LFMC50: Notes from the Underground – Is It Persisting? – Yes

Our celebration of the 50th anniversary of the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative continues with an evening of screenings with Anna Thew and Steve Farrer.
Steve and I were elected at the 1980 AGM and a life long friendship began. The 1980ʼs were the start of film-makers being actively encouraged to publicise, exhibit, distribute and courier Co-op films, in person, internationally. We were committed to the Co-operative as an act of romantic resistance, its manifesto, its openness, its freedom and a lot of us were from up North.
The Co-op had a new lease on the beautiful BR social club building in Gloucester Avenue, Camden, a palace of underground delights; a black cinema with a 25ft roller screen, blue directorsʼ chairs, a stage, the ʻPalm Courtʼ and the London Musiciansʼ Collective next door. In 1981/2 there were weekly cinema programmes, open screens, film-makersʼ solo shows and the start of the annual Distribution Previews, Summer Shows and the first underground gay film festival in Europe, a heady mix of Super 8, 16mm, multi-screen, performance; film-makers, painters, dancers, sculptors and musicians.
These two programmes illustrate the indomitable Co-operative spirit given the space; the inseparable function of a Film-makersʼ Cinema and Distribution.
Anna and Steve