Emeric Pressburger (December 5, 1902 - February 5, 1988) was a Hungarian screenwriter and producer, who emigrated to England in the 1930s. He is best known for his series of collaborations with Michael Powell. Born Imre József Pressburger in Miskolc, Austria-Hungary (now in Hungary), and educated at the Universities of Prague and Stuttgart, he started out as a journalist. After working in Hungary and Germany he turned to screenwriting in the late 1920s, working for UFA in Berlin. The rise of the Nazis forced him to flee to Paris, where he again worked as screenwriter, and then to London. He later said, "the worst things that happened to me were the political consequences of events beyond my control ... the best things were exactly the same."
In England he found a small community of Hungarian film-makers who had fled the Nazis, including the influential Alexander Korda, owner of London Films, who employed him as a screenwriter. There he met film director Michael Powell, and they worked together on The Spy in Black (1939). Their partnership would produce some of the finest British films of the period.
In 1938 he married Agà Donáth, but they later divorced in 1941. He married again in 1947 to Wendy Orme, and they had a daughter Angela, but this marriage also ended in divorce in 1971. His daughter Angela's two sons both became successful film-makers: Andrew Macdonald as a producer on films such as Trainspotting (1996), and Kevin Macdonald as an Oscar-winning director. Kevin has written a biography of his grandfather, and a documentary about his life, The Making of an Englishman (1995).
Pressburger was made a Fellow of BAFTA in 1981, and a Fellow of the BFI in 1983.
In later years he lived in Suffolk, England. He died 5 February 1988 of bronchial pneumonia while still living in Saxstead, Suffolk, England.
The Battle of the River Plate (1956)
