Movies: John Grierson

Ambitious documentary chronicling the cultural life and religious customs of the Sinhalese and the effects of advanced industrialism on such customs....

This documentary short examines the special train on which mail is sorted, dropped and collected on the run, and delivered in Scotland on the overnight run from Euston, London to Glasgow....

Animated shapes dance to Cuban music. This was one of the first animations to be painted directly onto the film....

Trade Tattoo went even further than Rainbow Dance in its manipulation of the Gasparcolor process. The original black and white footage consisted of outtakes from GPO Film Unit documentaries such as Night Mail. Lye transformed this footage in what has...

Documentary following an Edinburgh fishing trawler, the "Isabella Grieg"....

The Brave Don't Cry aspires to the "feel" of a documentary, right down to the deliberate absence of background music. A mine in Scotland falls victim to a cave-in, trapping some one hundred workers. Rescue parties are formed as the tremulous families...

Filmed in Uganda, Man of Africa was assembled by legendary documentary producer John Grierson. The film depicts the mass migration of the Bakija and Batwa tribes to a new territory after the natural resources of their native soil has been depleted. T...

Drama-documentary, reconstructing a real incident in which a trawler got into difficulties in a North Sea storm. Released 7th March 1938....

1935 documentary about the hard working life of Welsh coal miners....

Grierson set out to make "propaganda," and this film--with it's voice-over proclaiming the great value of the British industrial worker, without a hint of ambiguity or doubt--fits that category well. The authoritatarian narrator feels out-of-date and...

A silent film by John Grierson. It tells the story of Britain's North Sea herring fishery....

Seeking her long lost uncle, Ada Shore arrives at Skerryvore University to find him working under another name as the Gate Keeper. Ada is mistaken by the Principal as his new secretary so she jumps headlong into the role...

Norman McLaren was a cinematic genius who made films without cameras, and music without instruments. He produced sixty films in a stunning range of styles and techniques, collecting over 200 international awards, and world recognition. In Creative Pr...

Humphrey Jennings' first film as a director, a brief overview of the British postal service....

A look at the work of Glasgow's Medical Officer of Health....

When Canada entered World War II, the National Film Board suddenly had an urgent new mission—and hundreds of women stepped forward, helping to create Canadian cinema as we now know it....

A boy pursues his ambition to be a jockey...

Part of BFI collection "Police and Thieves."...

Early documentary, slung together from footage depicting the first invasion of North America by Europeans, designed to show industrial technology's role in the development of North America. Used footage from the 1923 feature "The Covered Wagon" as th...

The life and work of the documentary pioneer....