Getting a look at the UK’s film archives

The British Film Institute(BFI) is the home of the national archive of film and television and has one of the biggest collections of filmed material in the world, currently holding over 50,000 fiction and 100,000 non-fiction films and 625,000 tv programmes, some dating back over 100 years. Most of their collection is British although some are films and programmes with major British actors or directors, and along with main films and television productions the archive includes silent films, newsreels, experimental and home movies .

With the advances in technology the BFI are starting to make some of this archive more accessible to the general public. They’ve been working with computer company Hewlett Packard to digitize parts of the collection and have installed 14 new computers at their South Bank centre where members of the public can search the archives for free.

So far the service only features 750 film and tv programmes but they’ve all been restored and digitized and along with the actual film the service includes the screenplays and information on the movie and director. The BFI are unable to make their collection available online because of copyright restrictions, but intend to create a number of centres throughout the UK similar to the South Bank where the material can be seen for free.

The centres with the computers have the title Mediatheque and new titles will be added each month. The full list of what’s available at the South Bank will be released on 14 March. The BFI is on the south bank of the Thames just over Waterloo Bridge.