BARBARA STONE

18 Mar

(13 December 1934 - 17 March 2018)

London filmgoers may only know of the American producer-director Barbara Stone, who has died aged 83, from the film distribution company Cinegate that she ran with her husband David until 1986. They distributed and screened independent films at their Gate cinemas in Notting Hill, Brunswick Square and Camden. However, as a director, Barbara made Compañeras and Compañeros (1970) and other films with the Mekas brothers, Adolfas and Jonas, who she knew through their New York Film Culture magazine. She mostly produced documentaries and short films, but also worked on features including The Doctor and the Devils for director Freddie Frances, The Steal for John Hay, Unrelated for Joanna Hogg and That’s For Me for Claudia Solti. With David, who died in 2011, Barbara had four children.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

BARBARA STONE

STÉPHANE AUDRAN

DAVID OGDEN STIERS