Movie Notes (II): Hungarian Film Hopeful Fading to Black

In other movie news, we hear through the media grapevine that once up-and-coming Hungarian film independent IMA (or Polar Light - its minty-fresh new name, not yet with a web presence) is fast becoming a down-and-out film dependent. IMA was for several years the only indie Hungarian firm attending international film and TV fairs at Cannes and Milan, selling such masterpieces of Magyar mozi kultúra as "Europa Express" and "Bridge Man" to desperate insomniacs in the Far-Eastern cable-TV market. Now it may play a less stellar role in the Magyar media market, as the first non-state-subsidized Hungarian film company to fail.

Amid tales of secretarial staff having to beg for their back wages, apparently even lawyer-weary local media firms are now talking about dragging IMA/Polar Light and its proprietor, Tom Boka, into bankruptcy court, doubtless a tedious and tiresome procedure even by the standards of Hungarian law. Boka could not be reached for comment, despite numerous nagging phone calls by our correspondent.

It seems that IMA's strategy of shedding its former business focus in pornography and emerging reborn as squeaky-clean Polar Light did a bit too much shedding and not quite enough emerging. The "go-clean" strategy, which included Polar distancing itself from formerly close business associates like Princess Productions of Milan, is turning out to be what management types would call a classic case of a firm abandoning its core competency - and finding it isn't competent at anything else.

UPDATE: Please note that the correspondent who made the numerous nagging phone calls mentioned above, contributing editor Mark Griffith, was previously affiliated with the company that is the subject of this piece. While we stand by Mark and his article, we apologize to IMA and our readers for not pointing this out earlier.