King Coal

The Mezzanine at BFI Southbank hosts changing displays curated from BFI Collections to complement seasons taking place in the cinemas. These world-class collections hold unique and diverse film and television materials, including stills, posters, personal and working papers, published and unpublished items.

To coincide with the King Coal film and television season at BFI Southbank in September, this display draws on BFI Collections to explore a century of coal mining on screen. Affecting the lives of millions in the UK, down the mine and around the fireplace, the coal industry has also had a dramatic effect on the film industry from its earliest days.

From vivid early films such as A Day in the Life of a Coal Miner (1910) to the lively animation of King Coal (1948) and more recent television and feature films, the drama of working down the pit and the powerful ties of mining communities have long provided rich subject matter for film-makers.

The National Coal Board had its own prolific Film Unit, which made over 1000 films, now held in the BFI National Archive. These ranged from recruitment, promotional and training films to the long-running monthly cinemagazine Mining Review (1947-83). The three or four stories in each issue of Mining Review ranged from miners’ social activities (from whippet racing through to ballet dancing) to developments in mining technology and improvements in productivity and safety. This display includes rarely seen material from the Mining Review production files of the NCB Film Unit. These include some remarkable letters and other ephemera showing that the course of film-making does not always run smoothly, particularly when holidaying miners and Redcoats at Butlins are involved, as one despairing film-maker recorded in a heartfelt letter.

This exhibition is enriched by a variety of exhibits on loan from the National Coalmining Museum for England as well as a special piece of subterranean filming equipment loaned by one of the film-makers, Peter Pickering, featured in the season.

King Coal is the first instalment of a major three-year BFI project celebrating the UK's 20th century industrial heritage. Launching in September – in London and Sheffield – the turbulent story of coal will be followed by shipbuilding in 2010 and steel in 2011.

Thanks to National Coalmining Museum for England