The UK–USSR Film Weeks of 1959: Examining Political, Cultural and Industrial Motivations in Cultural Exchange Activity

Abstract This article presents a case study of the 1959 UK–USSR film weeks to investigate the political, cultural and industrial motivations shaping Cold War cultural exchange, focusing on the role of the British Council’s Soviet Relations Committee (SRC). Originating from a 1955 Soviet proposal for reciprocal film weeks, the project faced over four years of delays and aborted attempts due to a division of opinion among British state and non-state actors. The SRC sought to bridge the conflicting policy motivations between the British Council, the Foreign Office and the British film industry towards the film weeks, but the contradictory priorities and interests of the groups led to an ambiguous approach. The article reconstructs the negotiations, organisation and delivery of the film weeks from the British perspective, drawing on archival sources including the British Council Records at The National Archives to reveal new perspectives on the divergent policy motivations towards the use of films and film weeks in cultural exchange. In doing so, the article contributes to wider research into the role of the SRC and film weeks in the cultural Cold War.