BFI, BBC enter The Space

by Naman Ramachandran

02/05/2012 - The British Film Institute (BFI) is one of the partners on the newly launched The Space, a freely-available digital arts service developed by Arts Council England and the BBC, accessible via computers, smart-phones, tablets and connected television.

Over the next six months, The Space will showcase several arts events across the UK, making this work available to a much wider audience. With something new being added every day, The Space will become a record of an arts filled summer, which includes the London 2012 Festival, the wider Cultural Olympiad, the Diamond Jubilee, the World Shakespeare Festival and the Edinburgh Festival.

For the launch of the project the BFI has chosen to showcase a selection of early films by major British directors from the National Archive. This collection includes the first films by directors such as Ridley Scott, Stephen Frears, Gurinder Chadha and Ken Russell.

The BFI will also be participating in the World Shakespeare Festival by streaming four silent Shakespeare productions made between 1899 and 1910.