Basil Wright

Biography

Producer/director Basil Wright was born in London, England, in 1907. He got into the film industry as one of the first members of pioneering documentary filmmaker John Grierson's Empire Marketing Board in 1931. In 1936 he directed, with Harry Watt, the well-received Night Mail (1936), and the next year he formed, with Alberto Cavalcanti, the Realist Film Unit. During World War II he worked at the famous Crown Film Unit, producing such documentaries as Humphrey Jennings' A Diary for Timothy (1945). In 1960 he moved to the US and taught film at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles). He wrote two books on film, "The Use of Film" (1948) and "The Long View" (1974). He died in October of 1987.