Just rewards

The luvvies have been out in force, most recently BAFTAing in an orgy of faux modesty and Narcissistic self-indulgence, and the weekend before at the Evening Standard Awards. Neither of them made any particularly interesting (let alone unpredictable) decisions except... except one...

The Evening Standard Awards gave their best documentary prize to John Krish. Like many documentarians he is a relative unknown, but the surprise here is that Krish received the prize for a set of films he made in the 1950s and 60s, that were the subject of a revival by the British Film Institute.

Krish is a towering giant of post-War British film-making, and yet he's one of the great forgotten heroes. The four short-ish films that were re-released include The Elephant Will Never Forget, a paeon of praise to the last London trams before they were replaced with buses one tragic day in 1953. One of the most moving films made by the British Transport Films unit, Krish was sacked for making it: BTF was all about the Modern future, not sentimentalising a disappearing past.

 

He went on to make a host of other films including 1961's They Took Us To The Sea, an extraordinary one for the NSPCC following a group of slum kids on a day out to the seaside (that one always makes me cry).

 

Krish received his award at the age of 87, a fitting reward for a career spent making beautiful and mostly socially important films. He received it by graciously noting that "the BFI discovered me at 80; the critics have now discovered me at 87".

Some of Krish's films are on this DVD, but a Blu-ray/DVD combo package devoted entirely to his work will be published later this spring. I can't wait.