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A Day in the Life of a Coal Miner

This short profile of mining life from silent film studio Kineto was a key film in the development of British documentary.

Industry sponsored film 1910 10 mins

Overview

This early example of an β€˜interest’ film from Charles Urban's Kineto company captures the daily routine of the average coal miner, from his early-morning goodbyes through the full day’s work and eventual evening journey home.

It’s now regarded as a key film in the development of the British documentary, long before the term was coined, for its utilisation of staged sequences and the creative application of contrasts and inter-titles, in a manner familiar to the later lexicon of documentary cinema. A Day in the Life of a Coal Miner is presented here in a restoration by the BFI National Archive supported by the Headley Trust. Although this presentation is silent, the film is available in a scored version on the BFI DVD compilation Early Cinema: Primitives and Pioneers.