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An in-depth look at how the short film Monkey Business was created. This was made in 1987 to explain to the clients of MPC what the new digital post production landscape had to offer.

A nine year old girl receives a giant bandsaw for her birthday

A documentary made for BBC West in 1982, written and presented by Hugh Cornwell and Jet Black of The Stranglers. It focuses on the colour black and includes the Meninblack phenomenon and some Stranglers of course.

This film, which includes archival footage and interviews with convicted killer James Earl Ray, Martin Luther King III and former police officers, looks back at Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968 and lingering conspiracy theories.

A woman is menaced by a masked killer while waiting for a train at a railway station.

A tourist group is shown the latest in Soviet virtual reality technology through the Potemkin.

BRUTE!'s Malcolm Bennett wrote and acted as special consultant on this 1987 trailer for Mallet!, a ultra-violent cartoon noir directed by Blink animation director Bob Lawrie. Although it was never picked up by a major network, Mallet's influence can be seen in many films and animations that followed, namely the film adaptation of Frank Miller's Sin City. Starring Bob Pugh as Mallet and featuring Stephen Haley as Skillet.

The passing of the seasons on Scotland's picturesque West Highland Railway.

The soldier in the spinal carriage can neither move nor speak. Who is he? His fellow wounded and officers are intent on finding out.

Assesses the contribution made by British avant-garde composer, Cornelius Cardew, to contemporary music. Includes interviews with Stockhausen and other composers, and extracts from Cardew's own works.

An idyllic river flows through a forest, flashes of light and colour threaten to erase the image, bursts of short wave radio and static invade the tranquillity of the natural sound. The camera searches amongst the craggy rocks and ruined buildings of a bleak and windswept snowscape, a Geiger counter chatters ominously in the background. The sky is overcast at first but gradually clears to reveal a sky of unnatural cobalt blue.

A peculiar plant produces puppies.

Neat Records, the Tyne & Wear based label that gave us many notable Geordie metal acts like Venom and Raven here present a showcase of some of their 1985 roster. Featuring video performances from Venom, Warfare, Saracen and Avenger interspersed with candid and "humorous" skits between.

A family gathering in Greece devolves into deception, incest, and quite a lot of murder.

This film, set to Ponta de Lanca Africano (Umbabarauma) by Jorge Ben, was created to accompany Beleza Tropical: Brazil Classics 1, the first in a series of albums compiled by David Byrne to promote the unique music published by Brazilian artists during a repressive period of military rule in the 1970’s-1980’s. The aim was to visually invoke the album’s sensual and lyrical breadth and depth, and to subtly reflect the underlying social and political issues of that time.

Cezanne's Eye is an experiential journey through the body of a unique landscape - that of Cezanne's Provence. Using intuitive and expressionist visual language and a striking specially composed soundtrack (by Stuart Jones) the film is a movement through land, sky, colour, sound and music that is both sensual and visually challenging. In Stan Brakhage’s words, Cezanne's Eye is “the most significant camera as paintbrush film in the history of cinema”.

A animated mixed-media music video of a prisioner who is in a chest of drawers breaks out of his cell.

Roger Cunningham and his wife Valerie go on a camping trip with another couple and find themselves stranded. Arguments arise, and secrets begin coming out: accusations of affairs, marriages of convenience, and homosexuality

The interior of a house. Outside, the sun parches the landscape. A woman’s voice tells a story. Filmed from 35mm slide projection on 16mm reversal Fuji film with in camera fades and pans.

If you lived in a children's home, had step-parents, just one parent or lived in a 'community' what would the word 'family' mean to you?

1999: A perma-redundant father takes his family on a strange ‘working holiday’, scrubbing floors in an undersea missile base.

Claude D'Anna's film of Verdi's Macbeth is a gloomy affair, stressing the descent into madness of the principal villains. It's acted by the singers of the Decca recording of the opera (with two substitutions of actors standing in for singers) and the lip-synching is generally unobtrusive. The musical performance is superb, conducted by Riccardo Chailly with admirable fire, and sung by some of the leading lights of the opera stages of the 1980s. Shirley Verrett virtually owned the role of Lady Macbeth at the time, and she delivers a terrific performance, the voice equal to the role's wide register leaps and it's suffused with emotion, whether urging her husband on to murder or maddened by guilt in the Sleepwalking Scene. Leo Nucci's resonant Macbeth may lack the ultimate in vocal color and steadiness (his last notes of the great aria Pietà, rispetto, amore are wobbly) but he compensates with intensity in both singing and acting.

