Robert Vas (''Vas Róbert'', 3 March 1931 in

Budapest Budapest (, ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Hungary. It is the ninth-largest city in the European Union by population within city limits and the second-largest city on the Danube river; the city has an estimated population ...

– 10 April 1978) was a Hungarian

film director A film director controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfilment of that vision. The director has a key role in choosing the cast members, p ...

who settled in England. He came to England after the Hungarian uprising in 1956. He was committed to documentary, like ''Refuge England'' (1959) and, after a short period working for the

National Coal Board The National Coal Board (NCB) was the statutory corporation created to run the nationalised coal mining industry in the United Kingdom. Set up under the Coal Industry Nationalisation Act 1946, it took over the United Kingdom's collieries on "v ...

, he went on to make a seminal series of films for the BBC. These include ''The Golden Years of

Alexander Korda Sir Alexander Korda (; born Sándor László Kellner; hu, Korda Sándor; 16 September 1893 – 23 January 1956)Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...

(1973), and ''Nine Days in '26'' (1974). He had planned to make films about the "

Gulag Archipelago ''The Gulag Archipelago: An Experiment in Literary Investigation'' (russian: Архипелаг ГУЛАГ, ''Arkhipelag GULAG'') is a three-volume non-fiction text written between 1958 and 1968 by Russian writer and Soviet dissident Aleksandr So ...

" and the wartime bombing of

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label=Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth larg ...

before his untimely death on 10 April 1978.Gömöri György - Tisztelt Szerkesztőség! www.es.hu 2003. máj. 2. "... ahol Hochhuth ürügyén írtam erről, illetve Vas Róbert tragikus körülmények között, fiatalon meghalt, londoni magyar filmrendező (úgy emlékszem, 1975-ben készített) dokumentumfilmjét, amit annak idején a BBC sugárzott." In the BBC documentary tribute to Vas directed by

Barrie Gavin Barrie Gavin (born 10 June 1935) is a British film director. Early years Barrie Gavin was educated at St Paul's School, and studied history at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge from 1954 to 1957.'Cambridge Tripos Lists', ''Times'', 28 June ...

Karel Reisz Karel Reisz (21 July 1926 – 25 November 2002) was a Czech-born British filmmaker, one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in British cinema during the 1950s and 1960s. Two of the best-known films he directed are ''Saturday Night and Sun ...

said of him that his aim was to "inspire thought, to remind and warn".

References

Bibliography

* Burgan, John “Robert Vas”, Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film, ed. Ian Aitken, Routledge, New York, 2006, pp. 958–959 * Davies, Brenda, 'Obituary', BFI News, n. 34, July 1978, p. 3. *

and Alan Rosenthal, 'Witness: In Memoriam, Robert Vas', ''Sight and Sound'', Summer 1978 pp. 186–189 * (BBC, broadcast 3/5/1978, Barrie Gavin)
Screenonline: Vas, Robert (1931-1978)
BFI online guide to Britain's film & TV history {{DEFAULTSORT:Vas, Robert 1931 births 1978 deaths Film people from Budapest Horizon (British TV series) Hungarian expatriates in England Hungarian film directors