Miklos Jancso, a lengendary Hungarian filmmaker, died on Friday. He was 92 years old.
Jancso was born in 1921 in a town north of Budapest. His parents were refugees from Transylvania. According to the Associated Press, Jancso once told reporters, "My mother was Romanian. In civilian life, the family members were friends, but politically on opposite sides ... For me this was a great lesson, that conflict, much less violence, will never solve the nationality problems."
Ranked among Michelangelo Antonioni and Ingmar Bergman, the Hungarian filmmaker gained acclaim for his films over many years. In 1972, he won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for Red Psalm, a film about 19th century peasant revolt. According to Variety, some of his films look at the political, national, and cultural movements that surround the common man. Recent movies included Last Supper at the Arabian Gray Horse, Wake Up, Mate, Don’t You Sleep, and So Much for Justice!.
Jancso was a professor at Harvard's Institute of Communications. He was honored for his lifetime achievements in Cannes in 1979, Venice in 1990, and Budapest in 1994. Jancso is survived by this third wife, Zsuzsa Csákány, and four children.
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