Peter Akar, Rita Balogh
KINDA
A raw, immersive coming-of-age documentary co-created with charismatic Gen Z teens over six turbulent years. Blending self-shot and observational footage, it captures identity crises, depression, and fleeting joy as the young people search for meaning in a world that is changing faster than they can keep up. A raw, immersive coming-of-age documentary co-created with charismatic Gen Z teens over six turbulent years. Blending self-shot and observational footage, it captures identity crises, depression, and fleeting joy as the young people search for meaning in a world that is changing faster than they can keep up.
SYNOPSIS
The moments that shape who we are are hard to pin down, but the final year of high school is undeniably a turning point. This is where the film begins, when the safety of childhood starts to slip away and the exhilarating possibilities of adulthood become uncertain.Set in Budapest between 2019 and 2026, while Hungary moves from democratic backsliding to a historic change of government, Kinda follows one extraordinary high-school class over six transformative years. Through the intertwined lives of Leo, Rose, Ákos, and Lola, the film observes how an inseparable community gradually transforms to individual paths. Their final year unfolds through classrooms, euphoric parties, and dreams of the future. At eighteen, every emotion feels absolute: friendships seem unbreakable, first love feels permanent, parties promise endless joy, while mornings after can suddenly feel empty and overwhelming. Then the COVID pandemic abruptly interrupts their shared world, scattering the class before they have the chance to say goodbye to childhood. Leo and Rose's passionate, on-again, off-again relationship continues even after both move to Rome, where love becomes entangled with loneliness and depression. Always standing at the edge of the group, Ákos searches for belonging after being rejected from university, eventually finding it through Buddhism. Lola slowly transforms the shame she once associated with girlhood into the subject of her artistic practice. Much of the film consists of the brutally honest footage of the protagonists themselves. As the years pass, they become the archivists of their own disappearing community. Five years later, the class reunites and discovers that, although they are no longer part of one another's everyday lives, they remain inseparable from each other's past. What once felt like an eternal moment has quietly become a memory.
DIRECTORS
Peter Akar, Rita Balogh
PRODUCER Rita Balogh
EDITOR
Zsófia Érdi
PRODUCTION COMPANY
OTHER FILMS
COUNTRY
Hungary
LENGTH
90 min
Peter Akar
DIRECTOR’S BIOGRAPHY
Peter Akar, a National Film and Television School alum, has made several short documentaries for British television stations such as Channel 4 and STV. His film Sing Your Heart Out won the Grierson Award and the Royal Television Society’s Award. His first feature-length documentary, Taste of Democracy premieres in 2026. He is currently working on his feature documentary, Sonia (Creative Europe, Hungarian National Film Institute, Norwegian Film Institute). His online documentary series Before We Grow Up reached more than 20,000 viewers per episode. Apart from documentaries he has worked on television series in Hungary both as a screenplay writer and a director. He teaches filmmaking at ELTE University in Budapest.
DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT
As filmmakers and as parents, we are deeply fascinated by the fragile period when childhood quietly gives way to adulthood. We did not set out to explain a generation. We simply stayed with the same group of young people long enough to witness how time quietly transformed them, and us.
What first drew us in was the extraordinary intensity of this community. They travelled together, laughed together and constantly filmed one another, convinced these friendships would last forever. As the years passed, we realised only in the editing room that we are making a film about the gradual transformation of a community.
The protagonists became collaborators in the filmmaking process. Their self-shot footage was never meant as supplementary material; its raw authenticity became the backbone of the narrative structure. Filming each other in intimate moments as friends, lovers, and classmates, they captured moments no outside observer could witness. Woven together with long-term observational filmmaking, these images allow the audience to experience vulnerability and honesty that would be impossible to achieve through traditional filmmaking alone. We see their story from within.
Their coming of age unfolded during one of the most turbulent periods in contemporary Hungary, culminating in a historic political transition. Rather than explaining their lives, this changing landscape quietly echoes the uncertainty of the future they inherit.
Ultimately, Kinda is a film about time. At the beginning, every moment feels like eternity. By the end, six years have condensed into a single emotion: nostalgia. What once seemed infinite now survives only in memory, reminding us that the communities shaping our everyday lives rarely disappear completely, they simply become part of who we are.
Rita Balogh
PRODUCER’S BIOGRAPHY
Rita Balogh is a documentary filmmaker working across producing, directing, and distribution, with a focus on international co-productions and innovative audience engagement. In 2016, she founded her company Other Films OTHER FILMS, to developing and producing socially engaged content for the international market. Her work includes Whose Dog Am I?, screened at festivals such as the Warsaw International Film Festival and the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival. She was a minority co-producer of the series Iron Curtain, which premiered on ARTE in 2024. She is committed to expanding the reach of documentaries through alternative distribution. As a co-founder of the Budapest International Documentary Festival (BIDF), she has created platforms fostering social dialogue, including a rural open-air cinema bringing international documentaries to underserved communities. As a director, her online documentary series Before We Grow Up reached more than over 20,000 viewers per episode, reflecting her interest in connecting with young audiences.
PRODUCER’S STATEMENT
Kinda is first and foremost a film for Generation Z. We hope young audiences will recognise themselves in it, not because every experience is the same but because the uncertainty, vulnerability, loneliness, joy, and intensity of becoming an adult are rarely spoken about with such raw honesty. We want the film to remind them that they are not navigating these years alone. We also see the film as a bridge between generations that can open up conversation. While today's young adults face challenges shaped by social media, political polarisation and an increasingly unpredictable future, the emotional experience of leaving childhood behind is universal. We hope parents will recognise their own younger selves in these characters and discover new ways of understanding the generation they are raising. Set in Hungary between 2019 and 2026, the film offers an intimate perspective on a generation coming of age during a profound political transformation. The protagonists belong to the generation that helped bring a seemingly unchangeable political era to an end. Their story is a reminder that change often begins with young people who refuse to accept that the future has already been decided. We believe this message resonates far beyond Hungary, encouraging audiences in other countries to listen more carefully to the voices of younger generations. As a producer, I am drawn to films that can be considered as intimate close-ups and gradually reveal a much wider picture. In Kinda, that close-up is the raw energy of friendships, humour, heartbreaks and the immersive intensity with which they experience life. The wide shot is about time itself: how our perception changes as we grow older, how moments that once felt endless quietly condense into memory. I believe this is what allows the film to travel beyond Generation Z and beyond Hungary, inviting audiences everywhere to recognise something deeply personal in their own lives.
Production company profile
OTHER FILMS develops bold, socially engaged, character-driven documentaries with strong international potential. Our current slate spans long-term observational cinema and innovative projects exploring identity, memory, and power. Working across Europe and the United States, we combine international co-production with impact-driven distribution, creating films that foster critical thinking and meaningful audience engagement.
Where are we at?
PRODUCTION BUDGET
130,000 €
NEEDED FOR COMPLETION
75,000 €
TERRITORIES AVAILABLE
All
EXPECTED RELEASE 2027
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