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Hungary was represented in the competition at Cannes with Kornél Mundruczó's Delta in 2008, a year after Béla Tarr's latest film, The Man From London, competed.
Each year, the Hungarian Film Union lobbies to bring as many Hungarian films as possible to the twelve so-called "A category" festivals around the world, says the union's managing director Éva Vezér.
At the "festival of festivals" in Cannes, Mundruczó's Delta was honoured with the film critics' FIPRESCI prize. Benedek Fliegauf won the Krzysztof Kieslowski prize for best screenplay from Central and Eastern Europe for the script for his film Womb. Dániel Erdélyi's 411-Z and Géza M. Toth's Ergo competed in the shorts section.
Csaba Bollók's film Iska's Journey, about how a young Transylvanian girl deals with poverty and loss, was shown at 36 festivals and took home six trophies.
The Investigator, Attila Gigor's first feature film, competed at 16 festivals and took six prizes, including the FIPRESCI prize in Warsaw.
Delta has won four prizes after competing at 37 festivals.
László Jeles Nemes's short Patience competed at 43 festivals and took home 19 prizes in 2008.
A documentary by Márton Szirmai was in competition at 16 festivals and took four prizes. Another documentary by Gyula Nemes took first prize in the shorts category in Karlovy Vary.
Alexei Alexeev's animated short KJFG No. 5 showed at 36 festivals and took 22 prizes.
The Academy Award-winning director István Szabó received lifetime achievement awards in Baden, New York and Bratislava in 2008.
The media artist Péter Forgács was presented a "Freedom of Expression" prize in San Francisco in July.
Hungarian films won eight audience prizes at international film festivals in 2008.
Photo: Hungarian News Agency (MTI)
