 Hello and welcome to the panel discussion in Budapest about an emergency situation in Hungarian performing arts. First, I'd like to introduce our guest tonight. Here, Robert, after the actor and director and the former director of Hungarian National Theatre and Anna Nadja, Jamet Erzs, representing the Hungarian Independent Performing Arts Association, and she's also the artistic director of Panodrama, which is a documentary, the only Hungarian documentary independent group, and Martin Borosz, who is director, representing the Hungarian Independent Performing Arts Association, and he's the artist and director of Stato Act, which is an independent theatre company. So the approach of this today's discussion is that earlier this week appeared in the press from the Hungarian Ministry about the new law, which is going to be in front of the parliament next week, and it would, if it passes then it would just fundamentally change the whole artsy name, performing artsy in Hungary. So we should discuss, I hope we can have viewers give some more details about the present situation. My name's Anna Nadja. Should be the moderator today. So let's start with the details of that proposal. The first element is according to which the minister of human resources is called in Hungarian, but it is something like ministry of culture. So the minister would be the person who has the final word in appointing directors of theatres in Hungary. What do you think about this potential situation? I would turn to Robert first, the former director. So Anna will help us with the presentation. I think it's very simple. So I think it's very simple. They're just basically trying to set up a regime according to which unless you're a loyal asker, you're just going to drop that. So you won't be present. So everyone who gets a chance to make culture or create work would have to be a loyal servant to the regime. This isn't the first step in the last few months or years. It is actually the last step or one of the last steps. Because they just pretty much did away with everything. So by now everything is going to work the way they want it to work. The same kind of centralization has been going through in education system and also in the science life. So now culture is the next and final step and within that theatres. And everything that they don't have control over they're trying to somehow make a giant organization and now according to this new bill they are introducing a new organization. National cultural committee. Something new doesn't matter. Just maybe very briefly I'm sure you have heard of the fact that they expelled Central European University. So they actually had to relocate to Vienna. So that's you know about higher education but they already took over public education before that. And I'm sure you heard about the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as well where they simply put it under a new ministry and they just took away basically all their funds. So that's that's over as well. So this is actually the last step also in the sense that from now on there will be absolutely no discussion with the representatives of the profession or the theater professional whichever cultural brand or part of culture we're talking about as there was zero discussion before this bill that they came up with and it's just gonna be their decision. It's gonna be a purely political decision. I also think sorry the the method of appointing directors for the theatres is an indirect way of censorship. So instead of scanning the scripts or censoring pieces you make it's just easier to put someone in position who will create art that aligns with their visions and views. Yeah because I don't think we mentioned the fact that that one of the key points of this new law or new bill is that they are going to with city theatres which are funded mostly by the municipality. They are also funded by taxpayers monies of course on the national level. They now want to interfere with the appointment of the directors. So they want to have the right to veto from the minister of human resources who actually is responsible not only for culture but for healthcare, sports, so it's actually not a cultural person. He's an former oncologist and he has absolutely no clue about culture and he should be able to appoint directors. And that's an important point because of the elections which yours might know about that in October in the local elections the opposition won Budapest which is an important point and won many other big cities which means that if they have this if the minister has this video right then they can decide what will happen with those theatres and without it they can't. Some people think that it's a way of revenge this whole thing that that is going on now which is I think it partly can be true because most cities that own a theater most cities that have a theater have an opposition person since October in charge for the new mayors. I think it's very difficult to consider any kind of step that we could make because these steps from the side of the government are not part of a structure because they are just really truly petty actions and petty steps that are directed by envy revenge and basically the mediocre people's revenge on or gifted I don't think the Hungarian government has a vision of culture at all I think it was a Nazi leader historically who said when he hears the word culture then he grabs his gun and I think that's what our prime ministers like people who think differently than we do they should not be allowed to do culture that we don't want this so there is no system behind this whole attack let's say so that's therefore it's very difficult to react or to come up with you know counter steps there are ambitious intellects ambitious artists who are loyal to Viktor Orban and once and for Orban I think it's still important to have intellectuals who support the Fidesz the governing party's ideology and the best way tool for it to place the the friends the loyal people in position because they have this I think false vision that if they get in position by force then they will be able to create and spread the ideology I think it's not true because by killing and terminating independent workshops independent theaters and venues not more people will go to the right to international theater or to the ultra-right wing we see how new theater they will not have more viewers they will just create this whole scene cultural desert basically welcome that's enough for them I think the problem is that in the end they are cowards so there was a plan on this one part of Viktor Orban to put a special taxes on the internet because he has no clue what the internet is for so he doesn't know about streaming he thinks it's only for googling and emailing you know so he doesn't know about data amounts so he just came up with this really silly idea and suddenly 100,000 people were on the street this was the biggest demonstration since he came into power in 2010 and they just you know they just had shit their pants you know that's what happened so he completely withdrew this proposal and the real problem I think one of the real problems is that even in such a situation many of our colleagues I'm really ashamed to say are scared by afraid so we have this huge demonstration tomorrow night and all we ask I think ideally no theater should perform tomorrow night it's easy it's one show that's