Government-linked producer appointed to revive bankrupt historical film project

Some of the crew working on the upcoming government-funded film 1242: Gateway to the West have been waiting for their money since February 2023. Although the massive production received 2.5 billion HUF in public funding, it has not yet been finished. The film may eventually be finished however as the favorite producer of the regime recently became the owner of the project company.

The historical epic about the Mongol invasion of Hungary 1242: Gateway to the West has been a troubled production. The scale of the film is supposed to be massive, with thousands of extras and crew members, whose wages were subsidized by 2.5 billion HUFs of public funds. Despite this, the project company, Nyugat Kapujában Kft., has been withholding wages for years, facing a number of debt enforcement actions.

Despite that, somebody in government seems determined in to get the film premiered regardless of cost. Recently, producer Tamás Lajos, a long-time partner of the Orbán regime, has been appointed to lead the production company in an attempt to revive the project.

Vanishing funds

Production of the film started with the creation of a project company, whose sole purpose was to get the film finished. Things went sideways however a year into production: in March 2023, the company Nyugat Kapujában Kft. started to experience money problems, which led to it’s foreign backers (including British and Mongolian investors) leaving the project.

Producer Kornél Sipos said at the beginning of 2023 that the total budget of the film would be HUF 3.7 billion. According to Sipos, he came up with the idea during a trip to Mongolia and later met historian Borbála Obrusánszky, sister of Zsolt Obrusánszky, Antal Rogán’s father-in-law, and the Ambassador of Mongolia, who helped make the project a reality.

The National Film Institute (NFI) has supported the production from the beginning.

By 2023, over 2.5 billion HUFs of public money was allocated to the project, which nevertheless faced a funding shortfall, and failed to pay some crew members.

After the flight of the foreign investors, Dóra Farkas became the owner and director of the project company. Unpaid crew members breathed a sigh of relief, believing that the film was now on track: Dóra Farkas also has familial connections to Antal Rogán, Viktor Orbán’s right-hand-man – thus, her family presides over immense wealth and influence.

Despite the new, well-connected manager’s reassurances, some of the bills at Nyugat Kapujában Kft. have still not been settled. This put many people in a difficult situation, especially as public charges (e.g. VAT) had to be paid on the invoices. The situation is illustrated by the fact that in 2024, several people, including the director, initiated debt enforcement proceedings against the company, one of which is still pending according to the company database.

Another oligarch appears

On 14 March 2025, the project company changed hands again, with Dóra Farkas selling her stake to Tamás Lajos and Judit Takács. Takács, is a newcomer to the film industry: she was previously involved in magazine publishing and a recycling business. However, through her position on the board of New Establish Zrt.,

she is connected to Peter Schatz, a team member of Viktor Orbán’s chief adviser and campaign guru, Árpád Habony.

In 2015, Schatz became the owner and manager of the tabloid Ripost Média, and later became involved in foreign media investments aimed at increasing the Orbán government’s political influence in the Balkans.

Since the mid-2010s, Habony’s circle invested in the Slovenian company Nova24tv.si, which operated the Nova24TV channel – a medium closely linked to Janez Jansa, the former Slovenian prime minister who was on good terms with Viktor Orbán. In addition, Peter Schatz and a former public media executive acquired stakes in more than half a dozen media outlets in Northern Macedonia, through which they supported the party of former Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski, who had taken refuge in Hungary. In 2020, Northern Macedonian authorities charged Schatz with tax fraud, alleging that he had failed to declare €190,000 in income in his company CHS Invest Group, causing damage to the Northern Macedonian state of around €19,000.

Enter the government’s favourite producer

Besides Judit Takács, another new face in the project company is Tamás Lajos. Coincidentally, on the same day he acquired ownership of the company, Lajos received the Kossuth Prize, a prestigeous state medal awarded by the President of Hungary. The cinematographer, who is also a member of the Budapest University of Theatre and Film Arts board of trustees, is clearly well-liked in government circles, as he receives a lot of state funding for his films.

In 2020, during the SZFE crisis, the National Film Institute supported six productions produced by Lajos’ companies. The man, who now mainly works as a producer, is also responsible for Semmelweis, which received HUF 2.4 billion in state funding, and Blokád, a propagandistic film about the 1990 Hungarian fuel crisis and protest, which received HUF 1.5 billion.

Minister of Defence Kristóf Szalay-Bobrovniczky (k) and producer Tamás Lajos (b) at the press conference on the set of the Hungarian film drama about the military rescue operation in Kabul, at the Hungarian Defence Forces training base in Újdörögdi, on the day of the press opening of the filming, 9 October 2024. (Photo: MTI/Tamás Vasvári)

Tamás Lajos is also the producer of the action film Operation Kabul, which is being made with 2.8 billion NFI funding. The film, which is being shot in Zsámbék with the professional support of the Ministry of Defence, deals with the 2021 rescue operation in Kabul, during which Hungarian soldiers rescued 540 people from the Afghan capital.

Last year, the Media Services Support and Asset Management Fund (MTVA), which operates the public media, signed a HUF 1.3 billion co-production contract with one of Lajos’ companies to produce the film, entitled Operation Kabul. This is interesting because the man’s wife is Anita Altorjai, who was formerly President János Áder’s press chief, and since the summer of 2022, she has been the CEO of a state TV and radio company, Duna Médiaszolgáltató Zrt.

The emergence of Tamás Lajos in the Western Gate Ltd. may also give a boost to the film.

Production is so far behind schedule that the NFI has requested an extension of the deadline for its completion and screening. The planned premiere date has therefore been changed from June 2024 to June 2025, and the ‘0’ copy must be delivered by 30 April 2025.

In February this year, the Film Institute told HEOL that technical corrections are currently being made to the film’s “final cut. The filmmaker is in the process of incorporating the right quality and quantity of VFX sequences, final lighting, and final mixed sound for the sound effects”. How much extra funding they have to secure to achieve this remains to be seen.

In any case, the good news for crew members is that multiple sources have told us that everyone they owe will be paid by April 15, 2025. However, many remain skeptical after previous unfulfilled promises.