My grandfather, Stanley Forman, who has died aged 91, was a lifelong communist, trade unionist and film-maker, but was best known as a collector and distributor of rare documentary footage from behind the iron curtain.
The son of Jewish immigrants who came to Britain to escape the pogroms of eastern Europe, Stanley was born and grew up in the East End of London. As a teenager he was radicalised by both the Battle of Cable Street and his "heroes" who volunteered in the Spanish civil war. He studied (learning "everything he knew") at the Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell and through the Young Communist League met his future wife, Hilda.
After serving as part of de-Nazification programmes in Germany at the end of the war, Stanley established his first company, Plato Films, on the back of Communist party connections in 1950. He built the firm up into a unique archive, housed latterly...
The son of Jewish immigrants who came to Britain to escape the pogroms of eastern Europe, Stanley was born and grew up in the East End of London. As a teenager he was radicalised by both the Battle of Cable Street and his "heroes" who volunteered in the Spanish civil war. He studied (learning "everything he knew") at the Marx Memorial Library in Clerkenwell and through the Young Communist League met his future wife, Hilda.
After serving as part of de-Nazification programmes in Germany at the end of the war, Stanley established his first company, Plato Films, on the back of Communist party connections in 1950. He built the firm up into a unique archive, housed latterly...
- 3/28/2013
- The Guardian - Film News
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