08/09/2014 - 10,000 titles to be digitised, including 5000 from the National Archive

The British Film Institute (BFI) is investing £5 million over three years to digitise 10,000 important film and television titles under the aegis of the Unlocking Film Heritage (UFH) Digitisation Fund. Of these, 5000 will be from the BFI National Archive and 5000 from significant public collections and rights holders’ collections in the UK. 

The goal of the programme is to ensure that the people of the UK, filmmakers, educationalists, researchers and other users can access the full range of screen heritage, regardless of where they live or where that heritage is held. The BFI plans to make the digitised materials accessible via their own VoD platform, BFI Player, and through several other educational resources. 

Heather Stewart, Creative Director, BFI and executive in charge of the UFH project said, “The UFH project is an astonishing opportunity to make some of the unseen and unheralded glories of British cinema available to the widest possible range of audiences. We are working with rights holders and partners to bring these films into the 21st century and stimulate a renewal of interest in our shared history as captured on film.”

The project will also establish a National Catalogue of British Film, with every film listed being given a unique entry in the Entertainment Identifier Registry using a new international standard for film cataloguing.

Applications to the fund open on September 8.