Crown Film Unit

An African tribe in the Eastern Nigerian village of Umana work to build a maternity hospital, with the aid of government officials, and against the opposition of some tribal members.

A depiction of life in wartime England during the Second World War. Director Humphrey Jennings visits many aspects of civilian life and of the turmoil and privation caused by the war, all without narration.

A narrator recounts the state of Great Britain near the end of WWII via a visual diary for the titular baby boy born in September 1944.

Focuses on the work of the Air Transport Auxiliary or ATA. By 1941, literally hundreds of RAF fighters and bombers needed to be flown each day between aircraft factories, maintenance depots and RAF aerodromes. This vital task was carried out by the men and women of the ATA, a civilian air force operating from their own pools and stations all over Britain. Essentially a dramatised account of typical ATA deliveries, the film features coverage of the ATA's own fleet of Ansons, as well as being notable for some excellent Spitfire film and very rare footage of the Whitley bomber, including take off and in-cockpit sequences.

British film written and directed by Humphrey Jennings, filmed in documentary style showing the lives of firefighters through the Blitz in World War II.

The true story of the massacre of a small Czech village by the Nazis is retold as if it happened in Wales.

Short WW II documentary

A doctor talks about the number of injuries and deaths resulting from automobile accidents.

British educational documentary film about the principal instruments in the modern symphony orchestra, illustrated through Benjamin Britten's composition, "The Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra", for which it was commissioned.

Reported cases of sexually transmitted disease took a sharp rise during and after World War II, but as this film testifies, sexual license amongst soldiers on the frontline wasn't the sole cause. Back on the home front, for many women, like Joan from No. 19, loneliness or newfound independence acted as an incentive to extramarital promiscuity.

Documentary about an average day during the Blitz.

Poetry by Rudyard Kipling, John Milton, and William Blake, and excerpts from speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, all read by Laurence Olivier, illuminate documentary footage of England during its defense against the Nazi blitz in World War II. This short film serves as both propaganda and as a rallying cry to the British people.

How Britain coped with a Christmas during the war.

A story acted and narrated by men of the Merchant Navy illustrates the way their war is fought: a merchant ship in convoy is sunk by a torpedo; the crew are rescued and later join another ship; and a young seaman among them is motivated to take a gunnery course.

One of the first European films commissioned by the countries that signes the Brussels treaty and filmed in the museums of Brussels, Amsterdam, Paris, London, Ghent and The Hague. The film shows, by means of 59 works of art, how painting discovered the landscape once it left the strictly religious context behind. Henri storck wrote, "We have tried to eliminate the artificiality of filming. We have tried to hide the camera in order to immerse the audience in the world of the painting and the landscape that it depicts. We want the viewer to discover the feeling of nature for himself, through the artists.... It is not our ambition to make a critical or informative work." This iconic journey from Bosch to Manet and Turner is accompanied by music by Georges Auric.

In a follow up to 'A Welcome to Britain', Burgess Meredith returns to look at a post-war Britain.

Part of BFI collection "Police and Thieves."

This short post-war film was made to inform people how to address a letter correctly.

A woman blames herself for her husband's death. To overcome her grief and her guilt she becomes a nurse but then a patient dies while under her care.

A portrait of Hawick, pronounced 'hoik' by the locals, a town in the Scottish Borders. The film was shot in Technichrome - a vibrant colour system developed in 1948 to photograph the British Olympic Games.