A revamped version of the National Film Theatre (NFT), under the auspices of its broader organisation, the British Film Institute (BFI), is about to be unveiled. The newly named ‘BFI Southbank’ is set to be London’s most integrated home of film and will be staged, as it has been for the last 50 years, under the Waterloo Bridge. This marriage of the the BFI and the NFT joins much more than just their 3-letter acronyms to provide a home for the future of film in the Capital.
Despite the concrete jungle, and location under a major artery of the city, there are certain spots in a city where magic prevails. Under this bridge at Waterloo, many a person has run to faraway places and sought solace with some of the greatest cinematic works in the world. From March 14, this legacy is set to rise hopefully beyond that of the Thames water level, as the previous National Film Theatre steps out like a butterfly from the cocoon at the all new BFI Southbank. It’s like science fiction made out of scaffolding – about £4.6 million worth in fact, made possible by significant investment of from a number of partners, most obviously the DCMS (the Department for Culture and Media and Sport), the UK Film Council, London Development Agency, Heritage Lottery Fund, Garfield Weston Foundation and other generous individual donors.
Ever since 1957, the NFT has called the arches of the Waterloo Bridge its home (although the theatre actually opened 5 years prior on the Southbank). The BFI was established in 1933 with the aim of promoting an understanding and appreciation of Britain’s rich film and television heritage and culture. It provides services as the National Film Theatre (NFT), London IMAX Cinema (Britain’s largest screen), National Library (a leading specialist film and television library) and the National Film and Television Archive (NFTVA, which currently includes over 50,000 fiction titles, 100,000 non-fiction titles and 575,000 television titles). This is to say nothing of the London Film Festival, the London Lesbian and Gay Festival, BFI Distribution, BFI DVD & Video Catalogue, a publishing programme and the Sight & Sound magazine.
Artistic Director for the BFI on the Southbank, Eddie Berg says that the new refurbishment, which includes a studio cinema and digital technology, will bring ‘a more creative, critical and educational sense’ to film and television culture. Just as the DVD release has proven, new technology offers a format for all of these bonus extras to be included in a CD, or a feature film. Or in this case, in a visit to the England’s home of cinema.
Deep from within the ether of all those things that ‘media convergence’ has come to mean, BFI has managed to make a long-awaited partnership – the National Archives (NFTVA, formally tucked up exclusively in the remote universe of Stephen Street) is now part of this ‘mothership’ venue called the BFI Southbank. The new centre houses all that the old NFT did, as well as opening a doorway into the whole gamut of the broader BFI services. Ah, what things are lurking in the past of British film? The public are about to find out.
The new on-site Mediatheque will offer access to over 300 film and television titles plucked from the National Archives, covering more than 100 years of film history. Visitors can access 14 personal screens with which to view the recently added and growing digitized collection of film titles. With these newly joined forces and resources, the new BFI Southbank is preparing for a great performance. Maybe your flavour is Bollywood or Buñuel, maybe it’s BBC or YouTube, maybe it’s an escape from reality, maybe it’s a better look at reality. Whatever the case, it seems that the various media mutations which have been growing since the technological revolution (in a bottom-up fashion) are beginning to have real impact on the exhibition of film (and the sites of top-down influence).
Lucy Goldsborough of the BFI says that they ‘are looking at ways to work with MySpace and YouTube’, and want to see how they can keep their heritage as well as embracing new media.
‘Optronica’ is one of the first of these events to take place at the newly renovated venue. As the name suggests, it is an audio-visual festival, which presents a dynamic mish-mash of the latest forms where music, visuals and the emerging possibilities of cinema converge. Hopefully the avid skaters in the concrete jungle around the corner won’t be overwhelmed by the AV-loving body-shakers as the central skating ‘hang’ shares its space with the cutting edge of screen music.
For those of you screaming ‘It’s not all about film!’, Wait. There’s more. A lot more walls, for one thing. ‘The Gallery is a bit of an experiment; a place to see how people use this ‘extra’ bit of space’ says Lucy. Previous ideas were that it would be a rehearsal room or a staging post, but it ended up more simply with the looser definition of being The Gallery. There will also be a lot more paper, with a Filmstore to satisfy the most avid film-buff (over 2,000 book titles); and one of central London’s best-stocked DVD stores (with over 1,000 titles).
As the Buddha would aptly remind the public though, ‘Anicca, Anicca, Anicca. All formations are transient.’ With the looming 2012 Olympic games, there will certainly be another substantial change for the NFT. Waterloo Bridge will be upgraded to have trams running over it once the sporting types hit town. It seems that the age-old battle of the arts and sports competing for space in the public eye is to rear its head. Feasibility studies have indicated that the home of British cinema would come out rather rattled by the clatter of overhead trains if it were to continue in the Southbank location beyond 2012. So that year will again see another venue transformation for the NFT and BFI.
The big question on everyone’s lips though amidst all this change is: what will become of the used-book sale that has always occupied the space between the banks of the Thames and the bustling doors of the NFT? Luckily it’s not going anywhere. Some things, by nature, take longer than others to change.