Housing Makes History

Visionary filmmaker Penny Woolcock explores half a century of British urban life using films digitised for Britain on Film, the archive project from BFI and its partner archives.

The tattered wallpaper of part demolished housing contrasts with gleaming new tower blocks. Ladywood in Birmingham may be on the up but what about the forgotten people?

Sheffield stands in as 'Smokedale', an industrial Everytown, in this stirring call for "new schools, new hospitals, new roads, new life", after WWII.

Coventry prepares to rise from the ashes of WWII in this docu-drama written by Dylan Thomas.

An absorbing picture of council services at the beginning of the 1960s, with babies getting polio jabs and girls having braces fitted, while Roots is playing at the Civic Theatre.

A bright and breezy promotional tour of Brum's original mega-mall.

Two for the price of one! Two items were joined together on this reel, discovered among a small haul of early films and fragments discovered and donated to the BFI in the 1990s. The first is believed to be Birt Acres' A Corner of Barnet Fair.

A uniformed marching band takes to the street in this early film by pioneer cinematographer Birt Acres

Relive over 70 years of film making as the BBC throws open its doors at Ealing Studios for a nostalgic exhibition which features cameras, actors, jazzy wigs and a Dalek

Tour Friern Barnet and explore the streets, local happenings and developments in an area undergoing rapid change

Bridge building on the busy streets of London as the construction of Brunswick Bridge in Barnet is captured for posterity

An amateur recording of social housing developments, local streets and businesses in Friern, Barnet.

The interwoven stories of four best friends who reunite in the UK, thirty-five years after training together as nurses during their teens in Ferozepur, Punjab.

A satirical take on the healthcare service announcements of the 1960s and 70s.

A short animation that offers a window into the world of children’s palliative care.

Panel discussion on Jackie Chan's 1985 action classic Police Story, with Chase Armitage, Sam Mak and Jadey Duffield.

Cynthia Rothrock, Richard Norton and Keith Cooke reunite three decades on from the groundbreaking martial arts classic.

Action Xtreme - the UK's leading action film studio - hosts this panel discussion with four leading women in action cinema - Soo Cole, Jo Rolison, Jadey Duffield and Ioanna Karavela.