Editing reality

As you know, Lloyd and I have been deep in the bowels of the BFI, watching films. Seeing so many at once is a little overwhelming, so I thought I’d leave a few days for them to sink in. Now, a sense of each of them is beginning to emerge. And to be honest, I’m [...]

My first taste of the archive

I went to a place in space-time yesterday that was lovely, but I wouldn’t want to live there. The spatial co-ordinates were familiar ones in London & Birmingham and other parts of the UK but we shifted down the timeline to the 1940s watching films in the BC collection held by the BFI.
So it’s [...]

Lloyd and I talk film

Lloyd and I spent Wednesday deep in the basement of the BFI, watching various British Council films. Most of them were from the 40s; most of them were, in one way or another, rather wonderful. We’re going down there again this Friday, and will be writing about it all in more detail over the next [...]

A little bit of British Council film history

Lloyd and I have been down in the bowels of the BFI, watching many British Council films. When I sat down this morning, I was meaning to put up our videoblog of that; but I realised that, before talking about the films, a little more context might be valuable. So, once again drawing on my [...]

Audiences of the Forties

The British Council’s film making golden age lasted from the 30s to 1946, when its production capabilities were transferred to the newly created Central Office of Information. It had – as previously noted – a very clear sense of mission, as this comment from a 1969 internal summary of its film making activities shows:

During the [...]

The British Council film reviewers of 1946

So, as you know, I went to the National Archives, where I looked at three main British Council files. The first one contained a general history of the organisation’s film making. The second had more specific information about the 1946 handover of its film-making capabilities to the newly formed Central Office of Information.

The third – [...]

Mining the National Archives

As promised, I took a trip to the National Archives, and discovered a wealth of fascinating information about the British Council’s film production and distribution. I’ll be going into more detail on that in future posts; for the moment, here’s a videoblog entry with some initial thoughts on what I found. Enjoy!
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A heads up on the National Archives at Kew

Well, today’s an exciting day in the world of British Council film blogging. I’m making plans to visit the National Archives at Kew, to dig through some original documents, and find a little more out about the organisation’s involvement with film.

That’s been triggered by some very helpful information from Claire Twinn, the British Council’s Archives [...]

Reviewing the BFI Mediatheque films, part 2

Time for more reviewing; so here’s a brief description of the second four films I watched at the BFI Mediatheque. They’re all fascinating in their own way – and they cover a very interesting period in the British Council’s history, as its film making activities peaked, and then began to drop away…

Market Town, 1942

Once again, [...]

Reviewing the BFI Mediatheque films

So last night I hit the Counterpoint relaunch event at the rather nifty Jerwood Space as part of the Tuttle crew; it was a very enjoyable evening indeed, but what was particularly gratifying was the extent to which people were asking about – and fascinated by – the British Council / BFI archive exploration project. [...]