cancelled it happens when there is a big snow so what you know no big deal it costs you but whatever but that doesn't even come into question so but now we are begging them to start their show an hour late so that their actors their workers themselves and their audience can come to the demonstration and you cannot imagine the struggle we're having with this many of the of the theater directors don't even talk to us like they don't even want to and like how far how much further can you go we're at the wall what more do you need how can we talk of independent the theater free culture if even at this point in history when this bill might pass in a very short time actually this week because they are champions at that even now there is you know so much here and so much power this time I think that's a huge issue but still that's the first point as far as I remember when directors from reporters theaters just voiced their counter arguments so there's a video on social media just calling for that demonstration where many actors and directors appear and that has never happened before maybe that that's a sign of a turning point as well though what happened a long time ago because you might not know but there are basically there there is a very strong independent scene which means small companies that that are funded by much there is some taxpayers money but much less and you have to reapply every year and there is city city and state theaters which we call stone theaters because they have a normally they have this big building and ruby is saying that a long time ago there should have been a really strong collaboration between these two different fields and we should be talking about the profession the theater profession and not like you know city theaters and independent theaters this should have happened a long time ago okay let's go a little bit more into the details of that proposal a very important part of the proposal it proposal is that the and cow which is the national culture fund culture fund will disappear as in its present day form could you maybe martin you would be there the person to explain what kind of consequences it would have on independent theater companies and why why is it important yeah so this this point is the the one that integrates many many different departments or sectors of culture because this is not only about theaters it's about architects literature photo art moving music yeah and music dance so it's hanging in national culture i think it was found 26 years ago and it's been a self sort of self-governing independent professional funding but yes and now formally they will keep it then its money will remain but the whole these these departments for for each culture sectors will terminate and from now on this new committee which we just mentioned will take over again the right to to publish applications and the right to to make decisions on them so because until yeah until now just to just to be clear there were committees for each particular art form and there there was a system of delegation so actually the dependency in delegated representatives the city and state theaters delegated representatives and this has become a few years ago much worse because a big government body get delegated now the majority but still you know there was some kind of system and there was a delegation and there was a regularity and predictability of like twice a year there were co-opened calls and you could apply for the grants and then you know so so there was that but now this will be completely centralized because centralization is sort of the central uh or the main theme of all this that they want to have all one of the keywords for sure because they want to have all of this in their hands and maybe just briefly that basically the independent companies theater and dance as well had had three legs to stand on now until now for about 10 years since the new performing arts law back then in 2008 was passed which for the very first time in history said that the minimum of 10 percent of municipal funds should go to the independent scene so we had three legs to stand on there was a special tax break i'm not going to explain it because it's too complicated there were there was an annual funding operational funds that you have to apply for each year and the national country fund which is basically a project funding body and now they are cutting the date half a year ago they suddenly cut almost a year ago suddenly cut this tax break thing which crippled half half the independent scene theaters are closing and so on and so forth venues yeah and now in this particular law they will empty this national country fund so it's not going to work for us and what we have not mentioned the third major point is that the annual operational fund for the independent scene will be completely stopped so we had three legs to stand on and now we have zero legs which actually means we are done for that's it of course speaking to an American audience is very important to emphasize that we're very aware that independent theaters and performing arts organizations in the US until now are in a much worse situation than we are because they have almost no money very very little private funding or like companies could fund them but the problem is that the Hungarian that Hungarian society has absolutely no tradition of private funding thing of giving back to the to society so so none of or very very very little of philanthropy and not just about cultural and also maybe they will be afraid as well in the future like the companies are ritual because if they fund us then maybe they will be the bad guys as well yeah a nationally funded culture has a tradition for centuries so this is what we were socialized there so this is not a question in Europe that that culture should be granted by the by the state doesn't necessarily mean that you haven't started to find other sources other fundings right yeah so i think what we really need to clarify that when we talk about independent sphere independent field it's it's a field that has over 700 000 viewers a year which is a big number in a city of 2 million or in a country of 10 million so this is this is quite a it's we don't just have to think of alternative experiments working in the basement this is this is a it's a big field with venues and prestigious places producing over 5000 pieces or having 5000 pieces in a year and having over 600 shows approved so twice a day basically we are touring we have shows that are produced in the independent sphere so this is the field which is a annual subsidy is going to be terminated and it might be only so for example speaking of stereo for us the the national grant is only one third of our yearly budget but what is the rest the rest is distributional incomes and and ticket sales and co-producers contribution but if we are not able to maintain or sustain an infrastructure if we don't have management and marketing and office and rehearsal space then we are not able to produce all those that would bring the second and the third third of our budget and this is what is going to happen with the whole field so after they will pass this bill i think first the venues mu theater uran theater truffle and skin and other places will have to close down or dramatically reduce their programming and then since we will have no place to produce and play our productions it will come later the smaller