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THE ANGEL OF HISTORY FILM COMPANY

The Curse of Beauty Film

The Curse of Beauty Film

The Angel of History Film Company

Founded in January 2026

by Dr Robin Russell-JonesMA (Cantab) FRCP FRCPath FRSA (Retd)

The name of the film company “The Angel of History”, derives from a painting by Paul Klee.

The "Angel of History" is a famous philosophical metaphor coined by German-Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin. Inspired by Paul Klee’s 1920 monoprint Angelus Novus (which Benjamin owned). The figure describes an angel caught in a storm from Paradise, whose face is turned toward the past while being forcefully blown backward into an unseen future. This storm, which prevents the angel from repairing the wreckage of the past, is termed "progress". What humanity calls "progress," the angel experiences as a violent storm that merely piles up debris and destruction.

The Angel of History is being blown backwards into the future but can only look at the past and is witness to an accumulating pile of debris resulting from mankind’s materialism
Since the main function of the film company is to create documentaries on environmental issues then The Angel of History is an apt metaphor.

Read more about the founder →

A world that acts on what it already knows. The science of climate breakdown has been settled for more than thirty years; what remains unsettled is the will to act on it.

To carry the evidence beyond the people it has already convinced. Since 1981 I have argued environmental cases in the scientific literature, in the national press and at public inquiry. These films are the same argument by another route: they reach an audience a scientific journal never will, and they can hold the science and the human stake inside a single frame.

Independence, evidence, and the right to be heard. My advocacy has been self-funded from the beginning, which means no sponsor or institution has ever been able to censor my conclusions.

"Democracy depends upon the ability of individuals to make their voices heard above the clamour of vested interests"

Robin Russell-Jones to the editor of The Times, Harold Evans, at the successful conclusion of the CLEAR Campaign (the campaign for lead free air), April 1983.

The Conspiracy of Silence

The Conspiracy of Silence

C O M M E R C I A L

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