Winstanley (DVD)

A meticulously accurate historical film set in 1649 in the poverty and unrest left in the wake of the English Civil War. A group of impoverished men and women, led by Gerrard Winstanley (a former soldier and cloth merchant ruined by the war), set up a commune on St George's Hill in Surrey, and the story follows their attempts to live in perfect peace and harmony. Directors Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo attempted to make a completely authentic film - the costumes were copied from originals in the Victoria and Albert Museum, the armour was borrowed from the Tower of London Armoury, and the script was altered when Winstanley's pamphlets were discovered in the British Museum. The film is accompanied by an award-winning documentary, 'It Happened Here Again', by Eric Mival, who had previously worked with Brownlow and Mollo on 'It Happened Here'.