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Love Letters And Live Wires - Highlights From The GPO Film Unit (U)
- Consumer Advice: Contains no material likely to offend or harm.
- Run time: 1 hour 19 mins
- Genre: Documentary
- Release date: 18th September 2008
- Starring: Evelyn Corbett, Dwight Godwin, Charlotte Leigh
- Directed by: Len Lye, Norman McLaren, Williamn Coldstream, Patrick Jackson, Alberto Cavalcanti, Lotte Reiniger, Harry Watt, Basil Wright
- Distributor: BFI (UK Wide)
Plot Synopsis
In 1933, the General Post Office made history by founding its own film production unit. The GPO Film Unit would become internationally renowned as a centre for creative, exciting public information films, leaving us perhaps the most evocative record of the 1930s zeitgeist on celluloid.
This selection of some of its greatest short films, newly restored by the BFI National Archive, showcases the Unit’s sheer range: from quintessential documentary (Night Mail) to avant-garde animation (Trade Tattoo) and even musical comedy (The Fairy of the Phone). Made by such varied talents as Grierson, Cavalcanti, Len Lye and Norman McLaren, the films bring alive a revolution in mass communications as epoch-changing then as the internet is now.