Work title: Budapest Rose
Country: Hungary, UK, Germany, Canada/USA
Language: English
Genre: Drama, Romance, War
Production Budget: app. 20 mio. EUR
Runtime: app. 110 min
Format: S35 mm
Filming planned for: March 2007- July 2007.
Filming Locations: Budapest (Hungary)
hungarian countryside
Canada/USA
Produced by: János Szani
Executive Producers: Tamás Dér, Michael Frenschkowski
Production Company: Sunny Film
Co-Producers: Grand Hotel Pictures GmbH, Berlin, Germany
UK Partner (in negotiations)
Canadian/US Partner (in negotiations)
Director: to be found
Writer: Louis Nowra


János Szani

Feature films
Budapest Rose (2006) Producer
Beast of Bataan (2006) Co-Producer
Prisoners of the Sun (2006) Co-Producer

TV
First Generation - Tv series (10)- Producer

Tamás Dér

Feature films
Budapest Rose (2006) Executive Producer

Commercials
Synthetic Design Ltd.- Computer animation producer (20 short animation films)
Advertising spots
Videoton Tv- advertising spot- Producer
Hertz- advertising spot- Producer
Pizza Hut Producer
Ringier Hungary Producer

Tv shows
Rock City - Tv show (52)- Producer
Show City - Tv show (156)- Producer

Other
Duna Television Creative Director

Michael Frenschkowski

Feature Films
Budapest Rose (2006) Executive Producer
Eichmann (03/06) Producer
Sleeping Beauties Producer
Merry Christmas LP/Service Producer
Modigliani LP
Paradise Found Production Supervisor
Investigating Sex PM/Service Producer
Shoes from America Producer

TV
Hamburg Cell Co-Producer
Entrusted LP/Service Producer
Time of the Wolves Production Executive Europe
Touching Wild Horses Production Executive Europe
Cybermutt Production Executive Europe
Das Amt in Berlin PM/Service Producer
Und Tschüss PM

and various Commercials/Image Films as Producer

Grand Hotel Pictures GmbH

Grand Hotel Pictures is a Berlin and Munich based production company, recently new structured and is represented now by the well known german actor and director Ken Duken, the director Bern Katzmarczyk and the producers Michael Frenschkowski and Norbert Kneissl. The main fields of atcivitiy are international Coproductions. Through the Munich office Grand Hotel Pictures produces image films and music videos.

József Cirkó - Line Producer/Service Producer Hungary (Happy Crew)

Feature Film
Mix Executive Producer
M. Butterfly Production Manager

TV
A Time for Márai (TV documentary) - Executive Producer
The Lion in Winter (TV movie) - Production Executive
Dinotopia: The Series (TV series) - Unit Production Manager
The Prince and the Pauper (TV movie) - Executive In Charge Of Production, Production manager
In the Beginning (TV mini-series) - Production Manager
Mary, Mother of Jesus (TV movie) - Production Manager
A Knight in Camelot (TV movie) - Production Manager (Hungary)
Crime and Punishment (TV movie) - Production Manager
When Trumpets Fade (TV movie) - Production Manager
The Hunchback (TV movie) - Production Manager
Rasputin (TV movie) - Production Manager (Budapest)
Citizen X (TV movie) - Production Manager
The Josephine Baker Story (TV movie) - Unit Manager
Max and Helen (TV movie) - Unit Manager


Louis Nowra

Budapest Rose
Venetian Wedding
K-19: The Widowmaker
Black and White
Radiance (and Associate Producer)
The MatchMaker Heaven's Burning
Cosi (also play)
Map of the Human Heart The Everlasting Secret Family (and Shop Assistant)

TV
The Last Resort (TV series) (and creator)
Hunger
Displaced Persons



"When war ends fighting continues in the people's soul. Where the losers compensate their lost dignity with pride and where they can only find solace for their grievances in undying hatred; there patriotism turns into nationalism and generations are haunted by the shadows of the past..."

The film Budapest Rose is a spectacular, exciting and extraordinary gangster movie, taking place during the Second World War. It's a story about the strength of love, the futility of hatred and the moral rise of a gangster. The glamorous world of the Budapest Rose nightclub unfolds in the background, blending the most spectacular elements of American and European show business. The blending of cultures and the exotic cacophony reflects the apocalyptic atmosphere of war.

