We Live in Two Worlds

Created in 1933 out of the ashes of the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit, the General Post Office (GPO) Film Unit was one of the most remarkable creative institutions that Britain has produced. A hotbed of creative energy and talent, it provided a spring board to many of the best-known and critically acclaimed figures in the British documentary movement, including John Grierson, Alberto Cavalcanti, Humphrey Jennings, Basil Wright, Harry Watt, Edgar Anstey and Arthur Elton, alongside innovators and experimentalists such as Len Lye and Norman McLaren. Their work embraced, public information drama-documentary, social reportage, animation, advertising and many points in between. The BFI National Archive, in partnership with the British Postal Heritage Museum, Royal Mail and British Telecom, has preserved and curated the legendary output of short films produced by the GPO Film Unit.

This, the second of three volumes, covers the period 1936-1938 and represents the GPO Film Unit at its creative height – including much-loved classics such as Night Mail, the experimental animations of Len Lye and Norman McLaren, and Harry Watts’ first forays into drama-documentary with The Saving of Bill Blewitt’and North Sea as well as other neglected works, many of which will be available for the first time since their original release.

Disc one

• Rainbow Dance (1936)
• The Saving of Bill Blewitt (1936)
• Calendar of the Year (1936)
• The Fairy of the Phone (1936)
• Night Mail (1936)
• Roadways (1937)
• Trade Tattoo (1937)
• Big Money (1937)
• We Live in Two Worlds (1937)
• N or NW (1937)

Disc two

• A Job in a Million (1937)
• Book Bargain (1937)
• What’s on Today (1938)
• Love on the Wing (1938)
• The Horsey Mail (1938)
• The H.P.O. (1938)
• News for the Navy (1938)
• Mony a Pickle (1938)
• North Sea (1938)
• Penny Journey (1938)
• The Tocher (1938)
• God’s Chillun (1938)

• Booklet containing introductory essays, selected biographies and film notes.