A research project focusing on the work of British Filmmaker Marc Karlin (1943-99).

In the Spirit of Marc Karlin was set up by Holly Aylett, fellow documentarist and founder member of Vertigo, Hermione Harris, anthropologist, collaborator on Nicaraguan project and partner of Marc Karlin, and film archivist Andy Robson. It aims to secure Marc’s film and paper archive, to facilitate research and publication, and to build a platform for future generations to have access to Marc’s work.

Marc Karlin is an important but neglected figure within the British film avant-garde of the 1970s, 80s and 90s. He was a founder member of the film collectives Cinema Action and the Berwick Street Film Collective, an active member of the film union ACTT and the Independent Filmmakers Association, and he established the journal of independent film, Vertigo, in 1993.

His groundbreaking films for television in the 80s and 90s combined documentary and fiction film tropes to explore the themes of memory, history and political agency. Karlin was, resolutely, a political filmmaker, but his dense, yet subtle films are also rich meditations on the nature of filmmaking, the formation and collapse of ideologies, and the endurance of the human spirit.

This project aims to secure Marc’s film and paper archive, to facilitate research and publication, and to build a platform for future generations to have access to Marc’s work.