Pongrácz Erzsébet: The Cinemas of Budapest - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1998)

It was also here that Budapest’s first video-cinema was organised in a smaller chamber in 1983. The elegant central theatre has been the main venue of Magyar Játékfilm Szemle (Hungarian Film Festival) and has seen innumerable premieres over many years.

For the past several years the hotel has been closed, pending restoration. In view of the cinema’s glamorous interior and the noise of the elegant crowds, the rather bleak area between the two wings of the building was easily overlooked until the cinema itself was permanently closed down in late 1997.

Bástya (1921)

8 Erzsébet körút, district VII

Hardly had Hungarian film making got under way when the actors, cinematographers, projectionists and fans of the celebrities selected their own small café where they could engage in innocent gossip or spiteful verbal exchanges. This establishment was the Carmen Café at the corner of Erzsébet körút and Dohány utca. In 1921, this popular and famous filmmakers’ local was turned into a spacious, beautiful cinema. Then in early 1925, in the words of a rapturous reporter of Az Est Hármaskönyve, “architect József Galambos presented a daring idea to the director of Iris Films, Dr. Márton Libertyni, who was looking for a premiere cinema in a frequented spot of Budapest. On the basis of the architect’s suggestion the im17