The story opens in New York in 1946. SYLVIA, the narrator of the film, the former singer of the Budapest Rose is now the star of Broadway. She finds a special bunch of roses in her dressing room, which triggers her memories to surface:

After the end of the First World War Hungary lost two thirds of its territories, which led to serious conflicts. In 1920 Serb nationalists massacre some fifty defenceless Hungarian refugees on the new Hungarian-Yugoslavian border, on the estate of Count SZENTIRMAY, who's organising their escape. The sole survivor is ATTILA, then 17. He sees his father and brother felled by the Serbs.

ATTILA emigrates to the United States and in 1938 he's already a well-off, hard-handed gangster living in Chicago. A rival gang frames and jails him, but ATTILA's friend and partner MINKOWSKI sets up a daring rescue that springs ATTILA. The two outlaws can no longer remain in America. They travel to Budapest where, going by false names, they start a new life.

ATTILA puts to use what he learned on the mean streets of Chicago and soon becomes the king of the Hungarian underworld obtaining influence and great wealth. His friendship is sought by businessmen and politicians though he takes no sides in the politics of right versus left. He's only interested in business. His life-long passion is to own a glamorous venue and he soon opens the Budapest Rose one of the finest nightclubs in Europe.

Before the Second World War laws restricted the rights of Hungary's Jews. The widowed SZENTIRMAY is one of the supporters of the anti-Jewish laws. The Count, once a respected and kind-hearted patriot, has been transformed by his nation's and his own family's tragedy, into a right-wing nationalist. He tries to infuse his adopted son PETER, who serves with the Danube Flotilla, with this ideology. His father rising to a ministerial position thanks to his political identity and thus becoming a principal in the deportation of Hungary's Jews troubles the warm-hearted PETER.

The meteoric rise of ATTILA catches SZENTIRMAY's attention. Something about the "businessman" from Chicago is familiar to the old Count, and he orders his men to collect information about ATTILA.

ATTILA makes friends with PETER first out of interest then sincerely. PETER asks him to help his girlfriend, SYLVIA in her singing career. The radiance of the beautiful SYLVIA deeply affects the womaniser ATTILA. The two of them fall in love and PETER is devastated.

PETER has lost his love, his friend and his conflict with his father deepens when the count drives away PETER's nurse, whom he loved as a mother, because of her Jewish origins. The events change PETER's personality. Going by his heart he begins to organise the rescue of Jews. He turns to the influential ATTILA for help, who sees the plan as a business opportunity. The former friends, turned rivals make forced peace and with different motivations begin to organise the rescue.

SYLVIA's preparing for the show ATTILA puts on for her sake. She doesn't suspect that the spectacular show is important for other reasons as well. ATTILA wants to engage the Nazis for the duration of the rescue. Despite all precautions SZENTIRMAY learns about the plan, but he doesn't know that PETER is involved in it too. Meanwhile the count's investigation about ATTILA succeeds and he realises why was the "American" familiar to him.

ATTILA doesn't understand why the count wants to destroy him. He's planning to divert the count from his intention using his own means, when he learns to his surprise that they have a score to settle since 1920. SZENTIRMAY himself risked everything to rescue the refugees, and he's suspected ever since that someone betrayed them. ATTILA doesn't deny the accusation. He was a young and na?ve teenager, who made a secret deal with the Serbs to save his family, but the Serbs violated their agreement. SZENTIRMAY tells him also that there was another survivor of the attack. As they recall the events ATTILA realises in astonishment that the survivor, PETER, the count's adopted son is none other than his brother, who he believed to have died that night 24 years ago. MINKOWSKI is about to pull the trigger, but ATTILA pardons the count.

SZENTIRMAY learns from ATTILA that PETER is with the refugees. He's forced to choose between his son and his ideology. He gives the order to attack, thus condemning his son to death, sacrificing him to the nationalist ideology. The old count is utterly crushed under the weight of his decision. ATTILA, however, realises his opportunity to rid himself of the burden he's been carrying since he was seventeen and haunted by the shadows of the past he sets off to save PETER's and the refugees' lives.

