Happy New Year from PPM

New Year’s day may be just around the corner, but our work doesn’t stop. Particularly when it comes to informing you about a few of the traditions and superstitions that might not be so widely known or practiced outside of Central Europe. Note that other than the culinary recommendations, these are simply mentioned as traditions, and not practiced in earnest. Hungary is rooted in a deep and textured heritage, but still forward thinking.

New Year’s in Hungary also goes by the name Szilvester, like the cat, or the action-movie hero. It is not out of a love of American cartoons or Rambo, but because December 31 coincides with the name day of the boy’s name Sylvester. If you are named Szilvester, then you are quite lucky, and can become even luckier if you eat lentils, which are supposed to bring wealth, while eating pork is said to increase luck even more. Add stuffed cabbage and nothing can possibly go wrong. Fish, on the other hand, is avoided, as it might swim away, carrying your luck with it, and chickens are in danger of pecking away luck, so no fish and chips or Buffalo wings.

And speaking of luck, there is no shortage of superstitions that will make your upcoming year unstoppably fortunate or healthy. Even if you don’t believe in the power of superstition, we recommend trying a few, just to be on the safe side.

Laundry or sewing must not be done on New Year’s day, as bad luck is sure to follow. Doctors must not be sought out on the first day of the year, as it is thought to bring bad health. If the first visitor on New Year’s day is male, it heralds good luck, females bring the opposite.

And all that noise outside New Year’s night comes from people setting of firecrackers, which, while fun to do, also was once thought to scare away demons and evil spirits, which are neither healthy nor harbingers of good luck.

All this is great and useful knowledge, but somewhat redundant for Hungarians, because if you are in Budapest, you already know you are lucky.

PPM Film Services is a Budapest-based film company offering an inspiring and creative work atmosphere for its host of clients from around the world. Since our inception, our focus has been providing the best of the best in terms of local production resources, locations, cast and technical teams to ensure that whatever the production we’re charged to create, we do it with no compromise. To sign up for the PPM Hungary newsletter, have a look here.

 

 

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Szörffilm Catches a Wave

Sub-zero temperatures, impending snow storms, and winter holidays: what better time to have a peek into the lives of surfers in Hungary. OK, outside of the wave machines at Palintus and Gellért pools, there is no surfing in landlocked Hungary.  But be sure, there are Hungarian surfers. The 2014 documentary Sörffilm – ‘created by’ Károly Spáh and Milán Bernáth, and surfers Peiman Lotfi, András Ajtai, and Dávid Liptay,  follows three young Hungarian surf enthusiasts as they travel the world looking to ride the ‘barrel’ the term for that sweet spot where a wave folds over itself, creating a tube the surfer shoots through. From England to Indonesia, the optimistic young crew endures injury, parental derision, and money troubles in their quest. It’s a short, pleasing documentary, and  just the right temperature for a frigid winter’s day.

PPM Film Services is a Budapest-based film company offering an inspiring and creative work atmosphere for its host of clients from around the world. Since our inception, our focus has been providing the best of the best in terms of local production resources, locations, cast and technical teams to ensure that whatever the production we’re charged to create, we do it with no compromise. To sign up for the PPM Hungary newsletter, have a look here.

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Location Spotter: Klauzál Square Market Hall

Newly renovated Klauzál Square Market Hall reopened a few months back to much fanfare, and with good reason. Though it is one of the smaller of the Budapest  market halls, which are spread throughout the city, with one in each of the five central districts, it has a prominent spot in the heart of the Jewish quarter of central Budapest’s red-hot District VII.

The structure itself, which was built around 1900 on the site of a theater that burned down in 1847 (at that time Klauzál Square was known as Stephans Platz), has a whiff of a Parisian market, with a constellation of small shops selling delicacy and artisanal food items, along with the traditional farmers’ markets you can find in the other halls around the city. Designed by city planning authority architects József Kommer és Pál Klunzinger, the structure survived two world wars. These days you would never guess it was situated behind the walls of the Jewish ghetto during WWII, and  that there is a mass grave out front where victims of the Nazis were buried. But that’s Budapest, a city with modern outlook, and a lot of fraught history. Some bright, some dark, which is what makes film production in Budapest so exciting.

Have a look at the promotional video below, which features some nice aerial shots as well as interiors of the market undergoing its renovation. As a location in Budapest, Klauzál Square Market Hall has yet to be fully utilized.

PPM Film Services is a Budapest-based film company offering an inspiring and creative work atmosphere for its host of clients from around the world. Since our inception, our focus has been providing the best of the best in terms of local production resources, locations, cast and technical teams to ensure that whatever the production we’re charged to create, we do it with no compromise. To sign up for the PPM Hungary newsletter, have a look here.

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