Basil Wright on AllMovie

British documentary filmmaker and producer Basil Wright was among the first protegés selected by the genre's innovator John Grierson in the late 1920s. By the early '30s, he and Grierson had become key figures in the documentary movement working at the Empire Marketing Board. Later they moved to the GPO film unit. Wright is best remembered for making documentaries that were simultaneously socially conscious, realistic, and lyrical. Examples include his two seminal films Song of Ceylon (1935) and Night Mail (1936). By 1938, Wright had become a producer and a writer, but began directing again around a decade later and continued to do so through the late '50s. Wright was also a respected critic, lecturer, and author.