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The Hungarian film industry is booming, with a record 241 domestic productions — including feature films, shorts, documentaries and TV series — produced in 2021. Here’s a selection of top projects in the pipeline or being sold during the Cannes Market:

As Long as the Grass Grows

Director: Áron Gauder

Producer: Réka Temple (Cinemon Entertainment)

Annecy main prize winner Gauder (“The District”) spins an alternative creation myth, in which mankind is but one of many creatures in the animal kingdom, and offers a hopeful story that it’s not too late to correct course and save the planet.

Blockade

Director: Ádám Tősér

Producer: Tamás Lajos (Film Positive Productions)

Based on the true story of the country’s first democratically elected prime minister, the film follows József Antall’s journey from a freedom fighter during the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 to the infamous 1990 taxi blockade that shook the nation.

Sales: Nfi World Sales

The Game...

Drama series from the UK, Belgium and Austria among development line-up.

Italy’s TorinoFilmLab (Tfl) has unveiled the nine projects selected for its upcoming TV development platform SeriesLab, including a new period thriller from the Riahi brothers.

The industry programme, which mentors European scriptwriters, directors and producers, selected this year’s cohort from 125 projects. A total of 10 European countries are represented across the nine projects, which are brought by 12 female participants and eight men.

The titles include 30 Bullets by Iranian-born, Austrian-based filmmakers Arash T. Riahi and Arman T.Riahi. Set in the 1990s, the drama series is described as “the...

For the first time ever, two Hungarian films are competing for the Berlinale’s Golden Bear: “Forest – I See You Everywhere,” a standalone sequel to the 2003 Berlinale hit “Forest,” from veteran auteur Bence Fliegauf, and “Natural Light” from feature debutant Dénes Nagy. Csaba Káel, chairman of the National Film Institute of Hungary (Nfi), says, “I believe it demonstrates the vitality and strength of the Hungarian industry flourishing despite the unprecedented circumstances caused by the pandemic worldwide.”

The two films represent opposite poles of current Hungarian filmmaking. Brimming with discourse, the independently funded “Forest” tells multiple complex, engaging stories of contemporary life in Hungary. And as he did in his Berlinale-winner “Just the Wind” (2012), Fliegauf creates deep empathy for his characters who deliver standout performances.

On the other hand, “Natural Light,” with its minimal dialogue, harks back to an older tradition in Hungarian cinema where stunning cinematography leads the other formal elements.

Potential awards season contenders Truth from James Vanderbilt and Marc Abraham’s I Saw The Light starring Tom Hiddleston as Hank Williams land world premiere slots, while Paco Cabezas’s Mr. Right will close the festival.

London is the subject of the seventh annual City To City programme that features world premieres of Tom Geens’ Couple In A Hole starring Paul Higgins and Kate Dickie and Michael Caton-Jones’ Urban Hymn with Letitia Wright and Shirley Henderson. Elaine Constantine’s Northern Soul gets a North American premiere.

The world premiere of Catherine Hardwicke’s Miss You Already is among five additions to the galas alongside Mr. Right, an action comedy starring Sam Rockwell and Anna Kendrick.

Matthew Cullen’s Martin Amis adaptation London Fields and David Gordon Green’s Our Brand Is Crisis get first public screenings in the Special Presentations roster with I Saw The Light.

Tiff top brass also unveiled the Contemporary World Cinema section, featuring...