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By Attila Sebestyén (July 2026)

In Hungary, filmstrips started being produced in the 1910s – complementing a booming lantern-slide market – with the Pedagogic Film Factory being the first company to produce them.[1] During this period, and until the Second World War, filmstrips largely had an educational focus. After the Second World War, during the era of state socialism (1950-80s), filmstrips that told a folk, fairytale, or everyday life story, or what I call tale filmstrips, also became popular. This postwar period is also when Hungarian filmstrip production – alongside miniature slides – was at its peak. Between 1954-1990, the state-owned owned Magyar Diafilmgyártó Vállalat (Hungarian Filmstrip Producer Company), published 500-700 different titles a year.[2] While not as prolific, filmstrips continued to be produced in the post-Soviet era of privatisation and economic liberalisation. Diafilmgyártó Kft. (Filmstrip Producers Ltd.), founded in 1994 and a direct successor to Magyar Diafilmgyártó Vállalat, still produces 200,000-300,000 copies of over 300 titles each year. The contemporary filmstrip production though, is predominantly geared towards filmstrips for children. Further, more than 4,500 filmstrips have recently been digitised for an archival project called “Virtual Filmstrip Museum” [3], led by Ferenc Bíró, a librarian who also has the largest private collection of filmstrips, and these filmstrips are regularly shown in public screenings for children (both digitally and using traditional filmstrip projectors).

Ultimately, far from obsolete, filmstrips are still actively used in Hungary and connect the nation’s past to the nation’s present. How has this analogue medium survived and thrived well into the digital age? This blog entry explores the historical reasons for the Hungarian filmstrip’s longevity by specifically focussing on filmstrips made for children.

Filmstrips survived in Hungary due to the delayed adoption of television and VHS as home entertainment formats. Like in many Eastern European countries, the filmstrips were often the only mode of projected or broadcasted visual entertainment until the 1990s.

The filmstrip’s combination of image and spoken word, expertly exploited in the 1970s and 1980s, forms the foundation of contemporary use. The children’s genre of the poemfilm is an important example here. This genre was the product of the filmstrip-editors’ aspiration of using tale filmstrips as a device for the aesthetic, visual, and literary, education of children. They searched for literary pieces, often poems, which were short enough to be easily adapted to the filmstrip format. The idea was that children could almost synaesthetically experience and absorb literature.[4] The poemfilm filmstrip A három nyúl [Three Rabbits] (Magyar Diafilmgyártó Vállalat, 1976), is illustrative here.[5] It adapted the Hungarian poet, Zoltán Zelk’s, narrative poem of the same name, and it was illustrated by Mária Flóra Zoltán, a Hungarian painter. The visuals were intended to move away from the “well-rounded” images that were usually made for children. Three Rabbits presented frightening images in a childlike manner. However, the reception of this filmstrip demonstrates that it was a success. Over 5,000 copies of the strip were sold within a year of its publication, and reviews by teachers also reported how children eagerly anticipated the projection of Three Rabbits.[6]

This visually experimental poemfilm necessitated that the adults/parents act as mediators who read the poem and contextualised the images for the children. The child’s learning of literature was therefore guided by a projectionist/commentator figure who helped them appreciate the pictures and words. Here, the role of the mediator was more important than with any other genre. To appreciate the fragmented and enigmatic language of poetry and its relation to the visual material required greater guidance.

Filmstrip with audio commentary also became popular in this period as a potential rival, or substitute, for television. While the very first sound filmstrips were published in the 1950s, such strips started being mass produced in the 1970s for both education and entertainment. An important example here is Versben bujdosó [Exiled in Poem], about the Hungarian poet, László Nagy, published in 1983 five years after Nagy’s death.[7] Nagy was a Hungarian cultural and literary icon of his time. He came from a rural background, backed by the state-socialist regime, but also became an autonomous actor of the cultural field, who tried to distance himself from power. He can be considered as one of the last true and great prophetic poets (vates) with a hymnic voice in the history of Hungarian literature. The accompanying audio-materials of the filmstrip on Nagy also include the poet’s own recitals of his work, as well as recollections of his life. The visuals on the strip include photographs from the Nagy family’s private collection and a selection of Nagy’s graphic works and paintings. The deceased poet talks to his young audience – the filmstrip was intended for school children – reciting his poems and speaking about his life, while they watched his life project in front of them. Such audio-visual presentations were designed to affect their audience instructionally and emotionally. In Nagy’s case, the voice from the grave, so to speak, became a voice to understand Hungary’s cultural past.

