Brief overview of the BFI National Archive, our holdings and some past projects – feature films such as Arcadia, From the Sea to the Land Beyond – VDJ events such as Sensoria fest in Sheffield and Elsewhere in India.

Followed by a short look at key collections:

• British Transport Films (BTF) – a huge array of films made during the era of British Rail, from travelogues and documentaries on new train technologies to experimental films such as Snow

• Victorian and Edwardian Collection – a large number of films from the very birth of cinema – many employing novel aspect ratios and experimental uses of colouring.

• Central Office of Information (COI) – UK government films from the 1930s until the early 2000s. Farm and road safety, anti-smoking ads and short documentaries about life in UK and the commonwealth.

• TV-AM – UK Breakfast TV featuring a number of celebrities.

Then a more detailed look at two major collections – ETV (Education Television), a large array of films made throughout the Socialist world, primarily the USSR, China and the Eastern Bloc; as well as Associated Rediffusion, one of the very first regional syndicates in UK TV. AR covered London and the South East and the BFI represents the channel’s first decade or so, from 1956-1968