Skip to main content
BFI logo

Home

Film

Television

People

History

Education

Tours

Help

  search

Search

Screenonline banner
Return to Life (1960)
 

BFI

Main image of Return to Life (1960)
 
35mm, black & white, 29 mins
 
DirectorJohn Krish
Production CompanyBasic Films
SponsorsCentral Office of Information
 Foreign Office
ProducerLeon Clore
PhotographyLarry Pizer
Script/NarrationJohn Krish

A refugee family comes to terms with living in England and adjusting to a new language and culture.

Show full synopsis

Basic Films, under producer Leon Clore, made this film for the Central Office of Information and the Foreign Office to mark International Refugee Year.

Director John Krish's empathy for his subject may have been influenced by his own family's immigrant background. Typically of Krish, Return to Life (1960) crosses the boundaries of documentary and fiction by using real-life refugees to play characters in a fictionalised narrative about a family newly arrived in the UK and beginning to integrate into British life.

The deeply compassionate treatment of this theme, following an opening section drawing attention to Britain's history as a haven for refugees, serves as a reminder that the UK was not always as keen to demonstrate the 'hard line' approach to immigration and asylum that it tends to favour today (particularly when addressing its own citizens).

Patrick Russell

*This film is included in the BFI DVD compilation 'Shadows of Progress: Documentary Film in Post-War Britain 1951-1977'.

Click titles to see or read more

Video Clips
1. The refugees arrive (1:19)
2. Josef's story (0:52)
3. A stranger's clothes (1:53)
4. Mirko's friend (1:43)
Complete film (29:33)
GALLERY / SCRIPTS / AUDIO
Monthly Film Bulletin review
SEE ALSO
Refuge England (1959)
Krish, John (1923- )
Central Office of Information (1946-2012)
Postwar Documentary