This multi-screen audio visual piece was written and directed by Christopher Thomas Allen specially for the British Film Institute‘s first ever fundraising gala event in October 2013. It is based around a written text that imparts the importance of film and the importance of the BFI’s role in its preservation and support its new voices. We worked closely with the BFI‘s head curator Robin Baker to select a cross section of the archive’s gems and gathered a long list of contemporary examples of British talent on screen, that took us from the beginning of film making right up to the present day.  Our creative production also involved several location shoots at the BFI archive in Berkhamsted, where we documented their restoration processes and the cavernous acetate vaults which hold thousands of feet of our history on film.

The resulting seven minute piece was something truly special, containing excerpts from over 140 different film titles and unfolding around the room across five separate projections. We were extremely lucky to have celebrity actor Idris Elba feature in it and it was presented as a live cinema performance as the finale to the event with a specially composed live musical score by Jude Greenaway and the Urban Soul Orchestra; immersing the audience in the sights and sound of cinema whilst contemplating its form and social meaning in a philosophical way.

BFI Event Production