"What would you wish to be in a cry, a deed, a phrase?" Without a doubt, in answer to this question by philosopher Miguel Unamuno, José Costa, the central character of BUDAPEST, would reply with an ironic: "nothing".

Thirty-year-old Costa, a successful, albeit neurotic ghost-writer and lover of language and writing, is the narrator of this thrilling story that flits back and forth between Rio de Janeiro and Budapest.

One day, returning from an Anonymous Author's Convention in Istanbul, a bomb threat forces Costa's plane to make an emergency landing in Budapest.

During his very first hours in the city, he falls in love with the Hungarian language. And, slowly, he imagines he can fill the void in his existence with the new language, which appears to be indecipherable. The only language the Devil respects.

He returns to Rio, where his wife Vanda and son are, but he develops the habit of muttering in Hungarian in his sleep. Increasingly dissatisfied with his family and personal life, he begins writing autobiographies on commission.

He enjoys great success with The Gynographer, a narrative riddled with sex and adventure, which he writes for a German client, Kaspar Krabbe. But Costa's wife Vanda, a famous television newsreader, falls in love with Krabbe, believing him to be the true author of the book, one of that year's bestsellers.

Tired of his work and marriage, Costa takes the tragic decision to return to Budapest, where he is increasingly seduced by the language and Kriska, his Hungarian teacher.

Costa ends up moving in with Kriska and practically becomes a true Hungarian: Zsoze Kósta. He masters the language to such a degree that he begins to write in it - as a ghostwriter. Theses, stories and poems - there isn't a thing he won't turn his hand to.

But out of the blue he is suddenly deported to Brazil. He finds himself completely alien to his own country and past and locks himself away in a hotel room. What could possibly take him back to Budapest and Kriska now? The work of another ghostwriter.

Mr..., Kriska's ex-husband, writes Budapest and attributes the authorship of the book to Costa. He receives an official invitation to return to Hungary, where he is received with great glory and honour. And he also returns to the arms of Kriska, who is awaiting his child.

In the tradition of Borges and Gogol, in a game of mirrors and doubles, Costa is fated to be the author of a story that isn't his. Or is it? And to live a love and happiness that are not his. Or are they? It is up to readers (and now cinema-goers) to find out for themselves.