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Browse 50 movies from British Council
An evocative and imaginative exploration of the racial tensions in Othello and how the themes in Shakespeare's play still resonate today.
Oct 2016
Theatre of War is an essay on how to represent war, performed by former enemies. British and Argentinian veterans of the Falklands war come together to discuss, rehearse and re-enact their memories 35 years after the conflict.
Feb 2018
The growing ambition of Julius Caesar is a source of major concern to his close friend Brutus. Cassius persuades him to participate in his plot to assassinate Caesar but they have both sorely underestimated Mark Antony.
Dec 1945
A brisk visual summary of the changing faces of the English town throughout the ages, from the ancients and their hill-forts to the Second World War -- enlivened by the appearance of ghostly denizens to defend their eras against the narrator's various strictures!
Jan 1943
Miranda's Letter takes as a starting point the 'missing women' in Shakespeare, in this instance, The Tempest, and imagines what Miranda's mother would have wanted to say to her daughter. Commissioned as part of Shakespeare Lives 2016.
Jun 2016
Behind-the-scenes documentary about the making and broadcasting of pedagogical radio shows on the BBC.
Butt-sniffing action abounds as five otherwise ordinary members of the public get in touch with their primal instincts.
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The history of Westminster Abbey and a tour of the monuments within it; accompanied by choral music and including footage of the coronation of King George VI in 1937.
Rufus is a child with an extraordinary obsession: a burning, inþamed desire for anything red. Driven by this impassioned, scarlet fixation, which he can neither control nor understand, he shifts through life in a whirlwind of redness, entirely in the hands of his bizarre compulsion.
Mar 2003
A documentary on the English language and it's origins.
British documentary on how the community of Ulster got converted to war times.
Oct 1941
Dramatically told, English Criminal Justice takes us on a journey through the principles and procedures of the various courts of law in Britain.
Jul 1946
In the run up to the 1945 general election, the film focuses on the electoral race of one of the 640 local constituencies in Britain, that of Kettering in Northamptonshire.
A profile and interview of director, Lindsay Anderson.
Dec 1995
Part of the archive's Junior Biology series, this study of maize is aided by diagrammatic, time-lapse, and microscopic footage.
Jan 1942
An overview of the free healthcare available for children, and the environmental improvements that led to increased public well-being in Britain.
As part of the 2017 UK-India Year of Culture, the British Council and British Film Institute share a unique collection of films documenting the sights and culture of a bygone India. Filmed between 1899-1947, and preserved in the BFI National Archive since then, these rare films capture many glimpses of life in India, from dances and markets, to hunts and pageantry.
Aug 2017
The men of the trawlers and drifters set out at dawn on voyages of any- thing from twenty to four thousand miles. This is a wartime picture of fishing and of fishermen who sail in all weathers through perilous seas.
Oct 1940
Part of the Junior Biology series, this study of pin mould is aided by diagrammatic, time-lapse, and microscopic footage.
A documentary on modern British farming.