He started working as an editor for Hungarian Television in 1966 and also made some documentary films of his own. He left the country in 1970, moving first to Italy and then to Sweden, before eventually receiving political asylum in the United States. There he failed to make contact with the film industry, but found work in the offices of the Hungarian-language American paper Népszava. On his return to Hungary in 1977, he was initially a building labourer, but later found work in the Társulás Film Studios and the Institute of Cinema.