Dai Vaughan

This fascinating 60s tour catches London's South Bank in the middle of a cultural metamorphosis.

Renowned ethnographic filmmakers David and Judith MacDougall explore the many meanings of photography in this profound and penetrating documentary. The film focuses on the photographers of Mussoorie, a hill station in the Himalayan foothills of northern India whose fame has attracted tourists since the 19th century. Through a rich mixture of scenes that includes the photographers at work, their clients, and both old and new photographs, this extraordinary film examines photography as art and as social artifact — a medium of reality, fantasy, memory, and desire.

A World in Action documentary filmed in Bolivia immediately after Che Guevara’s death. Directed by Brian Moser, it documents the political aftermath and centers on the trial of Régis Debray, incorporating interviews conducted before the proceedings alongside testimony from Bolivian officials, the U.S. ambassador, and U.S. special forces personnel. (Note: Produced within World in Action, the film has a distinct title, subject, and on-location production and is documented in archives and film databases as a self-contained reportage work, justifying treatment as a separate film.)

“Pig Earth” marked John Berger’s first return to television after “Ways of Seeing”. The film, boldly using mostly still photographs, is based on John’s book of the same name, which was both a work of fiction as well as a history of French Peasant experience, as told by John ‘the story teller’, as if in the peasant’s own voices. All of which was given brilliant visual expression in the film through a series of beautifully edited sequences, each constructed from vivid and moving photographs of peasants and their lives, in black and white and colour, by John’s friend and long-time collaborator, the Swiss photographer Jean Mohr.

Co-directed by innovative British filmmakers David Gladwell and Derrick Knight, The Great Steam Fair is a beautifully crafted documentary filmed at Shottesbrooke Park, Berkshire in 1964 at a nostalgic event which brought together many traditional fairground rides and steam engines. The film skilfully combines the techniques of traditional sponsored documentary with the new approaches of the direct cinema movement.