It is our pleasure at Bridgeman Images to now represent Villon Films who have been independently producing and distributing award-winning films since 1970. With a strong focus on socio-political documentary, the collection spans such issues as government, history, ecology, culture, health and science, women’s issues, biography, and the apartheid period of South African history, among others. Villon Films is currently located on the west coast of Canada, in Vancouver, B.C.

We have recently acquired a new batch of material from the Villon Films archive which documents apartheid struggles and features rare interviews with Winnie Mandela, Zenani Mandela, and other figures such as Dorothy Mary Benson, a South African civil rights campaigner and author.

Villon Films was founded by Peter Davis, who has written, produced, and directed more than seventy documentaries. His work has been shown on every major television network on the globe including CBC, CTV, BBC, CBS, NBC, Swedish Television, German Television, and NHK Japan.

Davis was born and raised in England. He completed his masters studies at Oxford University before emigrating to Sweden and then North America. His early career included positions as scriptwriter for the National Film Board of Canada; director-cameraman for BBC, CBC, Swedish TV, Danish TV, Australian Broadcasting, and WNET; as well as producer for Swedish TV, London’s Rediffusion Television, BBC, CBS, CBC, CTV, Polytel (West Germany), WNET, the United Nations, UNICEF, and C.A.R.E.

The Villon Films collection includes biographies of spies such as CIA agent and Watergate conspirator E. Howard Hunt and U2 Pilot Francis Gary Powers, and of the World War II Foreign Service officers who were accused of “losing China”; a satirical history of the American annexation of the Philipines; and a sociological history of the Jewish experience in the Catskills.

One fascinating piece focuses on the life of Winnie Mandela. A video bio made before the release of her husband. During the more than a quarter of a century that her husband spent in jail, Winnie Mandela was persecuted by the white authorities and this video spotlights the different angles of her struggle.

Another bio video focuses on Dorothy Mary Benson. Benson was a South African civil rights campaigner and author, who in 1962 assisted Nelson Mandela's escape from Africa. She interviewed prominent African National Congress figures, includong Walter Sisulu and James Calata; based upon these experiences she wrote the first general history of the ANC, entitled The African Patriots, published in 1964. In 2000, a few months before her death Mandela visited her at her flat in London.

The Peter Davis Collection at Indiana University represents over 50 years of work. It includes not only films, but also corresponding outtakes, photographs, audio cassettes, and manuscripts, all available for research and study. The South African material spans the period of the most intensive struggle for human rights in that country, and also includes historical footage dating from the beginning of the century. Among the documentaries held there are Remember Mandela!, In Darkest Hollywood, White Laager and Generations of Resistance.

South African diplomat and daughter of Nelson and Winnie Mandela, Zenai Mandela-Dlamini features in this 1986 video interview. Winnie Mandela was arrested in 1959 while heavily pregnamt with Zenai, who was nearly been born in prison. When she was four, Nelson himself was arrested and sent to prison, where he remained for 27 years. In 1974, when she was 15 years old she could finally visit him.

Both Peter Davis and Villon Films have won numerous awards, including:

In Darkest Hollywood, First Prize, Big Muddy Film Festival, 1994
This Bloody, Blundering Business, Blue Ribbon, American Film Festival, 1978
Stocking Up, Red Ribbon, American Film Festival, 1982
Side by Side, Women against AIDS in Zimbabwe, Jury Award, WHO, 1995
D.H. Lawrence in Taos, The Chris Award, the Film Council for Greater Columbus, 1970

Discover the current selection of Villon films held on the Bridgeman Images archive here.