BFI offers public the chance to save a film classic

BFI offers public the chance to save a film classic

Date: 09/03/2016 10:32

Choices, choices! The BFI is offering the public the opportunity to rescue a great 'lost' British film. The initiative is all part of Unlocking Film Heritage, one of the most significant film archive projects ever undertaken and which encompasses not only the British Film Institute's National Archive, but regional and national Screen Archives right across the UK - including our very own Digital Film Archive.

In April, BFI Player will launch Forgotten Features, a selection of great British films that have long been hard or near-impossible to see. However, having pored through the archives, BFI curators have identified three remaining features that each deserve to be preserved for posterity. They want the public to help them decide which film to save. So, take your pick from...

Bedelia (1946): Something wicked this way comes in this serial killer melodrama starring Margaret Lockwood, British cinema's villainess supreme.

Mr Topaze (1961): Before Walter White there was Mr Topaze. Peter Sellers acts and directs this enchanting comedy in which he transforms from a mild mannered teacher into a cut-throat businessman. Mr Topaze was long thought a lost film, but the BFI National Archive preserves what may be the sole surviving print.

The Assam Garden (1985): The great Deborah Kerr returned to the screen after a 15 year absence in this beautifully observed, intimate film. In what would prove her final film role, Kerr plays a widow nostalgic for her days in colonial India, who finds solace in the friendship of a neighbour, played by Madhur Jaffrey.

The winner will be decided by public vote. Your vote. The poll closes on 11 March 2016.

"There can be only one!" Connor MacLeod, Highlander (1986)

See rough and ready scans of excerpts from the three films and cast your vote here.