Shell Film Unit

1958 Shell trade test film following the progress of the 1958 Alpine Cup rally across southern Europe. First showing: 22nd October 1959 (Experimental BBC London Local Tests). Final showing: 7th November 1968.

A short documentary looking at the science of life itself and at the international collaboration involved in it's study.

A documentary looking at a day at Croydon Airport south of London.

Short World War II documentary showing examples of how skilled craftsmen of peacetime apply their skills to essential wartime production.

A Shell Film Unit documentary by Bert Haanstra examining humanity’s struggle against insect plagues, filmed across Egypt, Iraq, Kenya, Sudan, Tanganyika, and Uganda. The film combines scientific documentation with visceral imagery, including extreme close-ups of insects and an aerial sequence flying directly through a locust swarm. Framed within postwar scientific optimism, it presents pest control and pesticide technology as instruments of human survival, offering a stark, industrial counterpoint to Haanstra’s more lyrical documentaries.

A documentary record of the 1953 Mille Miglia, tracing the race across Italy from Brescia to Rome and back.

Color documentary with music by Waldo de los Ríos about the tourist landscapes of Argentina.

A BAFTA award nominated docu-drama that illustrates the fact that every individual working in any potentially hazardous situation is responsible for his own safety and for the safety of others.

A BAFTA award nominated short feature studying river pollution in Europe and how it can be overcome by the treatment of urban and industrial wastes.

A BAFTA award documentary about the threats of floods in Australia, the special water schemes devised and the forerunner of these projects, the Snowy Mountains scheme.

Listen up, apprentices! Learn how to smooth and shape metal – an important wartime skill.

A documentary concerned with engineering projects connected with developing North Sea oilfields, specifically the Auk and Brent fields.

A BAFTA award nominated documentary showing highlights from the Le Mans 24 hour race won by Mercedes-Benz.

A BAFTA award winning documentary. Locations for the film range from Alaska and the southwest of the USA to the Eastern woodlands. It depicts geologists, archaeologists, anthropologists and scientists from other disciplines piecing together the clues to man's rise from ice age hunter to builder of complex societies more than 2000 years before Columbus set sail for the New World.

A documentary record of the 1949 British Grand Prix at Silverstone, documenting the race and the postwar revival of British motor racing.

A brief history of British aviation and the development of both civil and military aircraft. Made for the Festival of Britain.

A documentary investigating the science, aerodynamics and technologies involved in enabling aircraft to travel at speeds approaching or surpassing that of sound.

A documentary looking at how truly international air travel (and transportation) has become and at the benefits in trade, medicine and communications that have ensued.

An introduction to the sport of flying model aircraft. Made with assistance of the Society of Model Aeronautical Engineers.

Following the birth of the helicopter, from the imagination of Leonardo da Vinci through the advent of helicopter technology in the early 1952.