How to turn investigative articles into a blockbuster documentary?

In February 2025, the Hungarian investigative reporting center Direkt36 published The Dynasty, a documentary about the business empire built by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s family. The film, published on Youtube, became an unexpected hit, reaching more than 1 million views in a day (and surpassed 4 million views in January 2026).
The documentary has had a huge impact on the political discourse in Hungary, prompting even PM Orbán to respond to it. The film’s success has been covered widely in the European and American press and it also won several awards, including the Audience Award at the Press Play Prague film festival and a Special Award at the Hungarian Film Week festival.
In this session, two Direkt36 journalists, Andras Petho and Kamilla Marton, will explain how the small non-profit outlet, which previously focused primarily on publishing written articles, expanded its operations into producing documentaries. They will talk about how they developed the film together with professional filmmakers and turned hundreds of seemingly dry and complex investigative articles into a compelling documentary.
They will also share tips on how to do undercover reporting for a film and since The Dynasty was fully self-financed, they will also give ideas on how to produce a high-quality documentary on a low budget.
Organised in association with Direkt36.