Celebrating 75 Years of Contemporary Films
Bringing bold cinema that inspired generations of British audiences and filmmakers — a festival of screening events with special guests across London this September and October
Long before streaming algorithms decided what the world should watch, Charles Cooper had a better idea. From a single room in Soho in 1951, Cooper founded Contemporary Films on a simple but radical remit: to bring the finest films of ‘all nations and all peoples’ to British audiences hungry for something beyond the mainstream. For decades Contemporary was the most important international film distributor in Britain. A champion of world cinema before the term existed. Through its partnership with London’s beloved Academy Cinema, and eventually its own cinemas, Contemporary opened British eyes to the craft of Andrzej Wajda, Ingmar Bergman, Satyajit Ray, Luis Buñuel, Sergei Eisenstein, Miloš Forman, Věra Chytilová, Walerian Borowczyk, Werner Herzog, Bernardo Bertolucci, Jean Renoir, Lotte Reiniger, Mike Leigh, Jane Campion and so many others. The filmmakers who shaped how we see the world. MUBI, Curzon, the entire arthouse tradition as we know it… none of it looks quite the same without Contemporary’s fingerprints. Now, 75 years on, we celebrate the vision of Charles Cooper, his many colleagues (particularly Kitty Cooper and Eric Liknaitzky) and the enduring legacy of Contemporary Films — and the films that reminded us why cinema matters.
Read our full history and Margaret O’Briens blog on the impact of Contemporary Films
CF75 EVENTS
NFT1, BFI Southbank
Mike Leigh’s assured debut feature film, masterful in its understated tension and gentle interplay of characters serving as a clear signpost to his later work.
Phoenix Cinema
Lizzie Borden’s frank and often funny look at a day-in-the-life of sex workers in a Manhattan brothel as they discuss their lives and work between clients.
ICA Cinema
Nick Broomfield and Joan Churchill’s riveting documentary, shot over 3 months, following a group of women going through basic training for the US Army.
The Garden Cinema
Miloš Forman classic of the Czech New Wave, a beautifully observed exploration of love, youth, optimism and disappointment.
The Rio, Dalston
In protest of The Bomb — two milestone films of anti-nuclear activism from the 1950s and 1980s, as relevant today as ever.
Barbican Cinema
Tomás Gutiérrez Alea and Juan Carlos Tabío’s ground- breaking film, winner of a Silver Bear at the Berlin Film festival and the first Cuban film with an openly gay character.
The Castle Cinema
Ingmar Bergman’s classic contemplation on life, age and memory and featuring the a stirring, final screen performance from Victor Sjöström.
The Garden Cinema
Les Blank’s classic documentary on Werner Herzog’s constant challenges making Fitzcarraldo in the Peruvian jungle.
Phoenix Cinema
Jack Hazan’s genre-bending documentary follows artist David Hockney as he struggles to complete a painting featuring his model and lover with whom he has just broken up.
The Rio, Dalston
The powerful documentary on the life and career of the first openly gay man to win political office in a major American city, and his horrifying assassination.
The Garden Cinema
Victor Erice’s beautiful Spanish masterpiece, revered for its tender evocation of childhood imagination and astonishing performance by Ana Torrent.
Birkbeck Cinema
Sergei Eisenstein’s mesmerising foundational stone of cinema — a century old yet still freshly arresting in its stunning compositions and revered editing style.
Barbican Cinema
Andrei Tarkovsky’s hypnotic science-fiction — a journey to ‘The Zone’ where physics misbehave and unseen dangers lie but where your deepest desires may be fulfilled.
Ciné Lumière
Giorgi Shengelaia’s beautiful, elegaic film — a series of fragmented but naturalistic impressions of the primitivist painter Niko Pirosmani in 19th century Georgia.
ICA Cinema
Walerian Borowczyk’s critically acclaimed and influential medieval tale — a beautiful tragedy told with pitch-black humour and the director’s remarkable idiosyncratic inventiveness.
The Castle Cinema
Murray Lerner’s brilliant documentary on the Newport Folk Festival brings some of the greatest names in folk and blues to the screen including Bob Dylan ‘going electric’.
Phoenix Cinema
Satyajit Ray’s classic exploration of the problems for women in Indian society, told with his trademark humanity and with a wonderful central performance by Madhabi Mukherjee.