[Commlist] CFP: Robert Vas in context

_Call for Proposals_
_https://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/robert-vas-in-context/ 
<https://www.illuminationsmedia.co.uk/robert-vas-in-context/>_

A one-day symposium and screening of /Nine Days in ’26/, Robert Vas’ 
film about the May 1926 General Strike
Friday 24 April 2026, Birkbeck, University of London
Proposals are invited for 20-minute presentations for a symposium about 
the films of Robert Vas and about distinctive documentary engagements 
with the themes that drove his work: refugee experience, Jewish culture, 
the film archive, memory and history.
“Robert Vas [was] a unique and important figure in the history of 
documentary… The key to all Vas’s s work was his moral fervour. Concern, 
commitment, passion – these were the words he used over and over again, 
and which guided him. Plus compassionate understanding, which was the 
force that bound everything together.’

             Alan Rosenthal, /The Documentary Conscience/, 1980
Born in Hungary, Robert Vas (1931-1978) fled his country in 1956 and 
came to England, where he made two notable shorts for the BFI’s 
Experimental Film Fund, /Refuge England/ (1959) and /The Vanishing 
Street/ (1962). His first film for BBC Television was The /Frontier/ (1964).

In the next decade and a half he directed films about, among other 
subjects, the story of the magic lantern, Alexander Korda, the films of 
Humphrey Jennings, the music of Bela Bartok, the Katyn Forest Massacre, 
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the television archive, Stalin, Laurel and 
Hardy, and the survivors of Hiroshima. All this despite the “Christmas 
Tree” mark on his personnel file (above) identifying him as a potential 
political subversive.

The symposium marks two anniversaries. One is the 100th anniversary of 
the May 1926 General Strike in the United Kingdom, about which Vas made 
his most controversial film, /Nine Days in ’26/ (1974). The other is the 
70th anniversary of the October 1956 uprising in Budapest against the 
Soviet-controlled government, the crushing of which led Vas and his 
family to flee their homeland and settle in Britain. His 1976 film /My 
Homeland/ about the Hungarian Revolution remains perhaps his most 
personal and powerful film.

Robert Vas’ distinctive, poetic and committed films deserve to be far 
better-known, and this symposium is conceived to spotlight his 
achievements, to celebrate his productions, and to extend the processes 
of critical and creative engagements with his legacy.
At the same time, the symposium is concerned to situate and 
contextualise Vas and the central themes of his work within creative 
documentary practice that similarly explores those themes with personal 
and poetic approaches.

Although this is far from a comprehensive list, papers might address:

  * Individual films by Robert Vas
  * Documentary culture of BBC television in the 1960s and 1970s
  * Essay filmmaking for television
  * Creative documentary engagements with refugee and migrant experience
  * Distinctive documentary engagements with Jewish experience and culture
  * Films about the Hungarian Revolution
  * Imaginative explorations of archival film
  * The influence on filmmakers of Humphrey Jennings’ work
  * Revising historiographical and methodological approaches to
    researching film and television histories of migrant experiences
  * Teaching documentary: university curricula and the question of film
    and TV canons

It is intended that a publication will be developed from the papers that 
are presented.
*Robert Vas in Context* is organised by Professor James Jordan, 
University of Southampton; Dr Eleni Liarou, Birkbeck, University of 
London; and Professor John Wyver, University of Westminster.
Proposals of no more than 300 words and a brief CV, along with any 
queries about the topic and event, should be sent to John Wyver, 
(j.wyver /at/ westminster.ac.uk) <mailto:(j.wyver /at/ westminster.ac.uk)> by Monday 4 
November 2025.
Notifications of acceptance will be sent by Monday 8 December 2025.


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