The BFI Reuben Library and BFI Mediatheque are central components of how the academic community can engage with and research the vast and unique collections the BFI holds on behalf of the nation. These are bespoke research spaces where researchers can access digitised moving image content in the BFI Mediatheque, and consult the paper collection in both original and digital format in the BFI Reuben Library. At the heart of BFI Southbank, the BFI's public venue on the South Bank of the River Thames in London, these spaces are where discoveries are made, new ideas are forged and research shared amongst the academic community. With AHRC funding we shall be able to refresh and upgrade the facilities and equipment used in both the BFI Reuben Library and the BFI Mediatheque to give even wider, better access to the collections. With increased digital capability, enhancements made to our collection applications for deeper access to the collections and upgrades to our audio visual equipment in order for our events programme to be accessed more broadly, we can ensure access, research and engagement with the collections for many years to come.

The BFI National Archive, established 85 years ago, is one of the world's largest and most diverse film and television collections, comparable to the Library of Congress and Archives Françaises du Film du CNC. In the UK it ranks alongside other great National Collections including the British Library, The British Museum, The National Archives and Tate. The film collections are held across two world-leading facilities for the preservation, conservation and restoration of film; the BFI Master Film store in Warwickshire - a state-of-the-art, sub-zero facility where nitrate and acetate film collections are preserved - and The J Paul Getty Jr Conservation Centre in Hertfordshire. In support of the continued range of film conservation activities undertaken at the Conservation Centre, on which research and access are based, this bid combines requests for the renewal and upgrading of equipment and systems across photographic and digital methods and technologies. Equipment within the following categories is being requested: Film cleaning Film processing High resolution digital imaging for restoration and preservation Digital cinema projection Digitisation equipment for research access files from film prints The bid represents an opportunity to bring coherent and strategically vital renewal, in a period when the expertise for photographic and digital reproduction technologies are finely balanced. Across the activities necessary to safely reproduce film for preservation, research and public viewing, the new equipment secures continuation of existing operations while simultaneously extending their currency and reach. It is the distinctive characteristic of film conservation that the historical understanding of original objects leads to their creative reproduction in contemporary materials, rather than their direct display or exhibition. There is a continual need, therefore, to ensure archive technologies are assessed in quite different terms from film post production. The BFI's Heritage 2022 strategy promotes uniquely a fruitful combination of maintaining the unique characteristics of the film print medium in projection, through creation of 100 show prints of international film classics, along with the continuing curated digitisation of lesser-seen collection titles ripe for research. Both draw on the kind of equipment, and underlying skills, represented in this application, which would ensure continuation of this comprehensive approach. The project also provides timely support for inter-generational knowledge and skill transfer between conservators. Taken together, the equipment provides the fundamental and integrated basis on which film preservation can be undertaken now and in the future. It will underpin the deepening and sustained development of those techniques, as parallel generations of film conservators work alongside each other, transmitting and adapting them within a secure and inventive environment.

This proposal concerns an application for funding to develop the British Film Institute's (BFI) creative research capability (CResCa) through renewal and upgrade of our existing library facilities. We are proposing the refurbishment and enhancement of the multi-purpose collection vault at the J Paul Getty Jnr Conservation Centre in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire and this application falls under Strand one of the advertised funding, "replacement and upgrade of equipment". The BFI's moving image and paper based collections are of significant importance to the global, and especially UK, academic community, enabling creative research into all aspects of film and filmmaking. In recent years we have seen the increased interest from the community of film practitioners, which has led to some exciting practice-led research projects, including creative reuse of archive material for non-commercial use by emerging filmmakers. However, development of the collections in the last ten years, in line with modern collecting practices and internal priorities, has led to serious storage space challenges that can endanger their future physical safety. This proposal aims to ensure the safe storage of the existing BFI's library collections as well as to increase capacity for future growth. To cement the vital role the BFI plays in the UK academic and practitioners communities as a facilitator and driver of creative research, we also need to provide better access to the collections. The new shelving that will be installed during the project will fulfil both these objectives, by providing more storage space as well as enabling the BFI staff to carry out research in situ and reducing waiting times for the Library users. The project's outputs will include adding 351 linear metres of new shelving and the installation of 20 multifunctional shelving units (for storing different types of material side by side and enabling in-situ research). All existing library material will be removed from the current storage, secured in crates and relocated to offsite storage ahead of the refurbishment taking place, then reinstalled once the project is completed. Through robust BFI procurement practices we will appoint two contractors to work collaboratively on the project, ensuring the safety of the collection is their paramount concern at all times. The project will be regularly monitored by an internal steering group created for the purpose of ensuring timely delivery and high quality results. The successful completion of this project will strengthen the BFI's position as the leading body in the preservation and promotion of film, television and the moving image in the UK. Our unique collections will be appropriately stored and preserved for future generations of researches, including filmmakers involved in practice-led research, both in the educational setting and in the community.