theaters even if there are some theaters that only rely on these places before and didn't get a grant from the hungarian state we'll have feel the effect so it's values have produced an inspirational support it's important to emphasize that we're not talking about some isolated works or isolated arts or whatever it's a very visible part of this city it's very present very visible we're not talking about a culture that's like for you know very very small number of people are very thin layer of you don't even let me let my own the leg in the wood crested we're talking about a mixture of maybe some with more old-fashioned city or state theaters and the most innovative the most experimental most exciting young fresh and what's also very important is that lots of young people go to do it it's a key part of their lives that is a very visible part of my it's it's very functional most theaters are sold out so for instance the cotton you have theater which is now in one of the most threatened theaters by this thing about among the city theaters has an average of 102 percent because they're like to stand in tickets and stuff like that have sold out houses you know and it's also important maybe you ask yourself so why don't we all go private the thing is that with hunkering society and with with the level of of monthly salaries and stuff like that you cannot simply it's impossible in Hungary to calculate to make make productions which can become even after two years which can turn the profit because you just can't sell those expensive tickets there are like one off events like when robbie where i don't know he does fiddler on the roof in a huge arena or something then that's the only time when they can't turn the profit but even musicals even like huge comedies it's impossible so in this society that is not an option so it's important to know that i wanted to say something else but i forgot something in the meantime maybe just an important question would be now what do you think about the potential ways of i don't know protest first and maybe if there is any other step we might think of so we kicked off a campaign a couple of days ago the first step was a petition which was signed by 40 000 people in three days there is this protest on the mentions which is going to happen tomorrow and it's a collaborative organization of the independence and the city theaters especially that as as robbie also mentioned that there are so many people who works in both fields so it's it's no longer a division line so it's it's all of our interest and also we called for action all the all the theater directors managing directors to make a solid call their audience for solidarity action to shoot selfies after each shows and read the petition it's also quite successful action but these are all about showing that we we are not naive and we know that this government can push everything through if they really want it but we hope that if there is a very wide collaboration among the society and if we show force and if we show that they cannot do everything to us it happened in history that it it had a little it had an effect or or maybe they're in an opposition because also we know that not everyone agrees with it within the government so maybe those opposing voices will be a little bit more kind of courageous and and we'll speak up that's that's the whole but this is going to turn out in the next couple of days actually I think it's interesting to see what happens afterwards because I personally have no doubt that they will pass this bill but but if we keep on protesting and if this grows and like I say they are cowards so if there are several hundred thousand or a million people then they'll I think they'll withdraw I do believe that but maybe it's important to clarify I'm sure you have heard a lot of republicans talk about the NEA what how it doesn't make sense and all that how is that art and I'm sure you have seen this like on West Wing which is my favorite show but I'm sure this kind of you know orator is very well known to you as well so basically what they are saying is that they can judge what is art they can judge they can actually say what is good art and they don't realize that it's they have no idea it's not their profession so they should shut the hell up and they should let those who know what they are doing the experts do it and one other thing which is a very big controversy with the United States is that they keep talking about the government's money so the term taxpayers money is something I have to insist on like like you have this huge this like it was supported by the government like hell it was supported by us our taxpayer of dollars but Hungarian yeah I think I think it's also the case that many of the Hungarian of the young creators could have a chance to work internationally abroad some of us have the chance to work with city theaters that will of course not close down after this but I think it's it's and I'm afraid that the actual losers of this whole situation the whole situation is the audience of course the viewers so we are we are not not scared for ourselves we are you're scared we are scared for our culture and for for our viewers I'm a more romantic character I'm the oldest among you I think going to the theater in Hungary is the natural part of the life of many many people in Budapest for sure and if they have no place to go nowhere to go I think sooner or later they are going to realize it it's very difficult to say what we can do because the Hungarian theater profession just simply can't join forces can't make a common the mutual effort together so you can trust the the audience and you can trust the generation of of Martin but maybe we should mention as well that many people many great artists either left the country like Arpad Schilling Kretaker you know he pulled the plug on Kretaker which was by far the next to Birpe Bela for decades the most outstanding independent theater and tour all around the world and Viktor Bodog who also had a company of his own and he didn't emigrate like Arpad but but he hardly ever works here so actually he is one of the most popular international directors and the German-speaking territories and and here you know he's almost he has almost disappeared and there are other names we could mention so we today are reinforces of Martin Satt about the audience who's losing most right I think it's maybe it's a good time to finish up that little bit optimistic maybe just mention that the that they that you guys could help us with two things or maybe several but two things for sure signing the petition which I'm sure you'll get from our dear hosts and there is a trick you have to fake a four code a four digit zip code okay so pretend you have a four digit zip code because otherwise it won't let you do that and there is a letter that we sent out to our international colleagues and we are asking you to send it to the Hungarian secretary of culture and we have the the address and all that and cc to us so that he gets you know we are imagining that he'll get like you know thousands of emails from international partners who are protesting against this kind of thing I'm sure so if you if we get an email address or something we can send you all that information okay so thank you for attention and thank you for the participation let's go to the names again so we'll get out for the an angel and martin bolush