28/11/2024 - The distributor spoke about his firm’s business model, some of its successful campaigns and the peculiarities of the Hungarian market, among other topics

For our November Distributor of the Month interview, we chatted to Gábor Böszörményi, managing director of Hungary’s Mozinet. During our chat, we touched on the company’s editorial policy, the latest market shifts and the challenges of distributing independent cinema in Hungary, among other topics.

Cineuropa: How would you describe your business model and editorial policy? How have they changed over the years?
Gábor Böszörményi: Our business model and editorial policy have remained the same in recent years. We’re a theatrical distributor, acquiring films with all rights and releasing 15-20 titles a year, mostly festival winners. Half of our line-up comes from European countries outside Hungary; we have three or four Hungarian films annually, and three or four independent US and Asian films. I must say this hasn’t changed much compared to pre-COVID times. We still try to buy films that we ourselves enjoy, and our business model is based on cross-financing. We might lose tens of thousands of euros on one release, but other films make money, and at the end of the year, we are in the profit zone – although, of course, we need support from Creative Europe to achieve this.

What differentiates us from most competitors is our strong brand. Our line-up is probably more consistent than others: 90% of our films target a similar audience, and we put a lot of effort into building Mozinet as a brand known to arthouse cinema-goers. This is the 14th time we’re organising Mozinet Film Days, a crossover between a film festival, a distribution platform and a film club: held in 14 different cities, it showcases our upcoming films, accompanied by Q&As, debates and other special events. We started our podcast on YouTube a year-and-a-half ago, with new episodes every week. The podcast highlights the importance of our films, and our guests discuss not the films themselves, but their social, political and psychological context. Our aim with the podcast is to show that our films tackle relevant and important issues, and the audience will learn something about the world or themselves after watching them.

How has the split of income changed between theatrical and other sources of revenue over the last few years?
Theatrical is about 40%, TV is 25%, VoD is 10%, and subsidies make up 25% of our revenue. TV and VoD have increased, partly due to the growing number of Hungarian films that HBO and Netflix are more eager to buy. Additionally, our sister company, managed by Ajándok Gyenis, head of distribution at Mozinet, launched Cinego, Hungary’s only streaming platform focusing on arthouse films.

Which audience segments do you work with the most, and which ones do you struggle to attract? Could you touch on some of your most successful campaigns?
We always struggle with the fact that Hungarian and European films don’t attract enough viewers. Hollywood’s dominance is overwhelming; the latest statistics show that around 90% of all tickets were for US films. However, there is a slight shift afoot; we are witnessing the rise of Hungarian independent films. While the state spends most of its budget on period dramas, many talented directors, who don’t receive support, have started creating low-budget films based on the realities around us, and it seems the audience is receptive. Last year, Gábor Reisz’s Explanation for Everything [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gábor Reisz
film profile] [distributed by Cirko Film] reached more than 90,000 admissions. Now, we’re seeing great success with Bálint Szimler’s Lesson Learned [+see also:
film review
interview: Bálint Szimler
film profile], which sold more than 100,000 tickets in eight weeks, and Attila Till’s But What About Tomi?, which racked up 20,000 admissions in three weeks. These are all arthouse dramas about our society, and they’ve surpassed the admissions of most Hungarian comedies released in recent years. For both films, we ran campaigns with social impact. Lesson Learned sparked discussions about issues in the educational system, and celebrities have spoken about their relationships with alcohol in our videos for But What About Tomi?, which centres on AA-meeting members trying to stay sober. We produced several campaign videos, some focusing on the importance of the films, others on their aesthetic values and humour.

Our success with Smoke Sauna Sisterhood [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Anna Hints
film profile] also shows that the Hungarian audience is more open to films about taboos and social issues. Through a special campaign that included a retreat for female opinion leaders – after which many shared posts about the film and their experience – we reached 12,000 admissions, more than with more commercial films like Dream Scenario or A Difficult Year [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Olivier Nakache and Eric To…
film profile]. Of course, PR and social-media campaigns are vital for these movies, and with our marketing, we aim to organise events and create content that makes the pictures interesting for the press and online users.

Are festivals still important?
Festivals act as pre-selectors; we mostly release films we find in the programmes of major festivals. For the audience, they aren’t as important, except when we release a Hungarian film. The awards that Lesson Learned won at Locarno, for example, provided a significant boost for our campaign. The Oscars are a huge selling point for Hungarian audiences. Parasite only had 20,000 admissions before it won the Oscar, but it sold an additional 40,000 tickets in the weeks after the ceremony, before cinemas closed owing to COVID-19.

Hungarian festivals are important to us as well, as building word of mouth is crucial. That’s why we started our own festival, Mozinet Film Days, 15 years ago. We also collaborate with Cinefest, Verzió, Mittelcinemafest, the Francophone Film Days and the recently launched Budapest International Film Festival (BIFF). Events are important; we strive to make our pre-screenings special by inviting talent, organising debates or holding lectures related to the films. We record most of these Q&As and upload them to our YouTube and Spotify channels. Our social-media channels are constantly in need of fresh content.