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The British Film Institute Research Project

AHRC Project on the History of the British Film Institute

The British Film Institute (BFI) is one of the oldest and most distinguished government-supported cultural institutions, not only in the UK but also in the world. Founded in 1933, the British Film Institute was to remain, for a number of structural and financial reasons, a marginal educational organisation during its first fifteen years; its most notable achievement in that period was the setting-up in 1935 of the National Film Library (later National Film Archive, and now National Film and Television Archive). In the more favourable post-war cultural context, it was rescued by the government-commissioned Radcliffe Report (1948), which laid down the foundations for its radical transformation. The Report demanded in particular that the BFI focus its activities on a more modern approach to film as art, and it gave it the institutional and financial means to implement its new remit. The National Film Theatre, which opened in 1952, originated from the success of the Festival of Britain’s Telecinema operated in 1951 by the BFI. It then moved to its present site under Waterloo Bridge in 1957, the year the Institute also launched the London Film Festival. The Experimental Film Fund, which later became the BFI Production Board, was set up in 1952. Beginning in the 1960s, the BFI then sponsored a network of regional cinemas and other activities outside the capital. Its two longstanding magazines, the Monthly Film Bulletin and the quarterly Sight and Sound, were merged in 1991 and became the monthly Sight and Sound, which now has a circulation of 23,000. The BFI has been a publisher of books since the 1970s and more recently of videos/DVDs, and has been playing a major role in moving image education at all levels ever since the early 1950s. It now has a total staff of over 400 and a turnover of £31m. Throughout most of its history it has found itself serving very diverse publics and has been a focal point of debate about the national film culture and often, especially in the 1960s and 70s, the centre of controversy.

Despite its importance in cultural life, little attention has been paid to its history. This project, funded by the AHRC and hosted by the Department of History at QMUL, aims to remedy this gap in historical knowledge. To achieve this, the project will be interviewing major participants in this history, many of them on video. (Among those already interviewed are Sir Denis Forman, Director of the BFI from 1948 to 1954 and Chairman of the Board of Governors from 1971 to 1973, and James Quinn, director of the BFI from 1955 to 1964.) It will also be sorting and examining the BFI’s extensive paper archive. A substantial audio-visual archive is being assembled, combining the new interviews with existing recordings and film, television and video materials. A website is being constructed on which to present selected audiovisual material, together with a detailed chronicle of major events in the BFI’s history. Then, in time for the BFI’s 75th anniversary in 2008, a written history will be published, telling the story of the BFI from its foundation until close to the present day.

The project has the enthusiastic support of the BFI and its current Chairman, Anthony Minghella, and enjoys close collaboration with the organisation at all levels. More information can be found on the BFI website www.bfi.org.uk[new window]


Members of the Research Team
Geoffrey Nowell-Smith, Senior Research Fellow
Christophe Dupin, Post-Doctoral Research Assistant
Lorraine Blakemore, Research Student

Co-applicant to the AHRC on behalf of the BFI
Richard Paterson

Special Consultant
Leslie Hardcastle OBE (formerly Head of BFI South Bank, including the National Film Theatre and the Museum of the Moving Image)

 
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The BFI’s original headquarter in Great Russell Street, London, from 1933 to 1948
Image of Radcliffe report
The crucial Radcliffe Report, 1948
Image of Sight & Sound
Cover the BFI’s Sight and Sound magazine, 1946
The first National Film Theatre building on the South Bank, originally built for the Festival of Britain in 1951
The BFI Director Denis Forman and filmmaker Orson Welles at the BFI Summer School in 1953
Filmmaking training at a BFI summer school in the 1950s
by Fiona Guest. © Queen Mary, University of London 2005
Department of History, Queen Mary, University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS, Tel: +44 (0)20 7882 5016 Fax: +44 (0)20 8980 8400