Programme duration 90'

As a reflection on the A Picture of Britain exhibition, this series of short, British non-fiction films from the bfi archive focuses on the documentary language of landscape. Images of labour, personal history and the effect of industry on rural life come together here to imagine other versions of the British pastoral. Curated by Rob Stone.

The Clouds  Patrick Keiller, UK 1989, 20’
Describing a journey from Jodrell Bank to Whitby, Keiller¹s film with its partially autobiographic character, prefigures some of the grander critical gestures of his later films London (1994) and Robinson in Space (1997).

Working the Land  Michael Grigsby, UK 1972, 26’
Made for television in 1972, this depiction of rural labour in Britain characteristically attempts to allow the voices of those involved to articulate their own concerns.

Figures in a Landscape  Dudley Shaw Ashton, UK 1954, 18’
A short documentary locating the sculptures of Barbara Hepworth in the Cornish landscape, and meditating on the relationships between archaic landscape and modernity, that has so influenced her output.

O Dreamland  Lindsay Anderson, UK 1953, 12'
Lindsay Anderson's unblinking malice towards what he saw as the seediness of Margate and its entertainments is vivid, here. The class distinctions caught also provide a telling counterpoint to the shabbiness he deplores.

The Vanishing Street  Robert Vas, UK 1962, 20'
This film looks at the way the impact of modernist urban renovation affected the character of the Jewish community around Hessel Street in East London.