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Karel Reisz (21 July 1926 – 25 November 2002) was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema. Reisz was a Jewish refugee, one of the 669 rescued by Sir Nicholas Winton. His father was a lawyer. He came to England in 1938, speaking almost no English, but eradicated his foreign accent as quickly as possible. After attending Leighton Park School, he joined the Royal Air Force towards the end of the war; his parents died at Auschwitz. Following his war service, he read Natural... MORE

Karel Reisz (21 July 1926 – 25 November 2002) was a Czech-born British filmmaker who was active in post–war Britain, and one of the pioneers of the new realist strain in 1950s and 1960s British cinema. Reisz was a Jewish refugee, one of the 669 rescued by Sir Nicholas Winton. His father was a lawyer. He came to England in 1938, speaking almost no English, but eradicated his foreign accent as quickly as possible. After attending Leighton Park School, he joined the Royal Air Force towards the end of the war; his parents died at Auschwitz. Following his war service, he read Natural Sciences at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, and began to write for film journals, including Sight and Sound. He co-founded Sequence with Lindsay Anderson and Gavin Lambert in 1947. Reisz was a founder member of the Free Cinema documentary film movement. His first short film, Momma Don't Allow (1955), co-directed with Tony Richardson, was included in the first Free Cinema programme shown at the National Film Theatre in February 1956. His film We Are the Lambeth Boys (1958) was a naturalistic depiction of the members of a South London boys' club, which was unusual in showing the leisure life of working-class LESS