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DISTRIBUTION Hungary

Koltai, Menzel and Salvadori going strong

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Hungarian films are enjoying the autumn season and reappearing at the head of the box office with the comedy drama Train Keeps a Rollin' [+see also:
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by Róbert Koltai. Together with his son Gábor P. Koltai, co-screenwriter and producer of the film for the company Filmsziget, the 63 year-old veteran actor-director has chosen a little Hungarian village nestled in the countryside as the film’s backdrop.

A train is derailed in the village, due to a disagreement between the stationmaster and his predecessor, who has been sacked. The train carries a precious relic, of great value to the Church and the State, and is accompanied by corrupt police officers whose encounter with the natives leads to various twists and turns in this screenplay co-written by the director and Krisztián Grecsó.

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Released in cinemas on October 18 by Budapest Film, Train immediately achieved the top spot in the weekly charts, grossing 16m forints during its first weekend and outstripping a host of American films.

National production is also pinning its hopes on Dolina by Zoltán Kamondi, distributed last Thursday by Hungarotop. Meanwhile, Overnight [+see also:
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by Ferenc Török, on screens since October 4, is enjoying quiet success (7.3m forints, Budapest Film).

As for non-national European cinema, two films are performing excellently and are still in the top 20: Czech title I Served the King of England [+see also:
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by Jiri Menzel (28.2m forints grossed, on release since September 6 by Budapest Film) and French director Pierre Salvadori’s Priceless [+see also:
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, which has delighted its distributor Best Hollywood for its long-running success (18m forints since September 20).

In the past couple of months, Cirko Film - Másképp Alapítvány has offered Hungarian audiences Flanders [+see also:
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by Bruno Dumont (October 18), Martial Fougeron’s My Son [+see also:
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(August 30), The Way I Spent the End of the World [+see also:
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by Romanian director Catalin Mitulescu and, as of last Thursday, Prague [+see also:
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by Danish director Ole Christian Madsen.

On October 11 SPI International launched Four Minutes [+see also:
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by German director Chris Kraus, and on August 30 Best Hollywood released Rent a Wife [+see also:
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by Eric Lartigau.

European films continue to assert their presence in cinemas with last Thursday’s release of Schnitzel Paradise [+see also:
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interview: Martin Khoolhoven
interview: Mimoun Oaïssa
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by Dutch director Martin Koolhoven (distributed by Lemming Film, see Focus).

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(Translated from French)

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