The Fort Worth Press - Filmstrip, Hungary's old-school projectors children love

USD -
AED 3.67301
AFN 67.735624
ALL 93.676927
AMD 389.366092
ANG 1.79184
AOA 912.999767
ARS 1004.2644
AUD 1.537716
AWG 1.8025
AZN 1.698816
BAM 1.866649
BBD 2.007368
BDT 118.805833
BGN 1.86519
BHD 0.376881
BIF 2936.769267
BMD 1
BND 1.340014
BOB 6.908201
BRL 5.788556
BSD 0.994226
BTN 84.384759
BWP 13.582568
BYN 3.25367
BYR 19600
BZD 2.004028
CAD 1.39721
CDF 2871.000251
CHF 0.89023
CLF 0.035245
CLP 972.511859
CNY 7.247004
CNH 7.247775
COP 4389.75
CRC 506.418516
CUC 1
CUP 26.5
CVE 105.825615
CZK 24.144979
DJF 177.047741
DKK 7.11428
DOP 59.918874
DZD 133.978042
EGP 49.606897
ERN 15
ETB 121.711477
EUR 0.953875
FJD 2.273298
FKP 0.789317
GBP 0.79573
GEL 2.739828
GGP 0.789317
GHS 15.795384
GIP 0.789317
GMD 71.000264
GNF 8569.792412
GTQ 7.717261
GYD 209.15591
HKD 7.78065
HNL 25.124314
HRK 7.133259
HTG 130.508232
HUF 391.270342
IDR 15867.7
ILS 3.67335
IMP 0.789317
INR 84.28615
IQD 1302.422357
IRR 42074.999919
ISK 138.219991
JEP 0.789317
JMD 158.38702
JOD 0.709297
JPY 154.504005
KES 129.249442
KGS 86.789401
KHR 4002.863278
KMF 472.497487
KPW 899.999621
KRW 1402.629477
KWD 0.30781
KYD 0.828545
KZT 496.420868
LAK 21838.433199
LBP 89031.629985
LKR 289.365682
LRD 180.450118
LSL 17.940997
LTL 2.95274
LVL 0.60489
LYD 4.855212
MAD 10.057392
MDL 18.13427
MGA 4640.464237
MKD 58.714344
MMK 3247.960992
MNT 3397.999946
MOP 7.971348
MRU 39.559055
MUR 46.829705
MVR 15.459824
MWK 1723.996411
MXN 20.36164
MYR 4.452002
MZN 63.909817
NAD 17.940997
NGN 1682.389973
NIO 36.583154
NOK 11.06721
NPR 134.268671
NZD 1.71082
OMR 0.385003
PAB 0.99976
PEN 3.769947
PGK 4.002863
PHP 59.019016
PKR 276.089812
PLN 4.12535
PYG 7761.46754
QAR 3.646048
RON 4.747299
RSD 111.608999
RUB 104.015417
RWF 1357.193987
SAR 3.754629
SBD 8.383555
SCR 15.037077
SDG 601.499594
SEK 10.987405
SGD 1.34732
SHP 0.789317
SLE 22.729727
SLL 20969.504736
SOS 568.169888
SRD 35.494016
STD 20697.981008
SVC 8.699677
SYP 2512.529858
SZL 17.934793
THB 34.603018
TJS 10.647152
TMT 3.5
TND 3.17616
TOP 2.342103
TRY 34.590225
TTD 6.752501
TWD 32.470987
TZS 2649.999926
UAH 41.131388
UGX 3694.035222
UYU 42.516436
UZS 12754.82935
VES 47.132583
VND 25420
VUV 118.722009
WST 2.791591
XAF 626.062515
XAG 0.03248
XAU 0.000372
XCD 2.70255
XDR 0.756295
XOF 626.062515
XPF 113.823776
YER 249.925
ZAR 18.067798
ZMK 9001.200923
ZMW 27.464829
ZWL 321.999592
  • CMSC

    0.0320

    24.672

    +0.13%

  • RBGPF

    59.2400

    59.24

    +100%

  • BCC

    3.4200

    143.78

    +2.38%

  • SCS

    0.2300

    13.27

    +1.73%

  • NGG

    1.0296

    63.11

    +1.63%

  • RYCEF

    -0.0100

    6.79

    -0.15%

  • CMSD

    0.0150

    24.46

    +0.06%

  • GSK

    0.2600

    33.96

    +0.77%

  • AZN

    1.3700

    65.63

    +2.09%

  • JRI

    -0.0200

    13.21

    -0.15%

  • RIO

    -0.2200

    62.35

    -0.35%

  • RELX

    0.9900

    46.75

    +2.12%

  • VOD

    0.1323

    8.73

    +1.52%

  • BCE

    0.0900

    26.77

    +0.34%

  • BTI

    0.4000

    37.38

    +1.07%

  • BP

    0.2000

    29.72

    +0.67%

Filmstrip, Hungary's old-school projectors children love
Filmstrip, Hungary's old-school projectors children love / Photo: © AFP

Filmstrip, Hungary's old-school projectors children love

Tablets and mobile phones may have to be prised from the fingers of children elsewhere, but in Hungary storytime can be all about a 100-year-old piece of tech -- filmstrip.

Text size:

Generations of kids there have been enthralled with stories told with the help of a projector.

Alexandra Csosz-Horvath turns off the lights and reads "Sleeping Beauty" from a series of still captioned images projected onto the bedroom wall -- her three- and seven-year-old clearly under her spell.

"We're together, it's cozier than the cinema yet it's better than a book," said the 44-year-old lawyer.

Filmstrip -- a century-old storytelling medium that was killed off in the West by the video cassette in the 1980s -- is not just hanging on in Hungary, it is thriving with a new wave of enthusiasts charmed by its slower-paced entertainment.

Printed on rolls of film, the still images were never meant to move.

- Long tradition -

"Between the 1940s and the 1980s filmstrips were used worldwide as a cost-effective visualisation tool in education and other fields," Levente Borsos, of Seoul's Hankuk University of Foreign Studies, told AFP.

But while it was surpassed by more advanced technologies in the West, it became a popular form of home entertainment in the Soviet bloc where TVs and videos were harder to come by.

When communism collapsed, filmstrip began to disappear -- except in Hungary, where the since privatised Diafilmgyarto company survives as the country's sole producer.

"Continuous filmstrip publishing and slide shows at home can be considered a Hungarian peculiarity, a special part of the country's cultural heritage," Borsos said.

- Revival -

Producer Diafilmgyarto has seen sales rebound from 60,000 in the 1990s to 230,000 rolls last year.

Each film -- produced solely for the domestic market -- costs around five euros ($5.50), less than a cinema ticket. Most are adaptations of classic fairy tales or children's books.

One bestseller, Hungarian classic "The Old Lady and the Fawn" about a woman taking care of a young deer, has been in the top 10 since its release in 1957, according to Diafilmgyarto's managing director Gabriella Lendvai.

The company also commissions artists, including some famous Hungarians, to create exclusive content for its filmstrips.

It's "an irreplaceable tradition in Hungarian culture", said Beata Hajdu-Toth, who attended a recent filmstrip screening in a Budapest cinema along with her son to celebrate Diafilmgyarto's 70th anniversary.

"I am very happy it's part of our life and hopefully I will be able to narrate to my grandchildren as well," the 37-year-old added.

At her home in the Budapest suburbs, Csosz-Horvath also hails the tradition, preferring it to fast-paced cartoons, which she said drive the children "wild".

"They just can't understand that what happens in three seconds on the screen happens in three hours in real life," she said.

With filmstrips "they don't believe that everything happens in the blink of an eye."

H.Carroll--TFWP