Basil Wright

[1] Upon leaving Cambridge he was the first recruit to join John Grierson at the Empire Marketing Board's film unit in 1930.

At the GPO, Wright acted as producer and wrote the script for Night Mail (1936) for which he received a joint directorial credit with Harry Watt.

He published a small book: The Uses of Film (1948) and his personal (extensive) history of cinema The Long View (1974).

In his films Wright combined an ability to look closely and carefully at a subject with a poetic and often experimental approach to editing and sound.

In honour of Basil Wright's centenary year, his career, and the careers of his colleagues and fellow centenarians: Edgar Anstey, Marion Grierson, Humphrey Jennings and Paul Rotha, were celebrated with a season of films between August and October 2007 at the British Film Institute in London.