Cradle of Genius

A look at how science is keeping British industry as high-tech and innovative as anywhere else in the world.

Described as a 'film argument' about homes and houses, this film is in three parts showing houses as they were, houses as they are and houses as they might be.

Documentary on the young builders who'll rebuild Britain after the war.

The World Is Rich is a 1947 British documentary film directed by Paul Rotha about food shortages after World War II, outlining steps underway to deal with the problems. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.

In 1944 Leeuwarden, the Netherlands, a band of Dutch resistance fighters plot to covertly rescue dozens of compatriots from the local Nazi prison.

Directed by Paul Rotha.

The brilliant British documentary filmmaker Paul Rotha made his feature-film debut with 1950's No Resting Place. Filmed on location in Ireland, the film is a lightly fictionalized study of that country's itinerant workmen. Michael Gough plays tinker Alec Kyle, whose life is thrown into turmoil when he accidentally kills a man. Kyle spends the rest of the film evading Guard Mannigan (Noel Purcell), a civil servant who relies on instinct rather than scientific deduction to get his man. Without ever trying to elicit sympathy for his characters, director Rotha manages to compellingly detail the miserable living and working conditions of Ireland's nomad artisans.

A GI deserter frames a girl for killing a blackmailer, and holds her captive while seeking gems.

Documentary about the building of ships at Barrow-in-Furness.

Two case studies highlighting the work of the National Council of Social Service: the conversion of a barn into a village hall in South Cerney, Gloucestershire, and the building of an occupational centre in the depressed mining village of Pentre in the Rhondda Valley, Wales.

Documentary film promoting Imperial Airways, focusing on the many stages involved in air travel, with the majority of scenes featuring aerial shots from an aeroplane.

Childcare for working women during the Second World War.

A documentary about how trading goods with the rest of the world works to help the UK economy after WWII.

Part of BFI boxset Ration Books and Rabbit Pies: Films from the Home Front.

An opening narration explaining that the film's purpose is to examine the "world strategy of food", in terms of its production, distribution and consumption. The film is then divided into three parts: "Food - As It Was", "Food - As It Is" and "Food - As It Might Be".

World War II propaganda film that shows the war-time agricultural work of women from the Women's Institute.