My initial trip to BFI’s Southbank Archives, on 12th March, was with the intention of surveying their formatting. It was a pretty brief trip therefore, I walked in, walked around the Mediatheque and found an empty booth to sit down in.
The screen, with no specific search entered, said there were “189,967 results” to choose from. Results being footage stored within the archive itself. There were all sorts of ways to filter the options as well as a search bar.
- Media
- Genre
- Year
- Subject
- Cast/ Credits
- Duration
- Country
I didn’t really know what to do whilst I was there, I had nothing in mind for what to watch or search up. Then I had a thought to search for something specific that I had seen years ago on a DVD series – short, narrated, black and white documentaries, on post-war London. At least that’s what I remember them being about. Ones about the underground porn industry, or the fashions of London, about Soho, Brick Lane, etc. I searched all I could think of in terms of keywords/ terms, and I filtered by place, duration, etc. The films I remember watching were short, maybe thirty-minutes each at most. I found nothing in the archives that seemed to be like what I had remembered, so after a while of perusing what was on offer to watch – I left, having not fully watched anything. I still feel an urge to find the documentary shorts I remember, or maybe to create my own, updated film-essay ode to London version/s.
Update – 20/03/2026
I’ve been looking into Film Essays a lot more since my trip to the BFI, and my interest in film has developed (no pun intended…).
Although I still feel somewhat unsure of the exact content of my film – that is, what exactly I will be aiming to capture or convey, I have a plan to return to the BFI Archives next week, with some more specific searches in mind!