Winstanley (PG)

Beautifully shot story of true English radical, Gerrard Winstanley who started England's first commune.

Director: Kevin Brownlow, Andrew Mollo
Starring: Miles Halliwell, Jerome Willis, David Bramley
UK, 1975, B/W, 1 hour 36 minutes

Fri 5 March 2.00pm The Courtyard Hereford

Meticulously accurate, luminously filmed account of Gerrard Winstanley, pamphleteer and leader of the Diggers who started England's first commune in 1649. Born out of the Civil War at the dawn of a new era the Diggers asserted their Christian right to plant crops on common land and start a new society of free men where all are equal. Their radical challenge to the rule of law was quintessentially English, non-violent, and reasonable, but provokes an inevitable response. Shot in stark black and white, Brownlow's pays fluent tribute to the silent cinema he adored (and did so much to champion) from Abel Gance's Napoleon to Carl Dreyer.

Director Kevin Brownlow will be present to introduce the film and answer questions afterwards