Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond, along with Hungariancinematographers Gyorgy Illes and Janos Toth, will be the first recipients ofThe Legend Award from the Hungarian Society of Cinematographers (HSC).

The Legend Award was created to honour cinematographers whoselives and work are an inspiration to filmmakers, and will be handed out at thefifth annual Golden Eye National Festival of Cinematography Art on Oct 29 inBudapest, Hungary.

Kovacs and Zsigmond were students at the Academy of Drama and Filmin Budapest and fled Hungary in 1956 after the Russian army crushed the popularuprising against the communist regime.

The pair carried with them thousands of feet of footage of therevolution, which they had filmed knowing that Russian troops were shooting onsight anybody with a camera. They eventually migrated to the US as politicalrefugees.

Kovacs' credits include Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces,Ghostbusters and MissCongeniality. Zsigmondwon the Oscar in 1978 for Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and also shot Deliverance, The DeerHunter and MelindaAnd Melinda.

Illes is a prominentHungarian cinematographer who mentored Kovacs and Zsigmond while they werestudents at the Academy of Drama and Film in Budapest.