Officespotter

Budapest Film Co. is a unique addition to previous companies visited, inasmuch as this is a company who is under the authority of the Budapest municipality, yet operated in a commercially competitive arena. In the past year and a half, companies like this have undergone serious changes in management, wherein the sought after attributes are less bureaucracy and rather a competitive mentality.

This is how Zoltán Körövölgyi was chosen to work as head of the company here. The entire management in charge of operations was modified, and people from different commercial industries were offered the roles in order to change the way things were working. We don’t need to delve deeper into the details, suffice to say the expectations were to get the most out of the company with only a small operating budget available.

A good example of this phenomenon is this company’s office. Budapest Film, previously situated on Attila út next to the Tabán, found that the enormous office building they were in to be overkill for the 20 people in the organization, and commenced to look for a place owned by the municipality, preferably close to one of their cinemas.

Eventually, they converted a residential space above the Toldi movie theater, to which they moved in May of this year. The interior design mirrors the changes that occurred all throughout the company. They earmarked a minimal amount for the interior decorations, but strived to use every Forint to make it a nice work environment. The office turned out simple, yet decorative.

The main motif, encompassing the entire roughly 300 m2 office, are the colorful film strips along the walls, in which the film frames are actually movie posters. There are two areas which stand out, the reception and the managing director’s office, as these are perhaps less cluttered. As decorations, they utilized retired movie projectors and relics from the film trade.

The general cost-cutting atmosphere can be seen, among other things, in the mere fact that the company’s relocation was into a space which is already owned by the municipality, relieving them from paying any rent. In addition, instead of implementing a costly moving process and buying new furniture, they checked out each other’s stock of existing furniture, and simply purchased what they needed that was already on location from the previous tenant. This worked both ways.

The renewal wasn’t only achieved through a new office space, the whole organization got a new image, and the movie theaters are also being renovated step by step. As Zoltán told us, the goal is not to compete with the multiplex cinemas, but rather to create a lovable alternative. When the cinemas are ready with their renovations, as a bonus article we will visit them and photograph how the operational side of the business looks. After all, much of the workforce does their job there.

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