On SZENTIRMAY's order a commando forces the refugees to a halt. They seem to have no chance to survive the rain of bullets, when suddenly unexpected help arrives. ATTILA and his men dauntlessly throw themselves into battle. ATTILA's self-sacrifice brings forth victory and the way is cleared for the refugees. PETER is at a loss when faced with ATTILA's action, but MINKOWSKI explains it to him: he was your brother.

After the war PETER wants to see SYLVIA one more time; he sends her the same bunch of flowers he used to when they were lovers.


ATTILA

His character is fundamentally determined by the events he experienced when he was seventeen years old. He is already an independent individual at this age, who doesn't listen to the opinion of others and doesn't expect others to solve his problems, but he takes immediate action himself. At the age of seventeen he feels that his family is in danger, and this is why he accepts the Serbs' offer. It turns out that he had made a mistake, and the tragedy that follows turns into a heavy burden he will carry all his life. A determinant element of his character is that he must carry his cross until his soul finds satisfaction. He prepares for a life of survival. It is almost imprinted on his brain that he cannot ever make another mistake, that he can only rely on himself and he has to face the consequences of his decisions. He has to remain standing with the whole world against him. As an adult he doesn't allow people to get close to him easily. He becomes an introverted character, a sort of archetype of the lonely hero, who is in contact with others, but in no way depends on them.
It is only SYLVIA who is able to somewhat melt the icy shell that envelops his soul. This, however, doesn't mean that he is in love with the singer. Essentially, SYLVIA gets more of his "everyday self" than anybody else, but it still isn't a intimate relationship. This is most clearly manifest, when following the end-of-the-film psychological transformation he's able to leave her without any regrets. His relationship with PETER is far more complicated than it might seem at first. Although he likes PETER (the subconscious determination of the blood relationship), he doesn't feel any guilt whatsoever, when he "takes away" from him the woman he loves. He simply wants SYLVIA, and he gets her for himself like a commodity. PETER' idea of the rescue operation doesn't touch his soul either. His willingness to help isn't morally motivated (due to SYLVIA or his conscience), but that he sees a business opportunity in the project. He regards PETER as a nice and kind lad, and he makes use of his services as much as he can to realise his business ideas. He lets him slightly closer than any other of his business partners, but he's far from regarding him as a friend. His relationship to Szentirmai is very easy to describe: he simply cannot comprehend why this man hates him. The moment when Szentirmai enlightens him is just as decisive as the events he experienced in Bácska when he was seventeen. It seems that Szentirmai's confession deletes the program, which has defined his behaviour so far, and switches on another, which commands him to save his brother, PETER' life by all means. From this moment this is only what matters to him and everything else, SYLVIA, business, Budapest Rose become secondary.

PETER (PETER)

He is an exceptionally kind-hearted man, whom Szentirmai hasn't managed to shape to his own image over the years. The socialisation process resulting from his foster father's character and social status couldn't delete the genetic code inside him, which, in his ideals and interpersonal patterns, places him much closer to ATTILA. He is fundamentally stubborn and headstrong and doesn't like to be bossed around by others. These forms of conduct are more characteristic of ATTILA than of Szentirmai. He bears a likeness to his brother, which provides a perfect base for the very end of the film, where he takes over ATTILA's role (continues what ATTILA represented) and we feel and know that he will successfully carry the task through. All this derives from him being an extraordinarily talented man. He continuously makes us (and his environment) feel that if he were to build a career in a field other than the military profession, he would succeed just the same. He only chose the army out of respect for Szentirmai. He is a very proud and honest man, who, contrary to his father, doesn't want to cross certain moral and ethical boundaries. When he learns that ATTILA has been asking money from the refugees, he takes it as an assault on his person. The love affair he is able to forgive both SYLVIA and ATTILA, but he cannot forgive ATTILA for his dealings with the refugees. His world has fallen apart overnight. At this point he gets even with ATTILA, a determinant element of his past, and he bravely says his opinion face to face. This moment coincides with his final break with SYLVIA; everything connected to ATTILA has been judged and found cheap. PETER leaves the lives of these two people so that he never wishes to look back on them again. Feeling morally cleansed he gets on board the barge together with Eszter. The final break with his father is last push for him to make this decision. There is nothing left to keep him from starting a new life; he lost the woman he loved, his honour was besmirched and thanks to Szentirmai's confession he has realised that he doesn't belong anywhere. The man he loved, respected and believed to be his father is in reality a stranger and overnight he becomes as homeless as the refugees.
His relationship with ATTILA is slightly one-sided. He doesn't manage to get closer to the owner of the Budapest Rose than anybody else, but he really likes him and deep in his heart he feels their commonality, the origin of which he understands by the end of the film. He loves he feels for SYLVIA is honest and pure. It isn't blind love, but he would still be ready to give up his military career should SYLVIA ask him to do so. The rescue mission he regards as an act of conscience, his motivation born out of Eszter's sorrowful fate. He is terribly sorry for the girl, but there's also a subconscious thought that motivates him too: life has given him an opportunity to prove his faith in the values, which are going break the bars of the mentality forced on him by Szentirmai.

