The BFI National Archive is a department of the

British Film Institute The British Film Institute (BFI) is a film and television charitable organisation which promotes and preserves filmmaking and television in the United Kingdom. The BFI uses funds provided by the National Lottery to encourage film production, ...

, and one of the largest film archives in the world. It was founded as the National Film Library in 1935; its first curator was Ernest Lindgren. In 1955, its name became the National Film Archive, and, in 1992, the National Film and Television Archive. It was renamed BFI National Archive in 2006. It collects, preserves, restores, and shares the

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

s and television programmes which have helped to shape and record British life and times since the development of cine film in the late 19th century. The majority of the collection is British originated material, but it also features internationally significant holdings from around the world. The Archive also collects films which feature key British actors and the work of British directors. The collections themselves are accommodated on several sites. The J. Paul Getty, Jr. Conservation Centre in

Berkhamsted Berkhamsted ( ) is a historic market town in Hertfordshire, England, in the River Bulbourne, Bulbourne valley, north-west of London. The town is a Civil parishes in England, civil parish with a town council within the borough of Dacorum which ...

Hertfordshire Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is a ceremonial county in the East of England and one of the home counties. It borders Bedfordshire to the north-west, Cambridgeshire to the north-east, Essex to the east, Greater London to the ...

, named after its benefactor, is the base for much of the restoration work, while approximately 140 million feet of unstable

nitrate film Nitrocellulose (also known as cellulose nitrate, flash paper, flash cotton, guncotton, pyroxylin and flash string, depending on form) is a highly flammable compound formed by nitration, nitrating cellulose through exposure to a mixture of nitri ...

and all the master film collection held on acetate or other media is kept separately at a BFI storage site at Gaydon in

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...

BFI New Master Film Store Gaydon - offices

Preservation

Film preservation is an ongoing project among filmmakers, historians, archivists, museums, and nonprofit organisations to rescue deteriorating

film stock Film stock is an analog medium that is used for recording motion pictures or animation. It is recorded on by a movie camera, developed, edited, and projected onto a screen using a movie projector. It is a strip or sheet of transparent pl ...

and preserve the recorded image. In recent years the BFI National Archive has completed a number of much anticipated restorations of a diverse range of film titles. This has included the Mitchell and Kenyon collection, which consists almost entirely of actuality films commissioned by travelling fairground operators for showing at local fairgrounds or other venues across the UK in the early part of the twentieth century. Other notable recent restorations include: *

Alfred Hitchcock Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director. He is widely regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of cinema. In a career spanning six decades, he directed over 50 featu ...

's nine surviving silent feature films *'' Love, Life and Laughter'' (1923) *'' The Epic of Everest'' (1924) *'' The Great White Silence'' (1924) *'' Shooting Stars'' (dir. Anthony Asquith, 1927) *'' The Battles of Coronel and Falkland Islands'' (1927) *'' Shiraz: A Romance of India'' (1928) *'' The First Born'' (1928) *'' Underground'' (dir. Anthony Asquith, 1928) *'' The Informer'' (1929) *'' The Private Life of Henry VIII'' (1933) *'' Hell Drivers'' (1957) *'' Night of the Demon'' (1957) *''

The Day the Earth Caught Fire ''The Day the Earth Caught Fire'' is a 1961 British science-fiction disaster film directed by Val Guest and starring Edward Judd, Leo McKern, and Janet Munro. It is one of the classic apocalyptic films of its era. The film opened at the Odeon Ma ...

'' (1961) *'' Women in Love'' (1969) *''

Jabberwocky "Jabberwocky" is a Nonsense verse, nonsense poem written by Lewis Carroll about the killing of a creature named "the Jabberwock". It was included in his 1871 novel ''Through the Looking-Glass'', the sequel to ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' ...

