BFI LAUNCH ARCHIVE TELEVISION

AUGUST 2001 has seen the launch of Archive Television, an exciting new strand of titles from the British Film Institute (bfi) Video Publishing.
Access to bfi television holdings has been limited to research and monthly cinema screenings at the National Film Theatre (NFT). This series will release classic TV productions from the archive and make them available on video and DVD.
TV is the fastest growing part of the bfi's archival collections with over 200,000 films. Until last year, the only significant access the bfi could give to their television material was to individual students and researchers, on bfi premises only. Due to new agreements with the major TV companies, this access has been expanded to allow study on the premises of regional film archives and for expanded educational uses. The new video strand now provides access in the home.
The first titles, which were released on August 20, are Ken Russell's elegant and moving ‘Song of Summer’, based on Eric Fenby's memoir of the composer Delius, and ‘The Stone Tape’, a cult ghost story written by Nigel Kneale of Quatermass fame and not seen since 1973.
A second spine-chiller is to follow on September 17. Jonathan Miller's acclaimed adaptation of M R James' classic ‘Whistle and I'll Come to You’ (1968) stars Michael Hordern as a grouchy professor succumbing to terror in a desolate Norfolk landscape.
Plans for future titles include a companion piece to ‘Song of Summer’, Ken Russell's ‘Elgar’ (1962), and two stunning interpretations of war: ‘Culloden’ (1964) and ‘The War Game’ (1966).
‘Culloden’ is a powerful documentary reconstruction of the atrocities surrounding the infamous battle of 1746, whilst ‘The War Game’ is drama in a documentary style. Made during the height of public fear about the destructive capabilities of the atom bomb, this searing exploration of the possible events following a declaration of international war was banned for nearly twenty years before its first transmission in the mid-eighties.
Details of forthcoming and future releases from the Archive TV strand will be available on the bfi’s website at www.bfi.org.uk. (CD)