Although Hungary is a small country, it is home to many excellent animation studios that work in harmony – supporting one another rather than competing, and celebrating each other’s successes.

Hungary’s oldest animation studio is Kecskemétfilm, founded in 1971 as the regional branch of the legendary Pannónia Film Studio. The Kecskemét studio weathered the regime change of 1989 and has continued producing films without interruption ever since. From its founding until June 2024, the studio was led by Ferenc Mikulás; he was succeeded by writer and scriptwriter János Bán, former CEO of the M5 TV channel.

Kecskemétfilm established the Kecskemét Animation Film Festival in 1985 and created the highly successful Hungarian Folk Tales series, which was relaunched in 2025 following the production of 100 episodes. In addition to producing original content, Kecskemétfilm is also renowned for its high-quality service work. European animation studios are eager to collaborate with the team: they contributed to the Oscar-nominated The Secret of Kells, Chico & Rita, and The Red Turtle, and their most recent project was The Most Precious of Cargoes, which premiered in Cannes last year.

Over the past 50 years, they have been involved in the production of nearly 500 films.
“Our small creative team always strives to craft a unique, arresting visual world – whether making original films or series. The goal is not to mimic current trends, but to experiment with unusual imagery and create distinctive moods.”

Cinemon Entertainment – led by the always enthusiastic Réka Temple – has seamlessly combined industry-leading expertise with a personal touch for over 30 years. The studio focuses primarily on children’s animated films (Tommy and the Lion), TV series (Tales from the Lakeside), and commercials. They have produced more than a dozen feature films, including the Annecy-winning and Annie-nominated Four Souls of Coyote, and Hungary’s first animated feature documentary, Pelikan Blue.

This year, they realized Attila Dargay’s long-standing dream with The Quest (Csongor és Tünde), and they are also involved in the development of Fairyheart (Tündér Lala), currently in pre-production. The studio prioritizes quality over quantity, which has made them sought-after co-production partners for numerous international and domestic film teams. In addition to their high-quality work, they are also able to offer financial backing: the studio has successfully secured funding from the National Film Institute Hungary, Creative Europe MEDIA, and Eurimages.

CUB Animation was founded in 2015 by two animation directors from the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design, Bella Szederkényi and Bálint Gelley, who have since become successful producers. Their main obsession is “creating worlds with unique design, the limitless tools of animation, and the power of young talents.”

They work across a range of formats – music videos, cross-media projects, and television series based on contemporary books (Door to Othertown), as well as TED-Ed videos and multi-award-winning short films such as The Garden of Heart by Olivér Hegyi, Hide by Daniel Gray, and NUBE by Christian Arredondo Narváez and Diego Alonso Sánchez de la Barquera Estrada. They actively seek out young talents to support promising new film ideas.

Gábor Osváth is the head of Boddah and Filmfabriq – two independent film studios producing multi-award-winning short films (not just animation!) and series for both adults and children. Palme d’Or winner Flóra Anna Buda (27), Berlinale regular Réka Bucsi (LOVE), feminist favorite Luca Tóth (Mr. Mare), the wildly inventive Balázs Turai (Amok), and morph-magician Dániel Bárány (Supper) have all created outstanding films at Boddah – and many more are on the way.

Filmfabriq focuses on children’s content, including the Castaways series by Péter Szeiler and the latest short film by multi-award-winner Péter Vácz, Dog Ear (Kutyafül), which is set to premiere at Annecy.

KEDD Animation is both a production and distribution company. Founded in 2002 by Oscar-nominated Géza M. Tóth (Maestro), KEDD focuses on children’s content. Their most beloved series are based on well-known Hungarian children’s books: The Kuflis by András Dániel and Berry and Dolly (Bogyó és Babóca) by Erika Bartos.

KEDD’s productions have been featured at more than 250 prestigious international festivals, including Cannes, Berlin, Annecy, Stuttgart, and Ottawa. They partner with leading broadcasters, international distributors, global streaming platforms, and VOD networks, with over 300 hours of animation – from original productions to distributed content.
They also run a YouTube channel featuring much of their own work as well as distributed content from other Hungarian studios, available for free. This includes series like Berry and Dolly, Pixie Fix, and Hungarian Folk Tales. Additionally, they organize Hungary’s annual National Festival of Animation (Országos Rajzfilmünnep), which draws over 60,000 visitors each year.

DIGIC was founded in 2002 and has since become a multi-award-winning company, creating AAA animation content for top-tier clients around the world. As the founders put it, “with their established technology, supreme quality, and a creative team of directors, cinematographers, and 3D artists, DIGIC understands industry demands and delivers quality reliably.”
Their work spans four service areas: Digic Pictures focuses on 3D animated content primarily for games; Digic Services provides raw assets for digital filmmaking, including motion capture and 3D photoscan; Digic Studios uses real-time engines for 3D animation, VR, and AR; and Digic Productions develops content for feature films and TV series.

Their first short film was The Secret War, an episode of Love, Death & Robots, which won an Annie Award for Best FX for Media/TV in 2020. In recent years, they have been taking steps toward developing their first feature film.

KGB Studio, Umatik, Ionart, and Derengő Animation were the first studios to represent themselves – and Hungarian animation as a whole – at MIFA in 2017.

Founded in 1999, KGB Studio specializes in high-quality visual effects and motion picture animation. Their portfolio includes corporate branding, TV channel designs, main titles, commercials, visual effects, short films (Remake, Ambassadors of the Cosmos), TV series (Boxi), video game intros, and animated architectural presentations. They are especially known for their VFX work on the Oscar-nominated On Body and Soul and the Academy Award winner Anora. The studio has also contributed VFX to American action films, television series, and Disney’s stop-motion series for children.

Macedonia’s first feature-length animation, John Vardar vs Galaxy, was partly produced at the Hungarian studio Umatik, as part of a four-year collaboration between North Macedonia, Hungary, Bulgaria, and Croatia. Umatik created a quarter of the film, and the entire post-production was completed in Hungary. The studio’s first feature film was Manieggs – Revenge of the Hard Egg (2014), which was made without any national funding and was screened in Annecy. Since then, they have been working on the children’s animation series Pixie Fix, the second season of which has just premiered.

Ionart is an award-winning animation and VFX studio working on short films, commercials, and game cinematics. With an expansive international client portfolio, they also develop original content in-house. In 2024, Ionart established a North American office as part of the studio’s effort to grow its brand across continents. Their recent VFX credits include big-budget films such as Now or Never! (2024), Semmelweis (2023), Blokade (2022), and Post Mortem (2020).

Derengő aims to blend artistic intuition with cutting-edge technology, specializing in storytelling-driven content across animation, interactive experiences, and immersive installations. Their work includes animated series such as Borka and the Magic Dress and Kajla, children’s shorts like Marty’s Garden, and immersive animations including Entangled Singularity and Hidden Sounds (currently in pre-production).

Piros Animation is an emerging studio founded by students of the Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design. “We’re a tight-knit team telling powerful stories through films, ads, music videos, and more – always with creativity, care, and collaboration,” as they describe themselves. Their work includes the Berlinale winner From the Corner of My Eyes and I Would Eat It If I Could, which is currently on its festival tour. They also created a teaser for the feature film Children of the Wind Mother, now in development.

It’s impossible to introduce all the exciting Hungarian animation studios in so few words, so visit hunimation.com/studios to discover more outstanding companies we highly recommend.

Zsófi Herczeg