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New Towns, Our Town: Stories on Screen (U) + ScreenTalk

,Barbican Cinema 2
Man standing by map

Explore the legacy and impact of the New Towns movement through archive films, including rare footage of Stevenage, Milton Keynes and Peterborough.

New Towns, Our Town, a feature-length collection of films from archives across south east England, sheds light on the experiences of the towns’ early pioneers as well as following generations, with rare footage from ten different New Towns.

With the UK’s ongoing housing crisis, the lessons of the New Towns are once again at the forefront of social and political debates. This valuable programme gives audiences a chance to reflect on their legacy; distinguishing the myths of bleak architecture and endless roundabouts from the reality of the people and communities who call them home.

This screening is followed by a discussion with Jemma Buckley, Will Jennings and Georgia Wrighton.

Tagged with: Cinema

UK 2019 Dir Various 110 min

Crawley Events (1928-34)
Planned Town (1949)
An Experiment in Towns (1958)
Postscript to Empire: Britain in Transition (1962)
Home of Your Own (1951)
Transatlantic Teleview: New Towns in Britain (1956)
Hemel Homestead (1957)
Views of Hatfield (1952)
Stevenage: the First New Town (1974)
Basildon – Our Town (1974)
Peterborough, a City Fit to Live In (1971)
Milton Keynes – A Village City (1971)
Changing Places: Nearly New Town (1982)

Will Jennings is a visual artist and writer interested in architecture, politics, history and how built form interacts with wider culture and society.

Jemma Buckley is the Senior Partnerships Manager at the Independent Cinema Office, where she led on the BDA’s Heritage Lottery Funded project ‘SHARE: The Deaf Visual Archive’.

Georgia Wrighton is a Senior Lecturer and Course Leader for MSc Town Planning at University of Brighton. She was previously Leader of the MSc Sustainable Planning course at University of Hertfordshire, and continues with her research there on the topic of community involvement in town planning, in New Towns Harlow and Hatfield. Georgia has over 28 years of experience as a planner working in the fields of planning education, local government, planning advocacy and community engagement, and third sector campaigning.
 

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Barbican Cinema 2