Synopsis:

Robert Vas' first film, Refuge England (1959) centres upon an immigrant arriving in England from Hungary and who tries to understand the strange environment and behaviour of its inhabitants. He arrives in London with no English, little money and with his only prospect of help an incomplete address written on a postcard. The director's own experiences - Vas himself came to London as a refugee in 1956 - give the film an authenticity in its portrayal of the protagonist's conflicting responses to his new environment: isolation and wonder, despair and hope. It is also a unique record of London in the late 1950s, from Waterloo to the West End to the semi-detached houses of suburbia, seen through the enquiring and impartial eyes of an outsider. Although the film includes a narration, the contrast of images and sounds (the noises of London, Hungarian folk music) is in keeping with the established Free Cinema style and was included in the Free Cinema 6 programme at the National Film Theatre by Lindsay Anderson and Karel Reisz where it received a warm reception and Vas was given another grant by the BFI to make a second Free Cinema-style short, The Vanishing Street, three years later.