Special Collections

Special Collections holds a unique and diverse collection of cinema and television ephemera. It includes personal and working papers from individuals and organisations involved in film and TV production. The collections also include programmes, tickets, autographed letters and promotional material, including over 30,000 press books and other cinema memorabilia.

There are donations from Michael Balcon, Derek Jarman, Joseph Losey, Lord Puttnam, Sir Carol Reed, John Schlesinger and many, many others. In total there are over 600 named collections as well as a collection of over 30,000 unpublished film and TV scripts from Britain and around the world.

Special Collections holds paper materials only. For Stills, Posters and Designs and for information about films and television programmes held by the BFI National Archive, please see BFI National Archive pages.

Viewing the collections

Special Collections are available to view by appointment. We are currently open to researchers on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays between 10:30am - 1:00pm and 2:00pm - 5:30pm. On Wednesdays we are open from 2:00pm - 5:30pm.

Special Collections can be searched via database or paper catalogue in the BFI National Library Reading Room. You can also contact Special Collections using the form below and we will endeavour to answer your query as quickly as possible.

Unpublished scripts and press books can be viewed via the BFI National Library Reading Room and do not require an appointment. Many of our press books are held on microfiche within the Library's collections but for press books stored off-site, and for unpublished scripts, please allow up to one week. Unpublished scripts and press books can be requested via the Reading Room or directly through Special Collections.

News

Collections on Display: Joseph Losey and Harold Pinter, Mezzanine Gallery, BFI Southbank

After leaving his native America as a political exile in the early 1950s, Joseph Losey (1909-1984) came to the UK and re-invented himself as a British (and later European) filmmaker. Losey’s outsider status gave him a unique perspective on British life and society, but his most incisive portrayals of his adopted country came about through his collaborations with the Hackney-born playwright Harold Pinter (1930-2008). Their first film together, an adaptation of Robin Maugham’s 1949 novella, The Servant (1963), was a searing critique of the British class system and heralded the beginning of a long, productive and affectionate working relationship. To coincide with the Joseph Losey retrospective running throughout June and July, this display draws on the BFI’s unique collections to explore the films Losey and Pinter made together – The Servant, Accident (1967) and The Go-Between (1971) – as well as their long-cherished, but ultimately unrealised adaptation of Marcel Proust’s À la Recherche du Temps Perdu.

From 4 June 2009

+ 23 July, 14.00, BFI Southbank screening of The Servant with an extended introduction by Nathalie Morris, Curator of Special Collections, illustrated with images drawn from the BFI's holdings.