Video documentation of a talk/Q&A session, with some behind-the-scenes footage.

A boy begins to transform and leaves the house to feed.

Having suffered years of neglect, Saira decides that her life is meaningless and that it's possibly time to end it all. She tries to confess, but nobody else knows what she is talking about, which this cinema PIF for The Samaritans represents through distorted, eldritch guitar riffs. They, of course, understand. Directed by Michael Seresin at BFCS. Rated 15.

Radical resistance in the postwar British Caribbean community, from the 1948 Nationality Act to the 1958 Brixton riots.

An examination into Factory Records. The members of New Order interview founders Tony Wilson and Martin Hannett, who speak on the philosophical and cultural purpose of their label, and their associates, who mostly appear frustrated or confused. Rob Gretton, Factory founder and manager of New Order, interviews himself. Also includes three live performances of New Order at the Haçienda.

Part of BFI collection "The Miners' Campaign Video Tapes."

Christos is a young Greek in London, well-integrated, successful, more English than the English. Esther is his landlady and lover. Suddenly, Melina Merkouri arrives in London to take the Parthenon Marbles back to Greece. Christos is stirred. He washes the dishes, breaks them in the manner of rebetiko fans when the music of the bouzouki stirs the blood, and returns to Athens… with Melina and the famed Parthenon Marbles.

A 1983 film for Channel Four’s Visions, featuring interviews about the impact of Godard of British filmmakers and critics.

It's such a simple, natural thing to have a baby, thinks Mary. But she and husband Paul are preoccupied with their careers. Can their young neighbour Tessa help, or are the emotions around a new baby more complex than anyone had expected?

The Brent Delta is but one of 40 platforms between the Shetlands and Norway which reap this black liquid harvest. It is a strange and eerie world: the night sky glows bright orange; men work on deck sweltering in tropical warmth, but surrounded by a sub-Arctic sea; 300 miles from any city, commuters shuttle daily to and from their work on flying buses. Yet every activity of every one of the thousands of men confined to this unreal and dreamlike world is directed to one end alone: profit.

A Welsh farmworker discovers rock 'n' roll in the 1960s.

Ken Russell's engrossing examination of the great 20th-century composer tells Williams' story through the eyes of his widow, Ursula, with personal remberances from those who knew him.

Nancy is the sole inhabitant of the Isle of Annagh off the west coast of Scotland. Although World War III is raging all around she sees little of it until Michael, a young pilot officer, pays an involuntary visit and is in danger of dragging the hostilities along with him.

A memory-using location film of a stay with a uranium mining community. Using a kaleidoscopic array of experimental techniques, this film explores uranium mining in Canada and its destructive effects on both the environment and the women working in the mines. A plethora of images ranging from the women at work to spine-chilling representations of cancerous bodies are accompanied by unnerving industrial sounds and straightforward information from some of the women.

Docudrama about an esoteric ancient belief system based on dualistic interpretation of Christianity

A documentary looking at the proposed redevelopment of the Forth and Clyde Canal in 1980s Scotland.

The film explores the first Palestinian Intifada against the Israeli Occupation in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. It shows moving images of resistance against the Israeli occupation, while exploring the steadfast determination of the Palestinian People, confronting a modern army with stones. The film highlights the active and important role of women in the intifada.

A sticky summer night in central Texas. Suzy Varden picks up an English hitch-hiker, Dan Sheets, en route to Mexico. They check into a seedy motel, where, with the help of a bottle of cheap bourbon, Suzy's story unfolds.

One day in the life of television is a documentary that was broadcast on ITV on 1 November 1989. Filmed by over fifty crews exactly one year earlier, it was a huge behind-the-scenes look at a wide range of activities involved in the production, reception and marketing of British television. The project was organised by the British Film Institute and produced and directed for television by Peter Kosminsky. A book by Sean Day-Lewis was published to accompany the documentary. It contained the thoughts of people throughout Britain, including industry professionals, who recorded their feelings and experiences of television viewing on 1 November 1988, the day that the documentary was filmed.

