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The second DVD in the BFI's 'This Working Life' series - celebrating Britain's industrial heritage on screen, and begun with the acclaimed Portrait of a Miner box set in 2009 - features 23 films made between 1898 and 1974. It is released alongside a season of films at BFI Southbank and in cinemas in Belfast, Glasgow and Newcastle.
For millions of people, this isn't just Britain's industrial heritage - it's their family history. Tales from the Shipyard contains over five hours of material that portrays our nation's shipbuilding past through acclaimed documentaries, little-known cinematic gems and emotive actuality films, made at the great shipyards of Belfast, Clydeside, Tyne and Wear and elsewhere. It draws together films from the BFI National Archive and two brand new restorations from the Scottish Screen Archive at the National Library of Scotland.
Beginning with three Mitchell & Kenyon films and scenes of jubilant workers celebrating spectacular launches in the early 1900s, further highlights include King George V and Queen Mary's morale-boosting trip to Northern England's shipyards at the tail end of the Great War; rare footage of the stunning SS Olympic (1910) showing the building and launch of the Titanic's sister ship; beautiful colour film of the iconic Queen Mary in RMS Queen Mary Leaves the Clyde (1936); Sean Connery's perspective on Glasgow's industrial relations in The Bowler and the Bunnet (1967) - the only film Connery ever directed - and lyrical documentaries in celebration of industrial might such as Shipyard (Paul Rotha, 1935) and the Oscar-winning Seawards the Great Ships (Hilary Harris, 1960). The complete film listing is on page 2.
BFI National Archive curator Ros Cranston is available to write or talk about these films.
The early films on this set feature newly-commissioned, semi-improvised piano scores by the celebrated silent film pianist, Stephen Horne.
Tales from the Shipyard follows the BFI DVD Portrait of a Miner: National Coal Board Collection Volume One, which launched the three-part project 'This Working Life' in September 2009. Steel will be the third subject in the series.
Special features
-Interview with Sean Connery (1967, 10 mins): previously unseen archival interview in which the actor discusses his views on labour relations, after making The Bowler and the Bunnet
-Illustrated booklet with new essays and detailed notes on all of the films, with contributions from BFI curators, Sir Sean Connery, and others
Release date: 14 February 2011
RRP: £24.99 / cat. no. BFIV900 / E / 2-disc box set
UK / 1898-1974 / b&w, and colour / English language, and silent with music / 314 mins / 2 x DVD9 / Dolby Digital mono audio (320 kbps) / original aspect ratio 1.33:1
Available from DVD retailers & BFI Filmstore Tel: 020 7815 1350 or www.bfi.org.uk/filmstore
Tales from the Shipyard
Disc one:
The Launch of HMS Albion at Blackwall (1898)
Employees Leaving Messrs Vickers and Maxim's in Barrow (1901)
Workforce of Scott & Co. Shipyard, Greenock (1901)
The Launch of HMS Dominion (1903)
King Edward VII Launches HMS Dreadnought from Portsmouth Dockyard (1906)
SS Olympic (1910)
The Launch of HMS Lowestoft (1913)
Visit of Their Majesties the King and Queen to the North-East Coast Shipbuilding and Engineering Works on the Wear (1917)
RMS Queen Mary Leaves the Clyde (1936)
Shipyard (1935)
Chains (1939)
Tyneside (1941)
Steel Goes to Sea (1941)
The Little Ships of England (1943)
'Shipyard for Colliers' from Mining Review 2nd Year No.3 (1948)
Berth 24 (1950)
Disc two:
We've Come a Long Way (1951)
The Sea Shall Test Her (1954)
Seawards the Great Ships (1960)
A Great Ship (1962)
The Bowler and the Bunnet (1967)
UCS 1 (1971)
Launch (1974)
Tales from the Shipyard film season
A film season featuring a selection of shorts from the DVD as well as longer films, also titled This Working Life: Tales from the Shipyard, will be launched at London's BFI Southbank*, Newcastle's Tyneside Cinema, Glasgow Film Theatre and the Queens Film Theatre, Belfast in February. A cinema programme will also go on tour. Details will be posted at www.bfi.org.uk/shipyard. A supporting free programme will be at BFI Mediatheques in London, Cambridge, Derby, Wrexham and Newcastle and there will be online study resources at www.screenonline.org.uk.
*The launch event takes place on Monday 7 February. All London screenings will be introduced by a BFI National Archive curator.
About the BFI:
The BFI is the nation's cultural organisation for film, keeping the breadth of voices in moving image culture alive and known. Through its venues, festivals, film releases and online, the BFI inspires people to understand and enjoy film culture, ensuring that everyone in the UK can see the broadest range and choice of films, otherwise not provided by commercial cinema. The BFI reaches an audience of over 7.5 million in the UK every year.
