British Film Institute
Series
Language
English
Description
Documentary, public information film, morale booster; propaganda film – all descriptions that apply to Humphrey Jennings and Stewart McAllister's extraordinary war-time film. Using his customary combination of poetry and propaganda, Jennings constructs a collage of the various people and classes of Britain, at home and at work, at war and at peace. The result, while not overtly proselytising, sounded a clear clarion call to internal and international...
Series
Language
English
Description
Director Robert Vas was himself a refugee from Hungary, having arrived in London only three years earlier when he received a grant from the BFI to make the film. Despite its slightly incongruous use of voiceover,Refuge Englandwas adopted by the Free Cinema movement for its stylistic contrast of contradictory images and sound and its focus on the dispossessed. With its enquiry into themes that are just as resonant in today’s society, and its uncompromising...