The British Documentary Movement
Wednesday, November 12, 2008, 6:00 p.m.
Theater 2 (The Roy and Niuta Titus Theater 2), T2
Eastern Valley
1937. Great Britain. Directed by Paul Rotha, Donald Alexander. Unemployed miners in South Wales create an experimental farming cooperative. 16 min.
Airport
1934. Great Britain. Directed by Roy Lockwood. A typical—though novel at the time—day in London's bustling Croydon airport. Produced by the Shell Film Unit. 20 min.
The Silent Village
1943. Great Britain. Directed by Humphrey Jennings. The great documentary filmmaker Jennings reenacts the Nazi obliteration of Lidice, a village of miners and resistance fighters in Czechoslovakia, in a Welsh mining village. 36 min.
Summer on the Farm
1943. Great Britain. Directed by Ralph Keene. A propaganda film that reinforces Britain's agrarian spirit in a period of rapid urban growth and wartime hardship. 11 min.
A testament to Britain's social commitment and steely resolve both before and during the Second World War, the Documentary Movement used techniques of propaganda, poetry, and modernism to inspire a nation. Bryony Dixon, curator of the British Film Institute, London, has assembled this stirring selection of recently preserved films from the period.
In the Film exhibition To Save and Project: The Sixth MoMA International Festival of Film Preservation
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