A new season at the BFI celebrates Contemporary Films and its founder Charles Cooper, who bet on Britain taking to Ingmar Bergman, Yasujiro Ozu, Stayajjit Ray – and a young Mike Leigh

Occasionally, vital pieces of the cultural jigsaw disappear without anyone really noticing. This, sadly, was the fate of Contemporary Films, the British film distributor that popularised sophisticated, grownup international cinema – foreign language mostly – in the UK, and heralded the arrival of the auteur generation with directors such as Ingmar Bergman, Satyajit Ray, Andrzej Wajda and Yasujiro Ozu.

Contemporary, and its founder Charles Cooper, weren’t the only game in town – Kenneth Rive’s Gala was a fellow traveller – but Contemporary got there first, setting up shop in 1951, first with short films for the then popular film society sector, and moving into features with the 1952 Japanese film Children of Hiroshima. Its marketplace clout faded rapidly in the early 1990s, when it was a victim of changing industry practices. But amazingly, the company is still with us – and is planning a 75th anniversary series of screenings to showcase its history.

Old favourites Shaun the Sheep, Dune, Jane Austen and Godzilla join Charles de Gaulle, the Peasants’ Revolt and queer identity in Spain

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All release dates are UK and subject to change

Willem Dafoe is typically grizzled and poetic for this study of a near-retirement postal worker who, it turns out, was a beatnik rhymester of cachet – but no lasting renown – back in the day, and who has now been rediscovered by a new generation of literary hipsters. Director Kent Jones, adapting a novella by Arthur “La Ronde” Schnitzler, was the longtime head of the New York film festival; he might be in for a spot of late fame himself. AP
• 4 September