Documents: the Free Cinema archive

Here are some important documents from the history of Free Cinema | both from the time, and later reflections. All documents are available as both ordinary web pages, and as PDF files.

Free Cinema by Gavin Lambert, 1956

Writing in Sight & Sound, Lambert refelects on the original Free Cinema NFT programme of 1956: "the first signs for some time of a fundamentally progressive, personal approach to exploring contemporary life in this country through the cinema"

Look at Britain by John Berger, 1957

Berger responds to Free Cinema 3, the second Free Cinema programme predominantly composed of English material: "When one sees this programme one thinks again about Documentary as an art form"

Free Cinema by John Ellis, 1977

Ellis discusses Free Cinema In his book 1951-1976: BFI Production: "Free Cinema [...] reflected a belief that the cinema was an art, but also an art which if it did not have a direct relationship to society, would be trivial and insipid"

Lindsay Anderson's programme notes, 1977

Anderson reasserts the origins of Free Cinema in the programme notes to a 1977 NFT screening of Free Cinema Films: "I came up with the idea [...] that we should form ourselves into a Movement, should formulate some kind of Manifesto, and thereby grab the attention of the press and try to get a few days showing at the National Film Theatre."