Discover Movies

Captures the work of the British Rail Parcel Service, illustrating the story of five different consignments over a twenty-four hour period. These are: a schoolboy in Cheshire being sent a new bicycle; a housewife in Rhondda Valley awaiting the arrival of a new vacuum cleaner; a man in Lincoln expecting an insurance cheque; a tourist in Cornwall waiting for his daily newspaper to arrive at his hotel; and a research scientist who urgently needs some equipment in Manchester.

Documentary about the Romney Hythe & Dymchurch Railway.

For Landscape for Fire, Anthony McCall and members of the British artist collaborative Exit followed McCall’s pre-determined score to torch containers of flammable material across a field. McCall describes it: "Over a three-year period, I did a number of these sculptural performances in landscape. Fire was the medium. The performances were based on a square grid defined by 36 small fires (6 x 6). The pieces, which usually took place at dusk, had a systematic, slowly changing structure." The work brought the grid — a conceptual focus for many artists in the 1970s and after — into a natural landscape, merging it with the vagaries of outdoor space and fire.

Roger Hammond’s silent portraits of film artists from the early 1970s were shot in and around David Larcher’s studio. Some Friends begins with a Polaroid photograph of fellow Co-op filmmaker Mike Dunford held before the camera by the filmmaker as he pans the camera upwards with his other hand. The photograph is held roughly in the centre of the frame, and the general situation in which it is filmed is just seen at the sides of the photograph as the camera pans. The same action is repeated with several photographs, against different backdrops (the river banks, a lawn, a domestic interior).

A botanist has developed a curious flower which only blooms during a full moon and has remarkable properties, instantly healing wounds and giving the strange ability to read other's thoughts. He uses it to rejuvenate his crippled body and sets his sights on his beautiful young assistant.

An experimental film which attempts to develop a sense of 'actual physical time' relative to the events observed, recorded within the original camera direction.

Encourages the prospect of hosting an intercity exhibition on rails, with the potential to travel all across Europe.

The nature and history of the Isle of Rhum, Scotland.

"One of a series of films that investigates qualities of sound that can be generated directly from the image track. The images that you see are simultaneously scanned by the optical sound reader in the projector, which converts the into sound. This particular film makes use of the aural effect of visual perspective; the steeper the perspective on the railings, the closer the intervals of black and white, and the higher the frequency of sound. I also wanted to find out what freeze frames and visual strobe would 'sound' like. Visual strobe is created both in the camera (camera shutter v. railings) and in the printer (printer shutter v. slipping frames)." -G.S.

A lonely twelve-year-old boy with problem parents experiments with drugs and enters an idealised fantasy world.

In this structural-materialist film, colour is generated by landscape: from the sky, the grass and berries.

The film is a continuous, "real time" tracking shot of a stream bed. The length of the track was ten yards. The camera was suspended in a motorized carriage running on steel cables three feet above the water surface. The camera pointed vertically downwards recording the contours of the stream bed and the flow of water along its course. The sound of the water was recorded synchronously from the moving carriage.

Building a new harbour at Port Talbot - it’s a man’s world in which the only females are a dredger and two seafaring vessels.

Imaginative amateur animation revisiting the famous Burns story poem. This film was winner of the Humphrey Jennings Trophy for best animation film at the 40th Scottish International Amateur Film Festival.

This film focuses on the basics of adapting to life in England.

A stop-motion animation of a difficult old woman who takes risks crossing the road. Introduced by Henry Cooper.

Optical sound film by Guy Sherwin

Short film about the upgrades and technological improvements on the British railways.

A film by George Saxon

A look at life in the UK, focused on the Newton family of Leeds and taking in other areas of the UK including the government in London, the historic city of York and holidays in the Lake District and the popular tourist spots of Scotland.

The film begins at a women's agency in London, where the protagonist, Mel Lamb, makes arrangements for a series of engagements. During his time in Paris and at Ai en-en-Provence Mel's human values are explored in the environment of horror and violence of Belfast.

Training film for drivers on the introduction of the new locomotive.

A male cat, with prominent testicles, approaches a sleeping woman and begins pawing and licking at her. The woman awakes and, smiling, allows the cat to dive between her breasts as though her cleavage was a body of water.

The camera was placed on the flexible branch of a tree in a strong wind. The composition included both stationary and moving trees (a wooded landscape). The relationship of this landscape to the vertical and horizontal plane was maintained as much as possible. The camera ran continuously until all the film was exposed. The world is seen from the point of view of a tree as its branches sway to the rhythm of the wind.

Lens Hand Foot is part of the Light Occupations series, in which Gill Eatherley performs simple investigations of the filmic equipment, particularly the camera and the projector, in short films that are each three minutes in length – corresponding to the length of a 100-foot roll of film. In films like this one, she explores the relationship of her own body to the filmmaking apparatus, playfully attempting to overcome the unbridgeable distance between them.

UK Public Information Film.

Documentary about people who live and work in the Sahara Desert, with a look at the means of transport used to travel across the vast wilderness.

Explores a weekend in the life of a Yorkshire mining community set to the music of the Frickley Colliery brass band and illustrated with paintings and prose from former miners.

A look at improvements to old Glasgow tenements.

This film uses the image of fireworks (as points of light) superimposed in the camera and in the optical printer until the surface of the film begins to bleach out.

Unedited slates from a film called 'Survivor' filmed by Margaret Tait. Footage includes outdoor landscape and garden scenes, a fire burning in field and a man drinking tea in his study. [There appears to be no coherence to the footage] See also Additional Information file at 11/1/455. Paper Archives 4/5/119, 4/11/651, 4/5/92.

