Investors are planning to build three new film studios in Hungary in the coming two years.

According to Portfolio.hu (in English), Greenhill Studios will build a €7.9 million studio on the site of the Mecsek coal mines near Pécs by reconstructing the 600-square-meter turbine hall of a former power plant and adding a 1,500-sqm new facility.

Greenhill Studios is also planning a 30-hectare facility near Szentendre on a plot currently owned by the state and the army.

Simultaneously, a massive studio project by the same company is in the preliminary stage of planning in Szentendre, while American investors are looking to set up a third one in Mogyoród, north-east of Budapest.

Unlike the "Hollywood-style" Etyek studio, these will be designed for smaller productions.

According to Világgazdaság, based on a report in HavariaPress, the Mogyoród facility will offer the whole gamut of technical solutions used in film making, including stagecraft, rentable electronic devices, wardrobes and post-production computer works.

Three studio rooms will be opened in the first stage here this spring, followed by another two or four at a later date. The investors also plan to open a school to train future filmmakers, by not later than autumn 2009.

Although a big movie studio is already up and running in Etyek, near Budapest, the investors of the new one advocate partnership over rivalry, saying that if one studio gets the rights to make an American movie, it will provide enough work for both of them.

The Hungarian government offers attractive tax incentives to production companies and investors of film projects.