Open door policy - Time Out Film

In the past, the archive may have been visited by the odd scholar or a precious old print dusted down for a visit to London (I exaggerate for effect ndash; a bit). The image in the mind rsquo;s eye is akin to the door opened on Miss Havisham in lsquo;Great Expectations rsquo;, or the fading, sequestered Norma Desmond being chauffeured to the Universal Studios screening room in lsquo;Sunset Blvd rsquo;. These films need to get out more.

And now, thanks to a National Lottery grant of 783,000, they can.

The online archive material includes Hitchcock getting cheeky in the Blackmail screen test...

So far, about 200 hours of the collection have been digitised, rights-cleared and made available to the public, for free, through 14 monitors in the BFI Southbank Mediatheque. Curator Robin Baker says the programming is aimed at a different audience from the lsquo;traditional-type NFT-goer rsquo; who wants to see films on the big screen, in their optimal conditions. lsquo;The idea is for people to dip in and out, try things on for size.

One of the great things about the way it works is that you move to the next film instantly. rsquo;

The stuff I dipped into, sampled and browsed over a two-hour lunchbreak in the Mediatheque rsquo;s comfortable, high-backed, trim-upholstered, semi-boothed, Sennheiser-earphoned station was totally absorbing, despite the murmurings of the men fixing the air-conditioning and some punters complaints about scrolling problems and computer crashes.

.. Sunshine in Soho ...

With the attention span of Phoebe in lsquo;Friends rsquo;, I watched 5 minutes of housing problems in my old manor of North Ken in lsquo;Kensington Calling! rsquo; (1930), quickly checked out the congestion problems on lsquo;Waterloo Bridge rsquo; in 1978, listened to the cherubic choir of King rsquo;s College in Harry Watt rsquo;s moving doc lsquo;Christmas Under Fire rsquo; (1940) and sussed out the film showing at the old Rex cinema in the soundless lsquo;Morris Dancing at Berkhamsted rsquo; (1950) was lsquo;Soldiers Three rsquo;. I admired Edward Elgar rsquo;s walking boots in the 1932 home-movie lsquo;Harold Brooke with Elgar rsquo; (in the lsquo;May Highlights rsquo; strand), watched my old boss David Pirie rsquo;s innovative 1984 Play for Today lsquo;Rainy Day Women rsquo; (among the first 30 digitised PFTs ndash; all 270 are to be made available), laughed at Hitchcock rsquo;s dirty joke to a giggling Anny Ondra in lsquo;Blackmail Sound Test Take rsquo; (1927) and lamented the passing of the carnival in lsquo;Sunshine in Soho rsquo; (1956, in the lsquo;London Calling rsquo; slot), before I was beaten by the clock checking out the prints of two-dozen full-length features.

Rainy Day Women . ..

lsquo;But that rsquo;s only the beginning rsquo;, Baker explains.

lsquo;We rsquo;re adding to it the whole time. The punk programme opens in June, with films by Captain Zip and the 1979 Arena, lsquo;Who is Poly Styrene rsquo;, for instance. That rsquo;s what we rsquo;re trying to do the whole time, to mix documentary with feature film, amateur footage.

And not pass judgment on what is ldquo;the greatest rdquo;! Everything presented in the mediatheque has a kind of parity. It also helps people navigate their way around, and make discoveries.

rsquo;

. .and a young Keith Chegwin as an avid cyclist in 1971 s Bethcher

How will he pick what stuff to add? lsquo;I have my own spy in the office.

Although I can rsquo;t see the user, I can see exactly what films they have clicked on, and I can work out what the most popular films are. I rsquo;ll use that to develop the programme ndash; but it will always be about developing the availability of work that people can rsquo;t access elsewhere or on DVD. rsquo; If you want to give it a whirl, you don rsquo;t have to be a BFI member and can go on spec, but it rsquo;s better to book a slot.

Why not enjoy a free lunch?

Book a slot at the Mediatheque on 020 7928 3232. Selected highlights from the Mediatheque line-up are also regularly screened in the BFI Southbank Studio.