Mrs. József Ruzicska (her original name is unknown), the editor-in-chief of the Hungarian Filmstrip Producers Company that produced the Nagy filmstrips, suggested that the sound filmstrips should first be used in community spaces and institutional contexts and then in family homes, thereby establishing the connection between the outside world and domestic life. The audio material freed the commentator (parent/adult) from reading the captions of the frames, while still maintaining a guiding voice. In many cases this offered interactive opportunities for the audience; for instance, the projectionist/lecturer might pause the filmstrip exhibition from time to time to pose questions to the audience, encourage discussions, initiate minor activities related to the filmstrip content, or hand out quizzes to the audience.[8] The filmstrip not only got closer to the medium of television here but due to the possibilities of involvement and interactivity, even transcended it. Not many homes had a television and even in those that did, the television programmes created a one-way form of communicating, while the filmstrip projections created the chance for a dialogue.

Thus, while the sound filmstrip reduced the need for live narration, a physical presence of the projectionist (and perhaps a commentator on top of the recorded commentary) remained important to filmstrip exhibition. This is best illustrated by the failure of the Hungarian Filmstrip Producers Company’s “slide videos,” an experiment of animating tale filmstrips by adapting them into moving pictures. This experiment did not succeed and only 9 filmstrips were produced as video cassettes (1986-1987).[9] The failure of slide videos suggests that a physical, guiding presence was essential for filmstrip exhibitions. The filmstrip was a medium that could not, or rather should not, be fully automated: it worked best with the intervention of a human operator (such as a projectionist/reader/lecturer).

The Hungarian children’s filmstrips from the 1970s-1980s cemented the notion that a guiding hand and voice and an interactive element were necessary elements of visual media exhibitions. This notion has sustained the Hungarian filmstrip in the twenty-first century. Filmstrip projectors need to be operated and children need the help of adults here, who can manage the apparatus, and read out (or supplement pre-recorded) commentary. Moreover, they can offer an interaction around the projected media. The principle of guidance attached to the filmstrip, today represents a safe method of introducing visual media in the age of the internet and social media where endless content can be passively consumed.[10]

In this regard, a special (social) type of filmstrip projection has been revitalized recently. During the era of state socialism there was a matinee-like, cinematic version of projection for large audiences, which took place in Mátra Cinema in Budapest. Nowadays, the same building (today it is called Art+Cinema) is the home for similar public and cinematic filmstrip projections. This location organises a series of events annually where older archival filmstrips are projected to children and their parents, with famous Hungarian actors providing a narration in-person at the venue. The explicit goal of this initiative is to introduce the children in the audience to the communal ritual of cinemagoing. Their parents here can guide the young ones on how to behave at public events and spaces. Thus, though the act of watching a movie is more passive than exhibiting a filmstrip, parents can have an active role in setting an example of and providing explanations on behaving before/during/after cinematic film projection (for example being disciplined, staying quiet, not disturbing others). The presence of a guiding hand and voice is what has sustained Hungarian filmstrips.

While outside the generally scope of this blog, as a brief aside I want to note how the history of the children’s filmstrip, and the role of the mediator therein, can be seen as connecting to state socialist propaganda. The Hungarian Communist Youth Alliance’s filmstrip A felkészülés, avagy jó tanácsok egy propagandistának [Preparation, or Good Advices for a Propagandist] (Magyar Diafilmgyártó Vállalat, 1982), is a good example here. [11] The filmstrip humorously and self-referentially communicates the importance of political messaging, essentially propaganda. The caption for one of the frames (see below) states: “The political lecture does not aspire to elaborate the topic completely, from all sides, as the scientific lecture does. It provides only as much knowledge as needed in the given situation.” The image itself communicates this message by illustrating how a scientific knowledge forcefully “fills” the head with a meaningless jumble of letters, overwhelming the receivers of knowledge. In contrast, the political message only communicates what is needed, thereby not burdening the receiver. In many ways, the Hungarian State is being positioned as a paternal figure guiding the Hungarian population, in much the same way as a parent or a guardian guided a child through the filmstrip exhibition. While there is more to be said and explored here, I speculatively contend that there is a link between the importance of the filmstrip in educating and entertaining the child and the filmstrip’s role in state propaganda. This connection also perhaps hints at how one can explore the remnants of the socialist era in contemporary Hungary, but this is a broader discussion for a different time.

