Frigyes Bán

Born June 19, 1902, in Koŝice, now in Czechoslovakia. Hungarian motion picture director. Honored Artist of the Hungarian People’s Republic (1952).

Ban began his work in the cinema in 1922. He subsequently worked as an actor in the theater but returned to motion pictures in 1934. Ban directed the films Stretch of Land (1948), based on P. Szabó’s novel, and Baptism of Fire (1951), which dealt with peasant life under the bourgeois-landowner regime and after the establishment of the people’s power. He also produced the motion pictures Semmelweis (1952), Lieutenant Rakoczy (1953), The Counterfeiters (1964), and others. Ban, whose films have won awards at international film festivals, was awarded the Kossuth Prize in 1950, 1952, and 1954.