The awards given at Hypewriter, the first international TV pitch forum to be held in Budapest, have been announced: first prize went to the idea for the series The Butcher. On Tuesday 26 June, the stakes were very high at the event, which welcomed world-famous international experts in the field and ended up being a full house. The two winning creators will now go on to develop the pilot episode of their project thanks to the involvement and financial support of Paprika Studios and RTL Hungary – The Butcher will therefore become reality and will reach its first audience on the international market.
 
Within a month of Hypewriter’s call for interest being opened, 159 entries had been sent from 28 countries, of which eight qualified. The finalists covered different genres including romantic drama-comedy, political satire, film noir and crime about serial killers. At the event on Tuesday morning, their creators – young talent from both Hungary and abroad – pitched their ideas for TV series to the jury, which was made up of international TV experts.

Andrew Hefler and Declan Hannigan, the two winning creators who live in Hungary, are also the writers of the 10-part series entitled Készhelyzet. Their idea for the series The Butcher is about Karcsi, a small-town butcher who, at the beginning of the narrative, meets his untimely end in a meat refrigerator. Each episode looks back at his life and actions and introduces the village’s inhabitants, who all share the same characteristic: a hatred for Karcsi.

Along with the TV distribution support of RTL Hungary and DRG, the series’ pilot episode will be developed with the help of Paprika Studios, a leading production company currently present in 10 countries in the Central and Eastern European region. The finished work is expected to air on RTL Klub at the beginning of 2019.

Considering this remarkably strong field, the jury awarded the runner-up prize to Teréz Koncz’s Bride to be Sure and to Slovakian Michal Baláž’s The Ravens, while third place was granted to Gergely Kofrán’s Hammer and Pickle. These ideas will all get a spot on the development workshop of Paprika Studios, where scriptwriters and TV experts will follow the progress of the projects.

The exceptional and unique television pitch forum very successfully came to a close: the quality and quantity of the applications and the number of international experts in the field who participated in the event prove that Hypewriter is particularly important and relevant now, at a time when the whole world is flourishing in the quality production of TV series.

Ákos Erdős, CEO of Paprika Studios, emphasized that Hypewriter’s strength is in being able to round up such names in the business who are committed to the production of quality content as well as to searching for and preserving talent.

Hypewriter is planned for 2019 as well and is expected to have even more programs related to the field and to welcome new and excellent ideas for series.