Inside the Archive #44

On Sunday 21 September, we welcomed over 300 visitors to the BFI National Archive’s John Paul Getty Jr Conservation Centre in Berkhamsted as part of Heritage Open Days, the UK’s largest festival of history and culture. As we continue to celebrate the Archive’s 90th year, Heritage Open Day presents a unique opportunity to welcome members of the public inside the archive, and to showcase and celebrate the BFI’s collections, and the skills and knowledge of those who work to preserve them.

This year’s edition was bigger than ever and included a BSL (British Sign Language) interpreted tour; talks from our curators and BFI Reuben Library librarians; displays from our Screencraft Collections, Video Preservation, Film Lab, and BFI Replay teams; film handling activities; tours of our Film Vault; and much more!

New for this year, visitors were also given the chance to test their detective skills with our Collections Development team and get a first look at some newly commissioned short films, featuring archive material, in the Our Screen Heritage screening tent…