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Our collections span the world and tell a century of stories, scroll down to explore. 

We're proud to represent many unique and inspiring collections from punk pioneer auteurs to the vast and beautiful 35mm World Backgrounds collection.

Now available exclusively with Kinolibrary, filmmaker Don Letts’s archive is a testament to the cultural exchange between the Reggae and Punk subcultures of London in the 70s and 80s. Armed with a Super 8 camera, Letts toured with The Clash, managed the Slits, and DJed at the Roxy, arguably turning a whole generation of Punks onto Reggae in the process. Including on-stage and backstage footage with artists like Generation X and Billy Idol, Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Slits and The Sex Pistols, the collection also features Letts’ travels in Jamaica with John Lydon, encountering icons like U-Roy, The Congos, Prince Far I, Big Youth and Culture.

Don Letts

Nelson Sullivan captures the glamour and grit of the 80s Downtown New York scene in his collection of films depicting the height of the city’s party era. Hailed as one of the first ever vloggers, Sullivan’s legacy is seen in his fascinating documentation of the city’s colourful subcultures, giving centre stage in particular to New York’s vivacious LGBTQ communities. Sullivan’s revolutionary way of viewing and capturing the city brings to life the frenzy of New York's club culture, including regular appearances from icons such as RuPaul, Andy Warhol, Deee-Lite, the Club Kids and many more.

Nelson Sullivan

A wonderfully diverse collection of music and subcultural footage from 60s-90s. The Cultural Fantasists archive takes you from hanging out with groupies in the early 70s to walking the streets of Haight Ashbury in the Summer of Love and browsing the shelves of Vivienne Westwood’s infamous punk shop Seditionaries. Rare music footage includes a 1977 interview with Marc Bolan, performances by punk artists such as the X-Ray Spex and a performance by a very young Take That in a Northern gay club.

Cultural Fantasists

Captain Zip’s films are famed for giving a rare insider’s view of the late 70s London Punk scene from squat parties to run ins with bobbies on the King’s Road and also recording the emerging early 80s New Romantic and Goth subcultures. We have also recently digitised many unseen reels from Zip’s collection of London films which take a journey round the capital from the 60s-90s covering major events such as Charles and Diana’s Royal wedding, the Iran Embassy Siege and the 1979 Dustmen’s Strike.

Captain Zip

A wonderfully unique collection from pioneering independent British production company Transatlantic Films. Recently digitised to HD, the collection contains a beautifully shot eclectic selection of lifestyle and culture material from across the globe dating back to the late 60s. It also includes music footage from a diverse range of genres featuring artists such as Fleetwood Mac, Plácido Domingo, The Faces and Marc Bolan.

Transatlantic

His first documentary Step Forward Youth (1977) is a film about London born Black youths splices together bedroom interviews, reggae parties, journeys to school and makeup sessions.  Interspersed with clips from work, school, parties, and high street scenes, it is a deft and layered immersion into the actual and interior worlds of its subjects. Blood ah go run (1981) takes the New Cross Massacre as its central issue. It follows protestors from south-east London to Westminster as they chant against the racist attack and police negligence that saw a lack of a thorough investigation or arrest. The People’s Account (1987) gathers oral testimonies about the Broadwater farm uprising, which took place in a housing estate in Tottenham in 1985 after astonishing acts of police violence against the Black community.

Menelik Shabazz

A collection of home movies of 1950s-1990s England shot by professional cameraman Gordon Richards. Focusing on Northern towns such as Stockton and Redcar, Richards shot everything from local communities and teen dances to urban regeneration projects and day trips, all in beautiful colour 16mm.

Gordon Richards

A prolific amateur filmmaker with a passion for music and a desire to see the more gritty and edgy sides of the places he visited around the world, Jack Kiljan’s films are archive with punk spirit. Some of our favourite moments include a trip to sweltering 70s Harlem, wild 60s teenage house parties, exploring London’s seedy Soho at night and home movies shot at gigs by The Clash, Blondie and The Grateful Dead.

Jack Kiljan

Chalfant's seminal documentary Style Wars shows the early hip hop scene in New York including breakdancing, parties and graffiti art

Henry Chalfant

Kinolibrary are excited to announce that we represent legendary filmmaker Julien Temple, whose archive chronicles the Sex Pistols rise early years. Featuring live concert footage, including their notorious 1977 Winter Garden show in Penzance and their equally infamous riverboat jubilee performance of 1978, Temple’s films offer a dazzlingly close-up portrait of their rise to counterculture powerhouse.

This collection also features interviews with those who worked closely with the Pistols. Boasting a conversation with a young Richard Branson, who signed the Pistols onto his label Virgin Records in 1977, and an interview with their manager Malcolm McLaren on their cultural impact at the time.

Julien Temple

A beautiful and vast collection of 35mm footage covering locations around the world from 1960s-1990s. Experience 1970s New York Lower East Side, 1960s Kings Road London and 1980s Hollywood driving and much more. The majority of the collection is 35mm scanned to 4K. Exclusively held by Kinolibrary.

World Backgrounds

We're excited to have an exclusive licence for the films of Hilary Harris, an Oscar-winning filmmaker, who spent most of his life in New York. He embedded himself in 1960s New York, wandering the streets with his 35mm motion picture camera. A pioneer of time-lapse photography, he also shot at standard frame rates and his style of shooting is stunning, transporting you back to 1960s New York in all its glory. He shot famous locations, such as Harlem, Brooklyn, Greenwich Village, Times Square and more. The collection has now been made commercially available for the first time in stunning 4K quality.

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