'' (1977)

Collections

The collection now known as the BFI National Archive was founded as the National Film Library in 1935 by Ernest Lindgren, who was the first curator. The BFI National Archive now comprises over 275,000 titles in total consisting of feature, non-fiction, short films (dating from 1894), 210,000 television programmes and some artists' films. It is one of the largest film collections in the world. Notable collections include: * Mitchell and Kenyon collection * GPO Film Unit collection * Central Office of Information (COI) film collection *

Chaplin Chaplin may refer to: People * Charlie Chaplin (1889–1977), English comedy film actor and director * Chaplin (name), other people named Chaplin Films * ''Unknown Chaplin'' (1983) * Chaplin (film), ''Chaplin'' (film) (1992) * Chaplin (2011 fi ...

Out-Takes collection The archive holds 20,000 silent films including,

Cecil Hepworth Cecil Milton Hepworth (19 March 1874 – 9 February 1953) was a British film director, film producer, producer and screenwriter. He was among the founders of the Cinema of the United Kingdom, British film industry and continued making films ...

's ''

Alice in Wonderland ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'' (also known as ''Alice in Wonderland'') is an 1865 English Children's literature, children's novel by Lewis Carroll, a mathematics university don, don at the University of Oxford. It details the story of a ...

'' (1903), and actively collects artists' moving images. In addition to moving image materials the Special Collections hold the records of filmmakers and institutions. Significant collections include: *

Michael Powell Michael Latham Powell (30 September 1905 – 19 February 1990) was an English filmmaker, celebrated for his partnership with Emeric Pressburger. Through their production company Powell and Pressburger, The Archers, they together wrote, produced ...

and

Emeric Pressburger Emeric Pressburger (born Imre József Pressburger; 5 December 19025 February 1988) was a Hungarian-British screenwriter, film director, and producer. He is best known for his series of film collaborations with Michael Powell, in a collaborat ...

Carol Reed Sir Carol Reed (30 December 1906 – 25 April 1976) was an English film director and producer, best known for '' Odd Man Out'' (1947), '' The Fallen Idol'' (1948), '' The Third Man'' (1949), and '' Oliver!'' (1968), for which he was awarded th ...

David Lean Sir David Lean (25 March 190816 April 1991) was an English film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor, widely considered one of the most important figures of Cinema of the United Kingdom, British cinema. He directed the large-scale epi ...

Ken Loach Kenneth Charles Loach (born 17 June 1936) is a retiredhttps://variety.com/2024/film/global/ken-loach-retirement-the-old-oak-jonathan-glazer-oscars-speech-1235956589/ English filmmaker. His socially critical directing style and socialist views ar ...

* Derek Jarman *

Alan Parker Sir Alan William Parker (14 February 1944 – 31 July 2020) was an English film director, screenwriter and producer. His early career, beginning in his late teens, was spent as a copywriter and director of television advertisements. After abo ...

Films and television programmes are acquired mainly by donation or, in the case of independent television, via funding direct from the TV companies. Emphasis is placed on British productions but whenever possible important and popular movies from overseas are also acquired. Films from the Archive have also acted as material for the BFI's programme of artists' moving image commissions, most notably through the programme of the BFI Gallery, the contemporary art space dedicated to artists' moving image active at

BFI Southbank BFI Southbank (from 1951 to 2007, known as the National Film Theatre) is the leading repertory cinema in the United Kingdom, specialising in seasons of classic, independent and non-English language films. It is operated by the British Film Inst ...

between 2007 and 2011.Fabrizi, Elisabetta, 'Is This Cinema?', in Balsom, E., Perks, S., Reynolds, L., (Ed.), 'Artists' Moving Image in Britain from 1989', Paul Mellon Foundation/Yale University Press, 2019.

References

External links

British Film InstituteBFI National ArchiveEuropean Film archives
{{Authority control 1935 establishments in the United Kingdom Archives in Hertfordshire Archives in Warwickshire Berkhamsted National Archive Film archives in the United Kingdom Film organisations in the United Kingdom History of television in the United Kingdom Television organisations in the United Kingdom Television archives in the United Kingdom Organizations established in 1935 The National Archives (United Kingdom)

Preservation

Collections

See also

References

External links