Screenonline Archive Interactive about GPO Film Unit now online
Hear this page read aloud
View the interactive tourAbout the tour
The tour is part of the series produced by BFI for their educational Screenonline website. The GPO tour is narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi, and is available for viewing alongside Jonathan Ross talking about Ealing Films, Paul Merton on Early British Comedy and Malcolm McDowell on Free Cinema.
The tour allows users to explore the variety of films made by the unit and discusses its pivotal role in the development of the documentary film which culminated in the now classic Night Mail (1936). The equally revolutionary work by animators such as Len Lye, who pioneered the technique of painting directly onto film negative as seen in Colour Box (1935), can also be viewed.
With BT Archives’ involvement films made to promote the telecoms side of the GPO business can be seen alongside those promoting the postal services, The Fairy of the Phone (1936) being perhaps a particularly quirky example of how new services were once promoted.
About Screenonline
Screenonline is aimed at teachers and pupils/students in primary, secondary, further and higher education, as well as lifelong learners in libraries. It provides a guide to the History
of Britain's film and TV.
About the GPO Film Unit
The films made by the Unit under John Grierson, and later Alberto Cavalcanti with Harry Watt, in the 1930s and early 1940s have a significant place in cinema history. Grierson used the unit to pioneer his ideas of a new documentary movement and gathered together a group of highly talented creative pioneers in their own right including Cavalcanti, Watt, Basil Wight, W H Auden and Benjamin Britten amongst others.
The unit itself was established in 1933 when public relations pioneer and philanthropist Sir Stephen Tallents moved from the Empire Marketing Board to his new role as Public Relations Officer at the GPO.
The Film Unit’s remit was to promote the work of the GPO, then still a government department, partly to justify its spending but also to introduce new services to the general public. Grierson managed to achieve this aim whilst continuing to innovate in a way that would be the envy of many creatives today.
Royal Mail deposited its film collection with the National Archives at BFI in the 1980s.
View the Screenonline interactive tour of the GPO Film Unit
Related links
Find out about our events this year linked to the GPO Film Unit:
Talk on the GPO Film Unit
Film Screening: GPO Film Unit Selection
Visit the Collections section page about the GPO Films in our collection.