Great Expectations: British Postwar Cinema 1945-1950

Coinciding with the 75th anniversary of the Festival of Britain, this season looks back at British postwar cinema and how its styles and themes reflected the nation at a time of great change.

This fascinating lineup of films showcases the cultural response by the nation's filmmakers, writers, producers, performers, and studios as they collectively tried to make sense of the transformations of this turbulent new era, and includes many rarely seen works drawn from the BFI's archives.

Among the many remarkable works showing in this season are the exhilarating police procedural, HELL IS A CITY (1960), THE THREE WEIRD SISTERS (1948), one of only two fiction films written by the poet Dylan Thomas, TO BE A WOMAN (1951) Jill Craigie’s pioneering feminist documentary about the role of women in 20th Century Britain, and THE YELLOW BALLOON (1953) a gritty, unflinching drama set against the backdrop of the bombed-out ruins of London.

In both comedies and thrillers, the long shadow of the war continues to loom over characters’ motives and scars the urban landscapes they inhabit, and this special film season charts the nation’s rise from the ashes of conflict and its faltering steps toward reconstruction.

On Monday 25 May look out for a special programme of events exploring the impact of the 1951 Festival of Britain. There will be a screening of the vivacious comedy THE HAPPY FAMILY (1952) about a displaced family who barricade themselves inside the South Bank’s new construction project, and FESTIVAL OF BRITAIN: THROUGH THE EYES OF THE ARCHIVE, a presentation by experts from the BFI National Archive shedding light on the festival experience in the summer of 1951, the legacy it left behind, and the role film had to play.