Among the Yoruba of Western Nigeria and Dahomey the Gelede cult honours the earth spirits, the ancestors and especially the Great Mother. The festival filmed here emphasises the status of women and placated their potentially dangerous mystic powers. The commentary emphasises that the annual Gelede festival serves a cathartic role by paying respect to women in a patriarchal society. During the course of the festival social tensions are brought out into the open and ridiculed; antagonism between the sexes is thus controlled and given a legitimate outlet. The film shows the preparation of masks and the climax of the festival in which the Great Mask appears at midnight. On the following day the lesser masks entertain, satirising the movements of women.

Part of BFI's "National Coal Board Collection".

"The film was conceived as a coda to a longer (colour) film, Place of Work, made in the same year. It covers the time of finally emptying a long-time family home, with its personal memories and connection with some of my own work. Fragments of verse, along with young children's voices released into the emptying rooms and staircases, and an ersatz 'pop' music track, clarify the familiar and the alien in the situation." Margaret Tait

A black and white, experimental film from 1975.

Bob Godfrey shared his deep passion for animation.

This poignant film publicises elections for a new Assembly in Belfast.

A procession of fantastic creatures from the worlds of H. Bosch, R. Crumb and T. Dine.

Four simple changing colour loops are projected continuously into the corners of a gallery space - a form of site specific film sculpture. film-loop installation, continuous

Arena profiles John Hoyland, seen by many as England's finest abstract painter. As a major retrospective of his work opens in London, Hoyland faces hostile criticism, starts a new painting and explains why, in his bleaker moments, painting can seem little more than ' flicking away in a corner with a feather duster '.

A documentary film based on the art of tattooing, tattoo artists and their clients, with interviews exploring the fascination for, and the reasons behind, choosing to be tattooed. The film builds up to long climactic scene, often since replicated in other films on the subject, featuring tattooed bodies displayed as art objects.

The Nine Road is the busman's name for one of London's oldest and most used bus routes, running between Mortlake and Liverpool Street. The film takes us along the route on a summer's day, and shows the operation and control of the Number Nines from early morning until past midnight. Collected in BFI's "London on the Move."

A BAFTA award nominated documentary film looking at Sunday morning football.

A rare 1979 BBC Arena documentary on the Albion Band, Ashley Hutchings and the development of English folk rock up to that time.

A 55-minute documentary directed and edited by Mamoun Hassan when he was stationed with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) in Lebanon in 1974. The film opens with a day in the life of Dr Murad, a Palestinian doctor appointed by the UNRWA to look after the health of the Palestinian people in a Syrian refugee camp. It progresses to a recently bombed camp in Lebanon to the West Bank, via Jordan.

An extremely rare film of the alternative community that settled on the uninhabited Dorinish island off Co Mayo, owned by John Lennon and given custodianship to Sid Rawle, ‘King of the Hippies’, in 1970. Leeds’ maverick filmmaker Alan Sidi was on hand to film and interview members of the community that settled there about their way of life. He returns a year later to find just one member surviving, Tom, recounting how the promise of a non-materialistic lifestyle fell apart.

Be Glad for the Song Has No Ending is the eighth album by the Incredible String Band, featuring Mike Heron, Robin Williamson, Licorice McKechnie and Rose Simpson. It is the soundtrack for a film of the same name, and was released on Island Records in March 1971, failing to chart in either the UK or US. It would be the first album from the band on the Island label and the last to feature Joe Boyd as the producer.

This PIF cleverly uses the threat of a knock from the Old Bill to deter would-be vandals. However, if we recall the urban landscape of 1970s Britain - smashed up phone boxes, broken windows, vandalised bus shelters, and so on - perhaps it may not have been an altogether effective deterrent.

Introduces the principle of newly developed computer techniques for planning train movements, crew and locomotive rosters and for producing and printing timetables. Explains the programmes, shows the equipment in action and some of the changes in working methods. Intended for British Rail staff involved in train movement planning, overseas railway audiences and specialist computer-application, non-railway audiences.

A BAFTA award nominated documentary explaining how well-logging equipment enables the petroleum engineer to obtain evidence of the potential of the oil reservoir.

Concorde stops off at Prestwick airport and the crowds brave the rain to catch a glimpse of the famous aeroplane.

Made in 1972, this film is concerned with the traditional trans-Himalayan trade which links the relatively low-altitude, grain-growing regions of Nepal with high-altitude Tibet, the traditional source of most of the salt and wool imported by Nepal. It also provides information about and illustration of the ways of life and the history of the diverse peoples in the areas through which the trade passes.

An animated film about a waiter, a chef, and the customers.

Gusts of wind on Hampstead Heath give shape to an exploratory film that seeks to present landscape in a different way.

A documentary providing an inside look at life in Kirkby, told through the experiences of its residents, including tenants, children, councillors, and factory workers.

Shot in black and white, London Me Bharat—one of the first Hindi-language films made in Britain—presents a distinctive view of 70s London. After an opening in which an Indian classical score renders familiar landmarks unfamiliar, the film abandons tourist London to explore Southall, home to one of Britain's largest Indian communities. It's an insightful take on an increasingly multicultural city—at a time when, the commentary tells us, the capital's Indian population numbered some 150,000, with another 300,000 elsewhere in the UK.

A captivating, upside-down version of George and the Dragon and the history of Wales. Steely George is no match for a fiery Welsh ‘mam’.

Report No. 10 in a series of 13 topical films, covering: Hovercraft, Princess Ann; the Advanced Passenger Train; Design Centre exhibition, The next train; plasma torch, Derby Technical Centre; analysis of diesel oils, Glasgow science laboratory; bleep radio communications, Paddington; resignalling, Derby area; intercity coaches; evolved suspension, the Brighton Belle; Southern Region grouptravel; computer, Eastern Region; shipment of molten iron.

A BAFTA award nominated documentary demonstrating how petrol burns in the engine under differing conditions.