Film theory is about what we think film is, and this in turn shapes the story of cinema that we teach, the kinds of films people make, the kinds of choices that archives make about which films to restore, and the decisions that streaming services such as MUBI make about what films to include in their library. Film theory is therefore fundamental, not only to Film Studies as a discipline, but to film culture as such. Recent decades have witnessed a significant critical reassessment of film theory, which was conceived historically as emanating from the West. Rather than understand theory as a procession of major works by mainly European and North American authors, scholars have extended exploration beyond the Euro-American axis. This expanded understanding of film theory underpins our proposed research. Our network aims, however, to develop in a new and properly global direction a field that in our view still remains largely nationally or regionally bounded. The network brings together film scholars from around the world who share a common critique of film theory's western imperialist foundations. Western conceptions of theory have led to it being found historically only in western contexts associated with certain kinds of writing. Our response to this is to re-pose the question of what film theory is in relation to different objects of study, which include films as well as a variety of texts across a range of cultures. Our approach relies on the conjunction of film- and text-based research to chart the generation, translation, and circulation of theory throughout different locales. Our principal focus is on conversations across geographical boundaries at moments of geopolitical crisis. We will focus on interlocking historical moments in the post-1945 age of decolonisation which influenced each other without being reducible to one another. Asking what theory is at such historical moments will serve as a pivot relevant to the shared interests of participants across the network. The network includes colleagues from Algeria, Argentina, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Hungary, Mexico, Singapore, the UK, and the USA, who are leading experts in African, Asian, European, Latin American, and Soviet film theory. By connecting these scholars, we will broaden through wide-scale collaborative research the understanding of what theory is and can do. We will also envisage how theory might continue to circulate in the light of our decolonising approach. Our network includes film practitioners, enabling us to pursue the expansion of film theory in conjunction with, rather than in opposition to, practice. While our research will be informed by academic discussion of the sites, practices, and circulations of theory (to be discussed at three online events), we will draw the general public into the discussion through workshops run in partnership with BFI Southbank. This collaboration recognises the crucial role non-academic audiences can play in the re-emergence of film theory that our network envisages. The workshops will also provide vital stepping-stones towards curricular innovation. Many film programme curricula in the UK and the USA still feature film theory as a procession of major works by mainly European and North American authors. The network will develop resources for the reorganisation of curricula to reflect the more expansive understanding of the global circulation of theory resulting from its research. These will be shared in the form of teaching toolkits by means of a network website, as well as a final conference and publications. We will document and disseminate our progress on the network website via blog conversations between network participants and more formal academic reflections. Our final event, a two-day international hybrid conference, will showcase our findings, which we will also present in an edited volume that will set the agenda for debates on future global circulations of film theory.

The 1960s is widely regarded as a period of significant social and cultural transformation - for historian Arthur Marwick, the decade constituted nothing less than a 'cultural revolution'. British cinema of the 1960s would appear to support this assessment, with first the working class realism of the 'new wave', then a more classless and cosmopolitan cinema epitomised by the James Bond cycle, the Beatles films, and other productions of 'swinging London'. There was also a growth in independent production, much of it backed by Hollywood finance, and the presence of major international film-makers in British studios. Moreover, cinema was benefitting from a process of unprecedented cultural exchange with other dynamic media including television, pop music, advertising and fashion. But recently the decade has been subject to different interpretations, Dominic Sandbrook arguing it was marked much more by continuity and tradition than by radical transformation. There is also evidence that British cinema continued to be dictated by established structures, processes and styles. The industry remained dominated by the duopoly of Rank and ABPC - a system firmly in place since the coming of sound. Meanwhile alongside new talent like Tony Richardson, John Schlesinger and Richard Lester, seasoned veterans such as Anthony Asquith, David Lean, Carol Reed and the Boulting brothers continued to work. The collaborative nature of production meant that established and neophyte filmmakers sometimes worked together, while international luminaries from Stanley Kubrick and Joseph Losey to Roman Polanski and Francois Truffaut formed significant creative associations with British technicians. Cultural exchange was also complicated by two-way movement between media - as 'young turks' from TV drama and current affairs moved into cinema (Ken Loach, Ken Russell, Jack Gold), so older film personnel found new opportunities in single camera TV drama (Charles Crichton, Roy Ward Baker, Pat Jackson). This project will critically examine the implications of this tension between novelty/innovation and tradition/continuity in 1960s British cinema, providing new insight and understandings of this apparently familiar but rather over-mythologised decade. It will focus on three distinct but related areas of inquiry. Firstly, the organisation and operation of the industry and the development of production and distribution. How significant was the development of independent production? How beneficial was Hollywood finance and how did this compare with the relationships independents had with the established UK companies? How important were sources of public support? Did independent producers constitute a new entrepreneurial culture with the British film industry during the decade? Secondly, the promotion and reviewing of films at home. How were these films understood as innovative and/or traditional? Was their Britisness significant? How did associations with the 'swinging sixties' sit alongside more traditional versions of the national culture? Thirdly, the significance of new forms of exchange between different media including television, advertising, the visual arts and fashion. How did this impact upon production processes, techniques and styles? How did innovation sit alongside the presence of established and more traditional film-makers and approaches? How did the collaborative nature of film-making complicate the relationship between old and new? What were the implications of creative personnel moving between different media? The project will benefit from collaboration with the British Film Institute, making extensive use of major BFI research collections - including newly acquired and rarely consulted papers and other archive resources - and ensuring strong public engagement by informing publications, screenings , public talks and other events which will form the BFI's blockbuster programme on 1960s British cinema in 2017.