The Story of British Propaganda Film CSC Talk by Dr Scott Anthony

‘It is like breathing oxygen; one knows it is there, but it is difficult to see it for what it is': The Story of British Propaganda Film.

Film came of age with the modern state. The story of propaganda, like the story of the British state, has always been embedded in the history of British film. However, rather than a programmatic or theoretical approach to the subject, this talk explores the hidden, partial and haphazard history of the British propaganda film that emerged from several years of exploring (with relative freedom) the archives of the British Film Institute.

Through key clips and quotes it explores how the creative juxtapositions enabled by archival exploration allow us to track some of the unusual ways that understandings of propaganda have changed over the past one hundred years.

Scott Anthony is the Project lead and PI on the JPI CH funded research project Museums and Industry: Long Histories of Collaboration (MaILHoC) based at the Science Museum. He is the author of a number of books, including The Story of British Propaganda Film (2024), The Projection of Britain (2011), and the BFI Classics Night Mail (2007).