Filmliga

A.E. Young:
Avantgarde in England

The system of political censorship prevalent in England and Scotland places those countries in the worst possible position to secure films of any value other than a purely commercial one. Recently new provincial Societies have been formed, but they have to contend with what, in Scotland at any rate, has literally amounted to virulent persecution through the stupidity and provincialism of a certain section of the press.

Recent developments in connection with the Masses Stage and Film Guild show that the whole question of censorship must be revised from it's very core, otherwise the question evolves more and more round a political axis. Only one Soviet production has been shown publicly in London (‘The End of St. Petersburg’) and advertisements of it's performances at the Scala Theatre have not appeared in the main sections of the press.

Apart from the Manchester Society several new ones have been formed in England. Dundee and Glasgow each have societies in Scotland. The former has shown ‘St. Petersburg’ ‘Turk-Sib’ ‘Two Days’ and ‘Finis Terrae’. The Glasgow society hopes to show Pudowkin's ‘Storm over Asia’ and has shown other important films. The membership of these Societies

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is small, Dundee has two hundred members and Glasgow one hundred. The London Society has a membership of two thousand and includes a certain number of celebrated people.

Unfortunately the task of provincial societies is not always helped as it ought to be, but this may conceivably be because they are not yet of a sufficient number to enable the London Film Society to work in satisfactóry conjunction with them. Several well known films such as ‘Mother’ and ‘Potemkin’ are in private hands and the owners are unwilling to lend them at reasonable prices to small societies for one performance. Indeed one such owner had the temerity to ask £ 70 for one of the most famous Russian films (for one private performance). The high import duties on foreign films (£ 200) do not enable the smaller societies to import and re-import their programmes from abroad and facilities for doing so seem impossible to secure. The importers of good films (with one exception) are either unwilling to risk the possibility of being prosecuted for contravening London or provincial censorship laws, or they are uninterested in the small amount a local society can pay.

Regarding production in England, the only film that would appear to have any individuality at all is ‘Drifters’ bij John Guerson, shown with commercial success.

Eisenstein's new film (‘General Line’) will be eagerly anticipated but it is questionable whether the country, that produced it, will show it extensively.

The most obvious remedy would appear to be the recognition of the smaller societies by the bigger which would enable a certain number of films to be imported each year regardless of the censorship and the mutual working of which would cover the cost of the import duties. It is obviously most desirable that better films should be shown to the largest numbers in all countries and the only possibility of this is an increasingly large number of small societies (with a minimum membership of one hundred). Until then, in England at any rate, one can only wait and congratulate those members of other countries, as in Holland the Filmliga, who have, in the face of many difficulties, achieved the fortunate position in which they are at present situated.

London, May 30