Tell us briefly, what does the British Film Institute do?
The British Film Institute (BFI) is a cultural charity, a National Lottery distributor, and the UK’s lead organisation for film and the moving image. We care for the BFI National Archive, which is home to the UK’s National Television Archive.
What is your mission as a company?
- To support creativity and actively seek out the next generation of UK storytellers
- To grow and care for the BFI National Archive, the world’s largest film and television archive
- To offer the widest range of UK and international moving image culture through our programmes and festivals – delivered online and in venue
- To use our knowledge to educate and deepen public appreciation and understanding of film and the moving image
- To work with Government and industry to ensure the continued growth of the UK’s screen industries
What sets you apart from the competition?
We don’t compete, we collaborate – with public service broadcasters, streaming companies, industry professionals and fellow archives to ensure that our television collections are preserved for the future as well as accessed and valued in the present.
What is the most exciting thing coming up for the BFI?
This year we are celebrating the 90th anniversary of the BFI National Archive and the 70th anniversary of commercial broadcasting in the UK. This will include a special focus on our collection from Associated-Rediffusion, one of the earliest ITV franchises.
What is the biggest issue you think we can address together through cross-industry collaboration?
The switch from broadcasting to IPTV is cultural as well as technological and it presents challenges for the preservation of our TV heritage. We are keen to talk to industry partners about ways to address these challenges.
What might people not know about your company?
We officially began collecting television in the 1960s and we began recording programmes off-air in the 1980s in our role as the National Television Archive. Today we work in partnership with PSBs, Netflix and Prime Video UK, as well as recording 16 channels daily for the Archive.
