British Film Institute
The BFI is the UK’s lead organization for film, television and the moving image. It is a cultural charity that restores and distributes films across the globe. It cares for the BFI National Archive, one of the most significant film and television archive in the world.
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Edward Hopper
Directed by Ron Peck • Documentary • 1981 • 47 minutes
A study of the 20th century American painter's life and work.
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Hidden Heritage: The Roots of Black American Painting
Directed by Andrew Piddington • Documentary • With David Driskell • 1991 • 52 minutes
David Driskell, the pathbreaking art history professor and artist, is the focus of HIDDEN HERITAGE: THE ROOTS OF BLACK AMERICAN PAINTING. He made it his life mission to trace the work of Black artists from the ...
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Giacometti
Directed by Michael Gill • Documentary • 1967 • 14 minutes
The artist at work in his studio shows artist Giacometti drawing and modelling in his studio in Paris.
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Ascendancy
Directed by Edward Bennett • Drama • With Julie Covington, Ian Charleson • 1982 • 92 minutes
Set in Ireland in 1920, Ascendancy is a powerful meditation on English guilt over the tormented history of Northern Ireland. Connie (Julie Covington) is an English aristocrat driven to despair over the h...
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Maeve
Directed by Pat Murphy & John Davies • Drama • With Mary Jackson • 1981 • 90 minutes
Pat Murphy and John Davis’ experimental film attempts to posit an alternative, feminist perspective on the Troubles and Irish nationalism. Flitting between the various pasts and present, it follows the experienc...
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2 X 50 Years of French Cinema
Directed by Anne-Marie Miéville & Jean-Luc Godard • Documentary • With Michel Piccoli • 1995 • 50 minutes
Jean-Luc Godard produced this ambitious project, directed by his wife, Anne-Marie Miéville. Travelling around six regions (each of which featured in a classic film) he interviews young local...
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100 Years of Japanese Cinema (Nagisa Oshima)
Directed by Nagisa Oshima • Documentary • With William B. White, Nagisa Oshima • 1996 • 52 minutes
The forces and themes that have shaped his nation's cinema drive Nagisa Oshima's forceful and erudite essay. Based entirely on archive footage, it considers the rediscovery of Daisuke Ito's Chuji's...
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40,000 Years of Dreaming (George Miller)
Directed by George Miller • Documentary • With George Miller • 1996 • 65 minutes
Mad Max director George Miller explores the tradition of film production in Australia, forging a link between the imported technology of filmmaking and the ancient Aboriginal creation myths. In parallel with tracing...
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Abstract Cinema
Directed by Keith Griffiths • Documentary • With Stan Brakhage, William Moritz, John Whitney, Michael Scroggins, Jules Engel • 1993 • 51 minutes
Exploration of the work of pioneers in abstract cinema using rare archive film, film clips and interviews to demonstrate the influence of the early cin...
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The Animals Film
Directed by Victor Schonfeld & Myriam Alaux • Documentary • With Julie Christie, Richard Ryder, Roger Ulrich, Lord Houghton, Peter Singer • 1981 • 136 minutes
Documentary about the abuse of animals in factory farming, sport and research. Made over a period of two years in Britain and the U.S., i...
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Around India with a Movie Camera
Directed by Sandhyu Suri • Documentary • 2018 • 72 minutes
Award-winning filmmaker Sandhya Suri (I for India) skillfully weaves together archival footage—including hand colored sequences—with a new score by composer Soumik Datta to create an emotionally resonant story about life across India fro...
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Cinema of Tears
Directed by Nelson Pereira Dos Santos • Documentary • With Raul Cortez, André Barros, Christiane Torloni, Patrick Tannus, Cosme Alves Neto • 1995 • 95 minutes
Personal view of the Latin American cinema by Brazilian director Nelson Pereira dos Santos, based on an adaptation of a novel by Silvia O...
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Dreams That Money Can Buy
Directed by Hans Richter • Drama • With Jack Bittner, Werner Brandes, Norma Cazanjian, Lauren Denny, Joseph Freeman • 1948 • 81 minutes
Joe, a young man down on his luck, discovers he has the power to create dreams, and sets up a business selling them to others. The 'dreams' he gives to his clie...
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Drifters (John Grierson)
Directed by John Grierson • Documentary • 1929 • 50 minutes
Story of the North Sea herring fleets. Filmed around the coast of Yarmouth and Lowestoft and Lerwick in the Shetlands in all weathers, but using some studio sets for interiors.
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Every Day Except Christmas (Lindsay Anderson)
Directed by Lindsay Anderson • Documentary • With Alun Owen • 1957 • 40 minutes
Lindsay Anderson followed his Free Cinema debut O Dreamland with this affectionate tribute to working-class life, depicting the hustle and bustle of Covent Garden market. On the back of his renowned Free Cinema film ...
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Frida Kahlo & Tina Modotti
Directed by Laura Mulvey • Documentary • With Miriam Margolyes • 1983 • 29 minutes
This tautly structured documentary sheds light on the work of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo and Italian photographer Tina Modotti, women icons of the Mexican Renaissance. The film not only explores the two women's a...
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London
Directed by Patrick Keiller • Documentary • With Paul Scofield • 1994 • 85 minutes
A 'fin-de-siecle' personal portrait of London from an English experimental filmmaker, shot over a period of twelve months, which saw the election of John Major as prime minister, renewed IRA bombings, the 'Black W...
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The Miners' Hymns
Directed by Bill Morrison • Documentary • 2011 • 52 minutes
The ill-fated coal mining communities in North East England are the subject of this inspired documentary by multi-media artist Bill Morrison. Their story is told entirely without words, yet the film is far from silent: it features a rem...
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Minute Bodies: The Intimate World Of F. Percy Smith
Directed by Stuart A. Staples • Documentary • With tindersticks • 2016 • 55 minutes
This meditative, immersive film by tindersticks' Stuart A. Staples is a tribute to the astonishing work and achievements of naturalist, inventor and pioneering British filmmaker F. Percy Smith (1880-1945).
Based...
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Momma Don't Allow (Karl Reisz & Tony Richardson)
Directed by Karel Reisz & Tony Richardson • Documentary • With Chris Barber, Monty Sunshine, Pat Halcox, Ron Bowden • 1956 • 22 minutes
This lively Free Cinema short captures a night out at the Wood Green Jazz Club, where teenagers jive to trad jazz. Funded by the BFI Experimental Film Fund, it ...
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Murder in the Cathedral Extras
Directed by George Hoellering • Drama • 1952 • 52 minutes
Alternative And Deleted Sequences from MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL
00:00 Alternative opening sequence
03:58 Extended King’s Court scene
14:56 Extended scene of priest addressing congregation, deleted song & extended scene of women’s chorus
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Sierra Leone Greets the Queen
Directed by T. Cummins • Documentary • 1961 • 22 minutes
Record of the royal visit by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip to Sierra Leone between 25th November and 1st December 1961. The Royal yacht Britannia arrives in Freetown. Formal greeting from dignitaries including the Prime Minister Sir...
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The Song of Ceylon
Directed by Basil Charles Wright • Documentary • With Lionel Wendt, Alberto Cavalcanti, John Grierson, Stuart Legg, Basil Charles Wright • 1934 • 38 minutes
The Song of Ceylon was originally commissioned as a series of short travelogues, but spawned an ambitious film transforming travelogue (exo...
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Turksib
Directed by Viktor Turin • Documentary • 1929 • 78 minutes
With bold and exhilarating flair, Turksib charts the monumental efforts to build a railway linking the regions of Turkestan and Siberia in 1920s USSR. With its signature use of Soviet montage and a similarly typical portrayal of huge col...