Cinego, the biggest Hungarian film streaming service is home to the most thought-provoking movies. While watching films on the platform, clicking on the often used language menu, people can now switch the audio to the option titled "The Impossible Campus", and listen to the audio lectures of film art university teachers who were forced to leave their old faculty because of the Hungarian government. Using the films as examples, they teach the essence of filmmaking. Beyond giving world-class lectures on screenwriting, directing and dramaturgy, they also highlight how artistic freedom gives way to better art – an important notion that viewers can immediately see proven in the films they watch. With this audio solution, silenced teachers were given a voice.

This is a sample of the audio lecture of Mihály Schwechtje, MA teacher of directing at Freeszfe, hidden under the movie "A Decision to Leave" on the Hungarian streaming platform called Cinego:

“A Decision To Leave is a mixed genre auteur film. Stylistic elements of many genres show up in it in different scenes or sequences, like slapstick or comedy. This diversity is held together exactly by auteurism: the total freedom and personal vision of the autonomous artist.”

This is a sample of the audio lecture of György Báron, BA & MA teacher on film theory at Freeszfe, hidden under the movie "The Salesman" on the Hungarian streaming platform called Cinego:

“In the end, the viewer has to live together with the ambivalence that is rare in films, but typical of life, that, contrary to traditional film dramaturgy, there is no good and bad, at least not obviously. There are bad deeds, like in this film there have been, but there are no two poles, the worlds of the bad and the good. Existence is far more complicated than that.”

This is a sample of the audio lecture of Gábor Gelencsér, BA & MA teacher on film theory at Freeszfe, hidden under the movie "Larry" on the Hungarian streaming platform called Cinego:

“The milieu of this film is very important. We get a complex picture of the Hungarian reality that this plot takes place in. Here, of the relationship between the police and roma people. Later we see a protest against the closing of a factory. A strong sociological background is present throughout. This is a great tradition of Hungarian film history.”

Cinego is a Hungarian streaming platform whose purpose is popularizing film art in the country. To gain more subscribers without the large budget of major streaming services like Netflix, they needed a campaign that makes them famous as the go-to place for quality movies.

In 2020, the world-renowned University of Theater and Film Arts (SZFE) made news at home and around the globe. The ruling party, Fidesz, passed a law that allowed them to take over the university leadership, pushing their ideology on the curriculum, and loyal followers into the faculties. Despite protests from people on the streets and luminaries like Cate Blanchett, Salman Rushdie and Sir Ian McKellen online, the government seized the institution.

The teachers quit and founded the Freeszfe association with the mission to raise the next generation of free-thinking filmmakers. But they struggled to find financial supporters with people fearing blowback from the government.

By bravely giving refuge to Freeszfe on its platform, Cinego proved that they really stand for film art, and managed to insert itself and the cause in Hungary into the news cycle.

The campaign vastly outperformed its original objectives, making the Impossible Campus the most watched film collection on the platform, bringing 3x more subscribers than other recent new releases, and, with 30% of all streaming proceeds offered to Freeszfe, raising funds to cover 67% of their next semester's expenses.

Cinego's brand act gave hope to the dormant Hungarian art film industry, and brought them out into the limelight. Despite risking state financing for their projects, they stood up en masse on their socials in support of Cinego's and Freeszfe's cause.

By sponsoring Freeszfe with placing their content under movies, Cinego turned a functional part of its streaming platform, the audio track, into a vehicle of a meaningful brand act. Watching films on Cinego with the university lectures, the everyday viewing experience is transformed into an act of support. People in front of their screens can show up for the survival of a world-class academic education symbolically and with their money, simply by the act of listening. There is an added layer to the story they listen to: they gain a deeper understanding of the films they love, and the activism that drives the brand.

And it's entertaining and interactive too. Building on the easy navigation within streaming services, teachers could guide their audience through the scenes of the film, being able to compare and juxtapose different parts of the same film, pointing out connections that viewers would hardly ever

With the takeover of SZFE, Hungary lost yet another of its cultural cornerstones. This 150-year-old university raised legendary artists like Academy Award winners István Szabó and Elemér Ragályi, Camera d'Or and Golden Bear winner Ildikó Enyedi, and recently, Emmy Award winner Marcell Rév. It joined a growing list of institutions that fell victim to the government's political agenda. Their stories follow a similar pattern: despite protest from activists and intellectuals, the government follows through with their plan, and, with no hope in sight, people give up and let go. The Impossible Campus managed to break this apathy and re-energize an important cause.