hufilmtv1-8, Exercise 1: The end of the studio system

Model answer (check the details):

Before 1989: directors worked inside state studios with guaranteed funding, script approval and limits on content. A graduate could expect to make a film, under review.

After 1989: the studios lost their guaranteed money and were broken up or privatised. Directors had to raise funds from state grants, television, small private producers and foreign partners, so films were made less often and on smaller budgets. Cinema attendance fell as television, video and Hollywood imports took over. Censorship ended, which freed subjects and style.

Result: more freedom and less security. Festival prizes became a main route to international funding and distribution, so the careers of Tarr, Enyedi and Nemes Jeles depended on that route. The old system's stability was not replaced by an equivalent until the Film Fund of 2011 (Chapter 9).