13 Oct 2016
Frieze Video and LUX present Soft Floor, Hard Film: 50 Years of the London Film-Makers’ Co-op.
Formed on 13 October 1966, the London Film-Makers’ Co-operative (LFMC) grew out of a series of screenings in the basement of counter-culture book store Better Books on Charing Cross Road to become a pioneering organisation incorporating a film workshop, cinema space and distribution office. Radical in its early ideals, the Co-op played a crucial role in establishing moving image as an art form in the UK and internationally.
To celebrate the LFMC's 50th anniversary, Frieze Video presents Soft Floor, Hard Film, a new short film about the organisation written and directed by artist and writer Matthew Noel-Tod.
The screening will be followed by a discussion between Noel-Tod, former LFMC members Malcolm Le Grice and Lis Rhodes, and film curator Mark Weber. There will also be a screening of Light Music (1975), Rhodes's iconic—and rarely seen—expanded cinema work.
The event also marks the launch of a new book, published by LUX and edited by Mark Webber. Shoot Shoot Shoot: The First Decade of the London Film-Makers' Co-operative 1966–76 brings together texts, interviews, images and archival documents, and includes newly commissioned essays by Mark Webber, Kathryn Siegel and Federico Windhausen.