Contemporary
Films was established in 1951 by Charles
Cooper (1910-2001). The company started out in Soho from where
it made a significant contribution to film culture in the UK. From 1989
to 2008, the company operated out of offices in Highgate, north London,
and began 2009 in its current premises in north-west London, on the edge
of Hampstead Heath.
Contemporary Films is the oldest independent film distribution
company in the UK. In creating Contemporary Films, Charles Cooper conceived
his company as the means by which arthouse films, shorts and documentaries
from all over the world would be made available to British audiences.
Thus the company was instrumental in introducing British filmgoers to
some of the key works of major directors such as Andrzej Wajda,
Milos Forman, Ingmar Bergman, Mike Leigh, Jean Renoir, Robert Bresson,
Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky, Werner Herzog, Satyajit Ray, Yasujiro
Ozu, Nagisa Oshima, Bernardo Bertolucci, Luis Bunuel and many
others. It built up a unique film catalogue, comprising some of the finest
films of world cinema, and many film enthusiasts born in the forties and
fifties cite Contemporary Films as an important element in their film
education.
Cooper‘s independence of mind and left-wing political views were
often reflected in the films the company acquired : He bought Frederic
Rossif's definitive film on the Spanish Civil War To Die in Madrid,
and had a hand in the making of March to Aldermaston,
a documentary about the first march from London to the Atomic Weapons
Establishment in Aldermaston. The company still retains rights in the
seminal Felix Greene documentaries of the 1960s and 70s, shot in China
and Vietnam.
In 1967 the company branched out into exhibition. They acquired their
first cinema, the Paris Pullman in South Kensington, and later the Phoenix
cinemas in north London and Oxford.
In 1976 the National Film Theatre in London mounted a retrospective of
films introduced to the UK by Contemporary films, in
celebration of the company’s 25th anniversary. A second retrospective
was held in 1991 to mark its 40th anniversary.
Charles Cooper died in 2001 and in 2008 his widow, Kitty, took the decision
to retire. The company was acquired by Eric Liknaitzky, its longest-serving
employee, in December of that year.
The famous frontage at
55 Greek Street. The company moved on in 1989.