SYLVIA

SYLVIA, the leading female character of our film is like a rose amongst thorns. Within a few years' time she evolves, in front of our eyes, from a grey and insignificant nightclub singer, into one of the greatest stars of show business. She's a real vamp oozing sheer eroticism, who easily twists men around her little finger. As for her artistic qualities she is an incredibly talented person. She is pushing forward with undiminished energy towards establishing herself and becoming a star by way of countless self-denial and hard work. She loves PETER, but it's clear that in the long term she doesn't imagine her future beside such a man. The values represented by PETER (marriage, family) don't yet motivate her and she feels that these only raise obstacles to her career. ATTILA's appearance is a turning point in her life. She's attracted to the man right from the start, but she doesn't want to leave PETER. Initially she firmly resists the siege. After a while she begins to wear away between the two men and arrives to the point, when she must decide whether to listen to her heart or her mind. As a consequence of a wrong decision - she later regards it - she chooses ATTILA and - as a means of self-exemption - convinces herself that her decision was directed by common sense. However, this doesn't confirm to the facts completely. SYLVIA "kids herself" when she regards it legitimate, that the possibility of the career guaranteed by ATTILA "overrides" her heart's feelings. Her cheating on herself could be interpreted as follows: she doesn't dare accept the fact that the reason for her being instinctively drawn towards the alpha male out of the two men in her life, is that she cannot deny her desires. This moment sees the beginning of, her personal tragedy, which, despite her brilliant, soaring career, will lead to her ultimate fall and everlasting unhappiness. Soon SYLVIA has to realise that in reality nobody can get close to ATTILA, the man who is none but a mask of flesh and blood. He's full of heavy and dark secrets and he only reveals an insignificant segment of his life and thoughts, and doesn't even open up to the one who is closest to him. As the narrator of the film, SYLVIA is the one, who will articulate the most fundamental question about ATTILA: to what extent do our past actions define us and our attitudes towards life and people?
As the narrator of our film, in possession of all the small details, she is observing and commenting on the events from an elevated perspective. She is fundamentally the focal point of the events, like a diamond bearing, around which turn the heavy metal doors of strong rooms. In the final scene of the film we learn that her dreams have come true. She has become a bright star of Broadway; she's surrounded with triumph and splendour. But this is an unapproachable, cold-hearted prima donna, a lonely star. And when the star starts to fall, no one who meant anything to her in her life will stand by her.

