NFTS Curating Students Get A Glimpse Of Film And TV History At The BFI National Archive

This week, the National Film and Television School (NFTS) Film Studies, Curation and Programming MA students got the chance to explore one of the largest and most important collections of film and television in the world, the British Film Institute (BFI) National Archive.

The day started with an introduction by curator Jez Stewart who talked the students through the history behind the archive, which started collecting, preserving and restoring film in 1935. Jez explained the importance of restoration as a ‘large scale and involved process of gathering surviving elements and restoring it as much as possible to its original condition’.

The students were then taken on a whistle-stop tour of the Archives, led by Saul Carbonaro and Mike Kohler, starting in the cold storage vault for video. Here, they were talked through the many different formats of video, and the processes involved in storing, archiving and digitising these files. The students also visited Special Collections, and got the chance to learn about film scanning and how video and television is preserved.

The students were then shown the film inspection lab, where they were treated to an in-depth tutorial by senior conservator Karen Bevan, paired with a chance to see how both nitrate and 16mm film is thoroughly inspected.

The archive industry has rested on the back of incredibly knowledgeable experts for many years, and the BFI highlighted how important it is that this knowledge gets passed onto future generations, in order to keep up with the ever-changing world of film.

The National Film and Television School would like to thank the BFI National Archive for welcoming us back, and to Amy Bryant and the team for the incredibly informative trip.

If you want to help preserve the magic of cinema for future generations, the NFTS Film Studies, Programming and Curation MA, delivered in partnership with the BFI can help you kickstart your career.

Find out more about this ground-breaking course and how to apply for the 2025 intake here: nfts.co.uk/film-studies-programming-and-curation