EXCLUSIVE: Hungarian filmmaker Viktor Oszkár Nagy’s pan-European period comedy Espionage For Beginners, about a hotel receptionist who becomes a key figure in a Cold War military operation, has started filming in Budapest.
It is produced by Istvan Major of Hungary’s Filmsquad with Belgium’s Wrong Men and Spain’s Javier Toledo. Executive producer is Guillaume Benski of France’s Superbe Films, whose credits include Mrs Harris Goes To Paris, which also shot in Budapest.
Benett Vilmányi stars as the receptionist in the French and Hungarian-language film alongside Daphne Patakia, Thibault de Montalembert, Julie Gayet, Renan Pacheco and Zsolt Nagy.
Backing comes from the National Film Institute of Hungary and Creative Europe Media’s development mini-slate programme. Shooting began on May 27 in Budapest and Balaton before heading to Belgium, and will wrap in July.
FilmSquad has previously produced several international films that shot in Budapest including Mikael Hafstrom’s Slingshot, starring Casey Affleck, Emily Beecham and Laurence Fishburne, and James Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg starring Russell Crowe and Rami Malek.
Nagy, who wrote the script with Norbert Csala, said he is aiming to “blend Central European cinematic traditions with the contemporary French comedy style.
“Using humour, it revisits and softens the historical traumas of our recent past told from the perspective of the ordinary man, who is drawn into the twists and turns of a Cold War spy story through his own dreams and ambitions.”
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