SZENTIRMAY

An old fashioned aristocrat, whose bigoted upbringing determines each and every of his manifestations. From the first moment in his life he was told how to hold his hand, his head, how to gesticulate, how to talk, how to relate to people, who is good and who is bad, what are the social relations, how society ought to be constructed, so that he could take his worthy place in it. He's a conservative man. He doesn't favour anything new and he despises change, which he regards as something that rocks the social structure in its basis. A determinant element of this thinking, originating in his aristocratic blood, is nationalism, which due to his morbid blindness turns into anti-Semitism that gradually gets stronger and stronger. He considers the communists and the Jews as the greatest enemies of society, and holds them responsible for Hungary's tragedy of destiny, which followed the First World War. He's a talented man, one of the few Hungarian aristocrats, who managed to circulate his wealth so that he didn't become indebted or declassed. He feels a fundamental dislike towards the ambitious "businessmen", but by the early 1940s his negative mentality is mostly targeted at the Jews. He's trying to realise his ideals on the political platform. Thanks to his basic worldview he irrevocably steers towards the far right and becomes one of the major sources of funding for the Hungarian Nazis. From the background he organises the national resistance to stop the "liberal, Jewish contamination". Casting off his moral and ethical value judgments he stops at nothing, not even at violence.
All throughout his life he aimed at granting PETER the same upbringing he received. He regards it as a personal failure that he still unable to infuse PETER with anti-Semitism, and he cannot even have a say in his son's private life. As a result of his blindness, he lumps the common men together with the "parasitic aliens living off the nation's body". His dislike turns personal when he fires Eszter because of her origins. This act sets the process in action, which will lead to the eruption of his final conflict with PETER. As he's cornered, he confronts PETER with his past and tells him that he's not his son by blood. Yet when PETER announces that he's leaving, he still doesn't tell him that ATTILA is his brother. His reason behind this is his desire to destroy ATTILA. He doesn't want the two brothers to meet, he couldn't bear the thought of PETER, whom he morbidly regards as his property just like a piece of land, becoming emotionally more attached to someone other than him. One of Szentirmai's secrets is that the events in Bácska left as deep a psychological wound inside him as in ATTILA. His only motivation for his hatred against ATTILA is that he wants to revenge the mortification suffered by his family, and he holds ATTILA solely responsible for the tragedy. He's got a cross to bear as well. His personal tragedy is that, on the contrary to ATTILA, he cannot free himself of his burden at the end of the film. For him only madness remains, thus at this point his fate is sealed.

MINKOWSKI

He is the perfect samurai character, who is following his master, in our case ATTILA, with unconditional loyalty, never questioning the justness of decisions. He never, under any circumstance wants to step into ATTILA's place. When the opportunity arises at the end of the film he shows evidence of incredible moral strength, when instead of taking over the lead, he fulfils the "last order" and offers his complete service to PETER. PETER will become his new ATTILA, and MINKOWSKI will remain what he was born to be: the boss' right-hand man and most loyal executor, who does his job until his last breath and never asks unnecessary questions. His criminal career begins in his youth in Poland, where he had to flee from in the company of Janek. From a Janek-MINKOWSKI dialogue we learn about a determinant part of his past, and we understand why he left everything behind and went to America at a relatively young age, where he became a tough gangster. Despite the fact that he seems to be operating as an robot programmed by ATTILA, he has feelings and they show in his relationship with his close environment. All the emotions he cannot allow to show towards ATTILA he takes out on PETER. The wild boy of Pest latently replaces the family for him, and sometimes he pampers PETER as if he were his adopted child. When PETER is murdered, he regards the revenge as a personal business and he ruthlessly gets even with everyone, but naturally he asks for ATTILA's consent first. There's only one moment in the film where he has a definite point of view and then the emotions erupt from him like an explosion. This happens when he learns that the Germans have invaded Poland. He "rebels" and wants to break out from the behaviour pattern he has forced on himself, but ATTILA puts him in his place in no time. He is the man who gets the closest to ATTILA. He's reading from his non-verbal gestures like from an open book, and he understands him from utterances. This is not only due to the length of time they have spent together, but to the fact that they are in complete harmony. MINKOWSKI is like ATTILA's shadow. Their relationship hauntingly resembles a symbiosis, to use a graphic example, if ATTILA is the brain, then MINKOWSKI is the limb(s) or the clenched fist controlled by the brain.


Sunny Film
János Szani
Tamás Dér
Carion Center, Bécsi ut 25.
Budapest
Hungary H-1023

Phone:
+36 1 346-7150
Fax:
+36 1 346-7164

email:
szani.janos@sunnyfilm.hu
der.tamas@sunnyfilm.hu

or

Grand Hotel Pictures
Michael Frenschkowski
Kreuzbergstrasse 8
10965 Berlin
Germany

Phone:
+49 30 7808 7188
Fax:
+49 30 7808 7190
Cell:
+49 162 453 1103

email:
michael@innercirclepictures.de