Rajk. Sonnenschein itself was a name in director István Szabó's family. Hungarian-born Canadian producer Robert Lantos aspired to help make a film reflecting his family background of Hungarian Jews. Sunshine was his first project after leaving the position of CEO in Alliance Films. Szabó shared his idea for the story with Lantos, a friend, in a restaurant, and Lantos was interested. Szabó submitted a screenplay of 400 pages in Hungarian, with Lantos persuading him to condense it and translate to English. The budget was $26 million. Filming Shooting took place mainly in Budapest. The Berlin Olympics scene was shot in Budapest and required 1,000 extras. The exterior of the Budapest estate of the Sonnenschein family, with a large mansion and distillery, was filmed at an apartment building at 15 Bokréta Street (Bokréta utca 15), in the city's central Ferencváros district. The filmmakers painted a sign near the top of the building's façade to identify it, for purposes of the story, as belonging to "Emmanuel Sonnenschein & tsa. Liquer" (where tsa. translates to co., for Company). In July 2008, director Szabó and cinematographer Koltai were on hand as invited guests for the grand re-opening of the apartment complex, as the municipal and district governments chose to maintain the fictional company name on the façade and officially name it The Sonnenschein House, after the governments spent 300 million forints renovating the building. Interior shots of the family mansion were filmed at a nearby building, on Liliom Street. Fiennes described Szabó as very specific in how scenes were staged and how performances were given. On some shooting days, Fiennes would play all three of his characters, particularly if a specific location was only available for a limited time. Release The film premiered in the Toronto International Film Festival in September 1999. Alliance Atlantis distributed the film in Canada. It opened in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal from 17 to 19 December 1999. This was followed by a release in Munich and Budapest in mid-January 2000, with a wider release in Germany, Austria and Hungary later that month. In February 2000, it was showcased in the 31st Hungarian Film Week, held in Budapest, where it won the Gene Moskowitz Best Film award. After U.S. screenings in summer 2000, Paramount Classics re-released it in New York City and Los Angeles on 1 December to promote Sunshine for the Academy Awards. Reception Box office On the opening