Sue Clayton - Other Cinemas: Politics, Culture and Experimental Film in the 1970s

Sue Clayton is a screenwriter and film director. Her cinema films include The Song of the Shirt (1979), The Last Crop (1990), The Disappearance of Finbar (1996), Hamedullah: The Road Home (2012) and Calais Children: A Case to Answer (2017). She has made many award-winning dramas and documentaries for Channel 4, BBC, and ITV, including How to Survive Lifestyle, Japan Dreaming and Turning Japanese. She is Founding Director of the Screen School at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Laura Mulvey is Professor of Film and Media Studies at Birkbeck College, University of London. She is the author of Visual and Other Pleasures (1989; second edition 2009), Fetishism and Curiosity (1996; second edition 2013), Citizen Kane (1992; second edition 2012) and Death Twenty-four Times a Second: Stillness and the Moving Image (2006). She made six films in collaboration with Peter Wollen, including Riddles of the Sphinx (1977) and Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti (1984) as well as Disgraced Monuments (1996) with artist/filmmaker Mark Lewis.

An invaluable reference source for academics, researchers and the wider public less familiar with this significant period of British film history.

William Raban, University of the Arts London;
director of Thames Film (1986)

This anthology brilliantly reflects the struggles and achievements of a generation of filmmakers and film scholars outside Britains commercial entertainment industry. Edited by two key figures from the movement and introducing texts by leading contemporary scholars on this period, this book offers new insights into a vibrant, influential and often highly contested film culture.

David Curtis, BAFVSC, Central Saint Martins

This superb collection of essays presents a very timely reconsideration of many key independent and radical films of the 1970s, their context of production and exhibition then, and their continuing importance for the aesthetics and politics of image-making in our current era of the digital and global.

Elizabeth Cowie, University of Kent

Other Cinemas

Politics, Culture and Experimental Film in the 1970s

EDITED BY SUE CLAYTON AND LAURA MULVEY

Contents

Sue Clayton and Laura Mulvey

Nicolas Helm-Grovas

So Mayer

Steve Sprung and Anthony Davies

Colin Perry

Julia Knight

Kim Knowles

Ed Webb-Ingall

Lucy Reynolds

Steven McIntyre

Jamie Chambers

Catherine Elwes

Daniella Rose King

Federico Windhausen

Rachel Garfield

Amy Tobin

Kodwo Eshun

Nick Hart-Williams

Simon Blanchard and Claire M. Holdsworth

Kim Knowles

Claire M. Holdsworth

Claire M. Holdsworth and Rod Stoneman

Cover of Cinim 3 (Spring, 1969), which contained the Pasolini essay translated as Discourse on the Shot Sequence.

Poster-Film Collective, Grunwick strike (1977) poster. Courtesy of Faction Films.

Poster-Film Collective, Year of the Beaver (1985) poster. Courtesy of Faction Films.

Poster-Film Collective, Solidarity with Women of Ireland (1978) poster. Courtesy of Faction Films.

Extract from London Film-Makers Co-operative, Draft By Laws and Constitution (July 1966), p. 1. Available at http://fv-distribution-database.ac.uk/PDFs/LFMC660705.pdf. Image: Lux/Peter Mudie.

Annabel Nicolson performing Reel Time (1973). Courtesy of The British Artists Film and Video Study Collection, CSM Museum, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (UAL).

Promotional material published by Sony of DV/CV-2400 (1967).

Promotional material published by Sony of AV-3400/8400 (1975).

Lis Rhodes, Light Reading (1978). Courtesy of the artist.

David Crosswaite, Man with a Movie Camera (1973). Courtesy of The British Artists Film and Video Study Collection, CSM Museum, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (UAL).

Signing the Amber partnership agreement, 1975. Pictured left to right: Graham Denman, Graham Smith, Peter Roberts, Lorna Powell, Murray Martin, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. Courtesy of Amber.

Murray Martin with Bolex (1970s). Photo by Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen. Courtesy of Amber.

David Hall, This is a TV Receiver (1976), featuring the newsreader Richard Baker. Broadcast on Scottish Television. Courtesy of Debi Hall.

Catherine Elwes, With Child (1983). Broadcast on Channel 4 (1985). Courtesy of the artist.

Isaac Julien, Territories (1984). Courtesy of Isaac Julien Studio.

William Raban and Chris Welsby, 2-screen showing of River Yar (1972). Courtesy of William Raban.

Carola Regnier in Stephen Dwoskin, Behindert (1974). Courtesy of the Dwoskin Estate.

The London Womens Film Group, The Amazing Equal Pay Show (1974). Courtesy of Esther Ronay.

Sue Clayton and Jonathan Curling, The Song of the Shirt (1979), title sequence. Courtesy of Sue Clayton.

Sue Clayton and Jonathan Curling, The Song of the Shirt (1979), title sequence. Courtesy of Sue Clayton.

The Other Cinema poster for Jorge Sanjins, Blood of the Condor (Bolivia, 1969). Design by Oscar Zarate (1973). Courtesy of the artist and Faction Films.

Marc Karlin on the picket line against the closure of The Other Cinema, British Film Institute (13 December 1977). Courtesy of the Marc Karlin Archive.

Page from Simon Blanchards diary (12 January 1980). Courtesy of Simon Blanchard.

List of panelists, International Forum on Avant-Garde Film. Courtesy of The British Artists Film and Video Study Collection, CSM Museum, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (UAL).

Programme, International Forum on Avant-Garde Film (22 August 4 September 1976). Courtesy of The British Artists Film and Video Study Collection, CSM Museum, Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design (UAL).