Stanley Forman and Documentary Film: Building Connections between Britain and the German Democratic Republic, 1949-1990

Abstract

This thesis investigates British communist Stanley Forman’s role in distributing and making socialist films in post-war Britain. It examines Forman's relationship with communism, the German Democratic Republic (GDR/East Germany) and documentary film, and the influence of his film catalogue on British communist culture and British politics. The research draws on Forman’s film catalogues and advertisements, National Film Theatre programmes, British institutional archives, and contemporary press reports of GDR films in the Daily Worker and the British national press. Forman’s perspective is present with the inclusion of archival interviews in which he framed his hopes and aspirations for documentary film, socialism and East Germany. Chapter One charts the early establishment of the film distribution company, Plato Films Ltd., and its support in the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) and the Daily Worker. Chapter Two concerns Forman’s relationship with the GDR and the impact of their anti-fascist films in Britain. Chapters Three and Four examine Forman’s ongoing distribution of East German films and observe how they contributed to British campaigns in support of Vietnam’s war against America and support for socialism in Chile. These chapters show how Forman used his connections to the GDR to aid Vietnam and Chile and demonstrate the evolution of Forman’s film business, his political activism, and his relationship with the GDR. The thesis suggests that Forman’s aspirations to use documentary film to build socialism in Britain were limited by the decline in membership of the CPGB and loss of faith in international communism. Forman’s film distribution business was vulnerable to actions committed by the Soviet Union and the GDR, so he found new customers and maintained his own political currency by using his GDR connections to make films that supported British campaigns in aid of Vietnam and Chile.