Documentary about nudism in the Netherlands.

Richard Feynman was a scientific genius with - in his words - a "limited intelligence". This dichotomy is just one of the characteristics that made him a fascinating subject. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out exposes us to many more of these intriguing attributes by featuring an extensive conversation with the acclaimed Nobel Prize winner. During the course of the interview, which was conducted in 1981, Feynman uses the undeniable power of the personal to convey otherwise challenging scientific theories. His colorful and lucid stories make abstract concepts tangible, and his warm presence is sure to inspire interest and awe from even the most reluctant student of science. His insights are profound, but his delivery is anything but dry and ostentatious.

A 1985 performance of Luchino Visconti's 1958 staging for the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. Bernard Haitink memorably directs a superb cast that includes Ileana Cotrubas at the height of her powers and Luis Lima, unequalled in his tortured introspection, in the title role. (5-act version, sung in Italian)

A courtroom 'drama' featuring Bob Guccione versus Ken Russell in a breach of contract case regarding disagreements over a script for a film version of Daniel De foe's "Moll Flanders" which Guccione hired Russell to direct.

When James pays one of his periodic visits to his mother he finds her curiously resigned to the loneliness she has suffered for the years since her husband's death. Somehow she has managed to keep all the family ties intact.

Live at the Assembly Rooms in Derby, England on the 6th of December, 1983. Setlist: 1) Handsome Devil 2) Still Ill 3) This Charming Man 4) Pretty Girls Make Graves 5) Reel Around The Fountain 6) What Difference Does It Make? 7) Miserable Lie 8) This Night Has Opened My Eyes 9) Hand In Glove 10) You've Got Everything Now 11) Back to the Old House 12) These Things Take Time 13) Accept Yourself 14) This Charming Man II

Drama about two teenage children whose parents' marriage is breaking apart. Kenny and Jill are both, in their own ways, distracted and doing poorly at school. When they come home they see their parents arguing, and overhear their mother crying at night, but they have difficulty talking about it with each other. A year later, after the father has left home and everybody seems to have settled down. The children spend weekends with their father, but things become strained when he introduces his new friend Doreen.

Van Morrison and The Chieftains recoded live at Ulster Hall, Belfast, in 1988 for Ulster Television Productions.

In considering Israel's plight, with five wars in its 40 years of existence, Schonfeld interviews Arabs and Jews of every conceivable political and religious view and focuses on the impact upon public opinion of the war in Lebanon and the uprising in the occupied territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Victoria Wood discusses her career and her writing, and gives a glimpse of life backstage on her comedy tour.

The Cockney entertainers host a lively Christmas party complete with flowing alcohol, a jubilant crowd of Eastenders and guests including Eric Clapton.

An experimental documentary that could be described as a meditation on clocks and clockwork.

A bonus feature of Rudeboy, featuring only the concert scenes with the band.

A confrontation/statement with fragments of dialogue between a mother, a daughter and a cameraman.

In 1984, David Byrne put together a TV special on the Talking Heads for U.K. TV’s Channel 4, a 68-minute mix of live material filmed at Wembley Arena, interviews with the band, TV news clips, commercials and other various bits of found footage and sound.

Documentation of the showcase titled 'The Final Academy', filmed on October 4, 1982 in The Haçienda, Manchester. Video 1 features the movies "Towers Open Fire" and "Ghosts at No. 9", video 2 features Burroughs' readings and performances by John Giorno and Brion Gysin.

An educational children’s animation by Sheila Graber about the workings of the human body. The film features a one celled character called Bio as he guides the viewer on the structure of the skeleton.

In Summer 1961, at a party held on the Cliveden estate of Lord Astor, Minister for War John Profumo met, and subsequently had a brief affair with, a call-girl by the name of Christine Keeler, who had also been seeing a Soviet diplomat. The rumours circulated throughout the following year, but the Fourth Estate was less inclined in those days to disturb the privacy of those at the top of the tree. Eventually, the story made the papers, and Profumo made a statement to the Commons, denying impropriety over his relationship with Keeler. Three months later he was back, confessing that he had misled the House, and he resigned as an MP. But that was only the start of it.