Old Ways New Ways

British film
  • 1988 (1988)
Running time
48 minutesCountryUnited KingdomLanguageEnglish

Old Ways New Ways is a 1988 documentary film about the Peek Freans biscuit factory in Bermondsey and its closing down in the late 1980s. The film also looks back at nearly 100 years of the factory's life. Directed by Olivier Stockman and produced by Trevor Ingman at Sands Films Studios in London, with cinematography by John Fletcher.[1]

Production

The film was made as the factory in Bermondsey was slowly closing down in 1988 and is told entirely by the employees of the plant. It contrasts the "old way of making biscuits" with the "new way of the factory about to close down".[2] Peek Frean & Company was one of the first mass producers of biscuits and invented the household favourites Garibaldi and Bourbon, and, more recently, snacks such as Cheeselets and Twiglets.[3]

The DVD was digitally remastered and re-issued in 2005, in time for the 100th anniversary of the 1906 black and white documentary film about the factory - A Visit to Peek Frean and Co.'s Biscuit Works, directed by G. H. Cricks and H. M. Sharp.[4]

Sands Films, the production company that made the film, is owned and run by Christine Edzard, the screenwriter and director, and her husband Richard B. Goodwin.[5]

References

  1. ^ "Old Ways, New Ways". BUFVC.
  2. ^ "Old Ways New Ways". Vimeo.
  3. ^ "Films about Peek Freans biscuit factory". London SE1 community website.
  4. ^ "Biscuit Town". Coleman Projects.
  5. ^ Elley, Derek (6 October 1992). "As You Like It". Variety.

External links

  • Beautiful South: Lambeth and Southwark on screen[dead link] at British Film Institute
  • Old Ways New Ways (1988) at Southwark Local History Library and Archive