2016 marks the 50th anniversary of experimental film centre the London Filmmakers Co-operative (LFMC, now LUX) which was founded in 1966. To celebrate, the BFI Southbank monthly Experimenta strand will be programmed throughout the year by the original programmers of the LFMC Cinema. In the Atrium of the BFI, there is a free exhibition of original LFMC posters presented in collaboration with the British Artists’ Film and Video Study Collection.
The two dozen films selected are representative of the programs we did at the London Film Co-op Cinema 1971-1974, in retrospect an astonishing array of radical 70’s experimental cinema. On rainy (was it Wednesday?) nights on mattresses collected from various churches and warehouses properly cleaned thirty to 100 people would watch around 90 minutes of experimental film at its best, international, hundreds of films by literally dozens of men and women some famous, some infamous, most pretty much unknown at that time. There were always last minute additions and changes hastily scribbled on the sheet stuck to the entrance, or someone would mention they’d just finished a film and… but 80% of the programmes were organised and then written about in Time Out. All this apart from the open screenings… all in that cold dark red and black painted cinema, never could quite get the 6 big windows to shut properly. And through all this, the conventional position of the viewer was radically changed, of meaning making, of production versus consumption, of notions and inculcations of truth, beauty, and the politics of the aesthetic.
Peter Gidal
This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.