Reel Britannia

Linda Kaye describes a project to make accessible to the public the history of a series of ‘cinemagazines’ made by the Government in the 1950s and 60s to promote Britain overseas.

For decades British taxpayers have been paying the government to make films about themselves for overseas distribution that they have never seen. All this is about to change. To mark the sixtieth anniversary of the Central Office of Information (COI), which has managed the production of government films since its inception on April 1st, 1946, many of these films will be shown for the first time in this country, effectively revealing what the government thought of us.

 

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