship against work engaging with migration, LGBTQ rights or the war in Ukraine. Seen against that background, Filmreform2026 reads less like a technical policy paper than a demand to reclaim cultural infrastructure from ideological management.

Nagy Ervin, cultural policy lead of the TISZA Government, said public cultural funding should be allocated «exclusively on professional grounds,» while pledging to stabilise Hungary’s 30 percent film tax rebate and depoliticise the NFI. The white paper warns that uncertainty around the rebate threatens Hungary’s regional production-service position, despite foreign productions contributing nearly 3 percent of GDP and employing more than 20,000 Hungarian film professionals.

The proposal also calls for restoring autonomy to film higher education, especially SZFE, and strengthening festivals, arthouse cinemas, broadcasters, streamers, film journalism and regional production infrastructure. Its larger claim is blunt. Hungary already has the crews, filmmakers and international credibility. What it lacks, Filmreform2026 argues, is a public system willing to trust them.