British group on Hungarian film

Press, 20 December 1986, Page 6

British group on Hungarian film

Reuter Budapest The self-styled Hungarian capitalist, Laszlo Hegedus, has unveiled his latest extravaganza — a spectacular film of the rock band, Queen, playing in Budapest. The SUSI.!> million (S 3 million) movie, shot when the flamboyant British group played to a packed soccer stadium last July, has received its world premiere in the Hungarian capital. Entitled “Magic —- Queen in Budapest,” the movie is the latest project by Mr Hegedus who has brought some of the world’s leading rock acts to Communist Hungary. Speaking at the gala showing at the Budapest Congress Centre, Mr Hegedus told Reuters, “This could make a breakthrough for the Hungarian film industry internationally.” About 72,000 fans

packed the Nepstadion last summer to watch Queen

Many leading foreign acts have visited Budapest in recent years since the Communist authorities relaxed controls on Western rock music. But Queen drew one of the biggest crowds seen since the American jazz king, Louis Armstrong, in the 19605. Mr Hegedus hopes the film will gross $5O to $lOO million for its backers, which include his own Multimedia firm, Queen’s film, company, and two Hungarian cinema enterprises.

Mr Hegedus, aged 38, who jets between his homes in Athens and West Berlin and his office on the tax-haven Channel Island of Guernsey, has used Hungary’s economic reforms to the full to become a Western-style capitalist.