John Smith is the quintessential East End filmmaker. Born in Walthamstow in 1952, he has never lived outside East London. Emerging from the Royal College of Art and London Film-Makers’ Cooperative of the mid-1970s, where ‘narrative and illusionism alike were critical targets’, Smith’s films have often found focus in his own neighbourhood, street or even home. ‘The familiarity of place is important,’ he says, contrasting his work with Western colonial modes of documentary filmmaking that can presume to document a place neither known nor understood.

Regression is showing on Cinema 3 following the series John Smith: Introspective (1972 – 2022).