A pioneering film collective brings Free Cinema to Manchester
A report about Unit Five Seven, a Manchester film-making collective formed by Michael Grigsby in 1960, appeared in the From the Archive column on 18 October (see how the piece originally appeared in the Guardian here).
The work of Unit Five Seven, as Grigsby himself says in the article, was influenced by the Free Cinema movement in London, a series of documentary programmes shown at the National Theatre, representing a new approach to film-making. The Guardian's London film critic, reviewing the Look at Britain programme in 1957, welcomed the "introduction of a little fresh air into the fusty notions of our film studios".
The Free Cinema movement, whose founders included Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson, encouraged Grigsby and his work was shown at the final Free Cinema programme in 1959.
Grigsby's film Enginemen captured both the ethos of Free Cinema and the aims...
A report about Unit Five Seven, a Manchester film-making collective formed by Michael Grigsby in 1960, appeared in the From the Archive column on 18 October (see how the piece originally appeared in the Guardian here).
The work of Unit Five Seven, as Grigsby himself says in the article, was influenced by the Free Cinema movement in London, a series of documentary programmes shown at the National Theatre, representing a new approach to film-making. The Guardian's London film critic, reviewing the Look at Britain programme in 1957, welcomed the "introduction of a little fresh air into the fusty notions of our film studios".
The Free Cinema movement, whose founders included Lindsay Anderson, Karel Reisz and Tony Richardson, encouraged Grigsby and his work was shown at the final Free Cinema programme in 1959.
Grigsby's film Enginemen captured both the ethos of Free Cinema and the aims...
- 10/18/2011
- by Lauren Niland, Guardian Research Department
- The Guardian - Film News
Originally published in the Guardian on 18 October 1960
A group of young television workers concerned at what they consider the present low standards of the British documentary film are, with one camera and a central finance fund of less than £50, trying to create what they hope may become known as the Manchester school of documentary films.
Unit 57 has 13 members, most of whom spend their days as cameramen or technicians and their evenings planning films which they hope will mark a complete break from the glossy and, in their opinion, superficial products, sponsored by the big petrol and chemical corporations, which are almost the only documentary films being produced in Britain today.
Their first film, "Enginemen," about the railwaymen at a Manchester locomotive shed, has already been shown at European and American film festivals and their second one, "Tomorrow is Saturday," 24 hours in the life of a Lancashire mill town, has been...
A group of young television workers concerned at what they consider the present low standards of the British documentary film are, with one camera and a central finance fund of less than £50, trying to create what they hope may become known as the Manchester school of documentary films.
Unit 57 has 13 members, most of whom spend their days as cameramen or technicians and their evenings planning films which they hope will mark a complete break from the glossy and, in their opinion, superficial products, sponsored by the big petrol and chemical corporations, which are almost the only documentary films being produced in Britain today.
Their first film, "Enginemen," about the railwaymen at a Manchester locomotive shed, has already been shown at European and American film festivals and their second one, "Tomorrow is Saturday," 24 hours in the life of a Lancashire mill town, has been...
- 10/18/2011
- The Guardian - Film News
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