3rd Festival 1956

By this year the number of closed members to the festival had reached 2000. The University venues remained the same, and a programme of 12 new and five retrospective features was presented. These were: Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai (Japan); Orson Welles’ Othello (made in Morocco); Don Siegel’s Riot in Cell Block 11 (USA); Alexander Ford’s Five Boys from Barska Street (Poland); Helmut Kautner’s The Last Bridge (West Germany); Limo Barreto’s O Cangaceiro (Brazil); Robert Siodmak’s The Rats (West Germany); Bimal Rov’s Two Acres of Land (India); a film from the Gold Coast, The Boy Kumasenu; and one from Hong Kong, Blood Will Tell. Two adaptations of George Orwell novels from the UK were also included: John Halas’ animated feature Animal Farm and Michael Anderson’s loose retelling of 1984. Classic films screened in retrospective were Luis Buñuel’s Un chien andalou, D. W. Griffith’s Broken Blossoms, Frank Capra’s Long Pants (with Harry Langdon), Lotte Reiniger’s The Adventures of Prince Achmet, Mauritz Stiller’s The Atonement of Gosta Berling and Anthony Asquith’s A Cottage on Dartmoor. New short films screened included Jack Clayton’s The Bespoke Overcoat, Tony Richardson’s and Karel Reisz’s Momma Don't Allow, and Norman McLaren’s Blinkety Blank.