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 20,000 pressbooks 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 In total there are over named 500 collections as well as a collection of over 20,000 unpublished film and TV scripts from Britain and around the world.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 and we currently open to researchers on Tuesdays and Thursdays between 10:30am and 5:30 pm. We hope to extend these opening hours in the near future. Appointments outside of these times may be available in certain circumstances so please get in touch with us if you wish to view the collections.

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Unpublished scripts and pressbooks can be viewed via the BFI National Library Reading Room and do not require an appointment.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of our pressbooks are held on microfiche within the Library's collections but for pressbooks stored off-site, and for unpublished scripts, please allow up to one week. Unpublished scripts and pressbooks can be requested via the Reading Room or directly through Special Collections.

News

Christmas & New Year closure

The Library will be closing at 20:00 on Tuesday 23 December 2008 and will re-open as normal on Monday 5 January 2009, at 10.30.

Exhibition
Illusion and Forgetfulness: 50 Years of Bernstein Cinemas

"In so many lives that are drab and devoid of colour, the Kinema brings a measure of illusion and forgetfulness" - so commented Sidney Bernstein in 1924. Over the next 50 years he was to create Granada - the largest independent cinema chain in the country. Collaborating with Russian designer Komisarjevsky, Bernstein brought the exotic to deprived areas of London and the provinces with sumptuously decorated cinemas and glamorously uniformed staff. His theatre managers were meticulously trained to be not only inventive and ruthless showmen, but pillars of their community - as respected as a bank manager or doctor.

'Socialist Millionaire' Bernstein insisted his cinemas were both lucrative businesses and the social hub of their town, offering not just escape but a sense of belonging.

From the pioneering of children's matinees in the 20s to the introduction of bingo in the 70s, the amusing, surprising and frequently touching world of Granada showmanship is explored through a variety of photographs, publicity and other original material from the Sidney Bernstein and William Bush archives in BFI Special Collections.

From 5 November 2008 to 18 January 2009, Mezzanine, BFI Southbank. Read more about Sidney Bernstein on screenonline.

Publications

Recent publications drawing on Special Collections material include:

Ever Dirk: The Bogarde Letters. Selected and edited by John Coldstream (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 2008).

Thorold Dickinson: A World of Film. Edited by Philip Horne and Peter Swaab (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2008).

bfi Special Collections

21 Stephen Street

London W1T 1LN

Tel: 020 7957 4772

Fax: 020 7436 2338

Contact form