Colonial Film:
Moving Images of the British Empire

Project Overview

"Colonial Film: Moving Images of The British Empire" is a major scholarly and archival project to investigate the history of moving images of the British Empire. This project has been financed by an Arts and Humanities Major Resource Enhancement grant and will run until late September 2010.

The project will produce a detailed online catalogue of the entire corpus of films representing British colonies either factually or fictionally held by the British Film Institute, the Imperial War Museum, and the British Empire and Commonwealth Museum. Click here to see sample material. The catalogue will be available online from September 2010:

Over 6000 films identified in a searchable online catalogue

Approximately 10% of the collection will have enhanced entries, bringing a wealth of detailed knowledge to illuminate particular films

30 hours of digitised film

Various scholarly investigations of the archival material are underway and planned, including:

A seminar series in London

Workshops for young faculty, schoolteachers, and filmmakers

Two major international conferences in 2010

Two edited collections of scholarly work

Discussions with primary and secondary school teachers about curriculum developments