This year's festival - the 16th one - has a budget of HUF 162 million, of which about one-quarter is expected to come from ticket sales and another quarter from the Budapest City Council. Additional funding will come from the National Cultural Fund.
About half of the tickets for this year's festival have already been sold, Kovalik said.
The festival will feature five premiers by Hungarian theatre troupes, and the Berliner Ensemble will perform its renowned rendering of Ibsen's Peer Gynt.
Budapest Mayor Gábor Demszky said one of the highlights of the festival would be an homage to the great Frank Zappa, who flouted convention with his musical genius.
The performance, called 100% Zappa, has special meaning for the mayor as it was on his invitation that Zappa came to Hungary in 1991 to play a special concert celebrating the departure of Russian troops from the country.
Among the other highlights of the festival will be a screening of Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau's 1922 silent film Nosferatu accompanied by a score composed for electronics and organ by the Austrian composer-organist, Wolfgang Mitterer. René Clair's 1923 silent film Paris qui dort will also be shown with music by the French composer Yan Maresz. In addition to the silent films, Russian films will have a high profile at the festival, with nine new Russian feature films and several shorts showing at the Cirko Gejzír cinema.
On the dance programme are performances choreographed by Márta Ladjánszky and Anna Réti, two award winners at Budapest's Fringe Festival in the spring.
The excellent Hungarian percussion ensemble Amadinda will celebrate its 10th anniversary at this year's Budapest Autumn Festival.
