Still from Belá Tarr's The Turin Horse (2011)

At the same time as Hungary takes the rotating presidency of the European Union, it is implementing a potentially oppressive organization over its media. As a special edition of Hyperion Art Journal reports:

On December 21, 2010, parliamentarians in Budapest approved a contentious new media law that would give unilateral power over all media sources to a state regulatory body, the National Media and Communications Authority’s (NMHH) Médiatanács (Media Council of the Hungarian Media Regulatory Office). NMHH is largely composed of figures loyal to the Hungarian ruling Fidesz party, a major right-wing national conservative political party whose president is Victor Orbán. Médiatanács will oversee all public and private media bodies, including national broadcasters and the Hungarian news agency MTI. Editorial content will be overseen and monitored and all media outlets are expected to provide “balanced coverage.” Whatever Médiatanács does not deem appropriate journalistic conduct may be censored. The media law enables Médiatanács to levy fines against all media sources convicted in libel cases. In addition, it can suspend or revoke the licenses of any media entity in cases of repeated infringements, and it has the authority to compel journalists to reveal their sources.

Hyperion goes on to note that this new effort to control information in Hungary is not limited to news media, but extends to investigations into the alleged misuse of government funds by Hungarian scientists and philosophers such as Ágnes Heller, Mihály Vajda and literary scholar Sándor Radnóti.

Last week Hungarian filmmaker Belá Tarr (whose latest and perhaps last film, The Turin Horse, is just entering the festival circuit at the Berlin Film Festival) issued a declaration protest, in part aimed at the recent consolidation of the Hungarian film industry under a government overseer, the American producer Andrew G. Vajna. International filmmakers co-signing the declaration include Gus van Sant, Alfonso Cuaron, Michael Haneke, Olivier Assayas, Cristian Mungiu, Andrzej Wajda and Tilda Swinton:

Previously, the Hungarian film industry was a democratic, self-governing structure. Now, it is to be overseen by one person, Andrew G. Vajna, famed for producing such significant and estimable narcotics as the Rambo series and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. As reported by the international newspaper France 24, “Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s right-wing government named Hungarian-born U.S. producer Andrew G. Vajna […] as government commissioner in charge of reforming the film industry.” After this decision was made in January 2011, Béla Tarr wrote a declaration protest and, in cooperation with numerous other filmmakers, sent it to the Hungarian news agency MTI. It appeared to the general public on Monday, February 7, in Népszabadság, one of the main daily Hungarian newspapers. (Hyperion received the text through private correspondence.) In his protest declaration, Tarr asserts that culture is a basic human right and emphasizes the significance and singularity of Hungarian films, which use their own “autonomous artistic language” to “inform the world” about their country and its fate. Opposing this autocratic rule and reformation of the film industry were numerous other directors and artists, all of whom expressed their fidelity to and solidarity with what Tarr called in his declaration “the survival of the polyphony of Hungarian film!”

Hyperion draws parallels to the current situation of proposed government funding cuts here in the United States. “[The Republican Study Committee's] plan to reduce spending by $2.5 trillion dollars in the next 10 years includes but is not limited to eliminating in its entirety all funding to PBS (Public Broadcasting System), the NEA (National Endowment for the Arts), and the NEH (National Endowment for the Humanities). Even though few of us in the arts depend on grants from such institutions, what is evident here is that art and education are not part of ‘the American Dream’ for the Republican Study Committee, and that concerns everyone. If no one is being silenced here as artists may be in Hungary and as Jafar Panahi and others are in Iran, there is an echo of such oppressive forces. And Orbán’s regime is making cuts quite similar to those that the Republican Study Committee wish to make here in America. Slated for termination include nearly 40 different foundations, including one for assisting the homeless, the Foundation for the Gypsies of Hungary, the Gandhi Foundation, established to educate the Roma, and the foundation for the collection of classic Hungarian films. Social, educational, and artistic elements are all then under fire.”

Hungary of course is not America (nor is it Egypt, though I will be interested to see how enthusiastic a military regime will be to institute democratic reforms, especially since the ouster of Hosni Mubarak did not oust the economic and social malaise that led to the original protests; but I suppose anything is possible). But this swing back from the enthusiastic embrace of democratic reforms and free speech in Central and Eastern Europe, which began with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, to more centralized administration of the media and the arts only 22 years later is a troubling sign of the times.

Hyperion continues to post updates to the situation as events warrant here.