Ultimately, a desire for mediated media encounters is what has made the filmstrip important to Hungarian society and culture. I should also briefly mention here that in 2024 Filmstrip Producers Ltd. celebrated its 70th anniversary (the anniversary of Magyar Diafilmgyártó Vállalat). On this occasion, the company published a celebratory album about the history of Hungarian filmstrips.[12] The album was authored by Gabriella Lendvai, the current director of Filmstrip Producers Ltd., and Ferenc Bíró, who as I noted above is the owner of the largest private collection of filmstrips in Hungary and the leader of the archival project called “Virtual Filmstrip Museum.” The filmstrip in Hungary remains a cherished medium that physically and conceptually connects Hungary’s past to its present.

Attila Sebestyén is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication and Media Studies in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Debrecen.

References:

[1] Ferenc Bíró and Gabriella Lendvai, Diakönyv: A magyar diafilmgyártás története [Slidebook: The History of Hungarian Filmstrip Production] (Diafilmgyártó Kft., 2024), 38.

[2] Ferenc Bíró: A festett üveglemezektől a diavideóig [From Painted Glass Plates to Filmstrip Videos] (OSZK KMK – Magyar Diafilmgyártó Vállalat, 1991), 42.

[3] See http://dia.osaarchivum.org/public/index.php.

[4] Bíró, 59.

[5] See http://dia.osaarchivum.org/public/index.php?fs=235&search=2&page.

[6] Gyermekünk [a Hungarian educational journal], April 1978, 18; Gyermekünk, June 1978, 25.

[7] See http://dia.osaarchivum.org/public/index.php?fs=1923&search=2&page.

[8] Népszabadság [a Hungarian daily newspaper], 19 April 1981, 11.

[9] Mozgó Képek [a Hungarian film/tv/video journal], February 1987, 26.

[10] See https://filmtett.ro/cikk/mozaikkockak-a-magyar-diafilmezesrol; https://nepszava.hu/3028461_akar-husz-ev-mulva-is-lehet-meg-diafilm; https://kultura.hu/ki-nez-manapsag-diafilmet/; https://wmn.hu/kult/61732-a-diafilmvetites-mulhatatlan-varazsa–propagandafilmektol-a-csaladi-kedvenc-mesekig; https://telex.hu/karakter/kultura/2024/02/05/diafilm-70-eves-jubileum-egyre-nepszerubb-tortenete.

[11] See http://dia.osaarchivum.org/public/index.php?fs=2983&search=2&page.

[12] Bíró and Lendvai.

Images:

Left: Frames from the filmstrip A három nyúl [in English: Three Rabbits] (Magyar Diafilmgyártó Vállalat, 1976). Courtesy OSA Archivum http://dia.osaarchivum.org/public/index.php?fs=235&search=2&page.

Bottom: A frame from the filmstrip A felkészülés, avagy jó tanácsok egy propagandistának [Preparation, or Good Advices for a Propagandist] (Magyar Diafilmgyártó Vállalat, 1982). Courtesy OSA Archivum http://dia.osaarchivum.org/public/index.php?fs=2983&search=2&page=.

To cite this blog: Attila Sebestyén, “Filmstrip’s Children: Hungarian filmstrips of past and present,” Relocating Filmstrips, Remapping Europe Website eds. Tom Rice, Vinzenz Hediger, Anushrut Ramakrishnan Agrwaal, Johannes Praetorious-Rhein, 2026.