LFMC50: The Old & The New 1983 – 1985

Our celebration of the 50th anniversary of the London Film-makers’ Co-operative continues with this evening programmed by Cordelia Swann.
“In 1984 Patrick Keiller, who was editing The End at the LFMC with strains of Brahms often wafting from his cubicle, asked me to illicitly project Menilmontant for a second sublime screening. I remember drinking in every image of betrayal and love on the streets of 1926 Paris. Later that autumn the Black Audio’s Signs of Empire materialised on screen as a glorious appropriation of image and sound. And then in 1985 Gently Down the Stream received an intensely palpable response from a packed audience some of whom, I recall, were literally hanging from the rafters. During this time artist filmmakers’ work was evolving into new and different areas of the personal or political taking influences from any direction they pleased. The result was a heady profusion of unexpected themes and combinations of the old and the new.” CS
Programmed and introduced by Cordelia Swann (LFMC Cinema Programmer 1983 – 85), followed by a discussion Patrick Keiller, Edward George (Black Audio Collective) and Maggie Warwick

Programme

Signs of Empire, Black Audio Film Collective, GB, 1983, 22 mins
The End, Patrick Keiller, GB, 1986, 18 mins
Gently Down The Stream, Su Friedrich, USA, 1981, 14 mins
Menilmontant, Dmitri Kirsanoff, France, 1926, 38 mins. With live piano accompaniment from Stephen Horne.