Winstanley (film)


Winstanley is a 1975 British black-and-white film about social reformer and writer Gerrard Winstanley. It was made by Kevin Brownlow and Andrew Mollo and based on the 1961 David Caute novel Comrade Jacob.

Plot

The film details the story of the 17th-century social reformer and writer Gerrard Winstanley, who, along with a small band of followers known as the Diggers, tried to establish a self-sufficient farming community on common land at St George's Hill near Cobham, Surrey. The community was one of the world's first small-scale experiments in socialism or communism, and its ideas were copied elsewhere in England during the time of the Protectorate of Oliver Cromwell, but it was quickly suppressed, and in the end left only a legacy of ideas to inspire later generations of socialist theorists.

Cast

Great efforts were made to produce a film of high historical accuracy. Armour used was real armour from the 1640s, borrowed from the Tower of London. Real-life activist Sid Rawle played a Ranter.
The film was reissued on DVD and Blu-ray in 2009 by the British Film Institute, which had funded the original project.