Curator's Choice: Winter 1939

Clip from Film: © IWM (MGH 5135)

Senior Film Curator Fiona Kelly highlights a seasonal film in IWM's collection 

Of the nearly 10,000 children who came to the UK on the Kindertransport, hundreds came to Scotland. This clip is from a film shot on 16mm by an unnamed teacher at the Whittingehame Farm School in East Lothian, Scotland in 1939.  

Under the auspices of the Youth Aliya organisation, the school housed Jewish children who had fled Europe as part of the Kindertransport scheme, with the intention of eventually emigrating to Palestine and elsewhere. As well as receiving a standard education, boys and girls were trained in a range of agricultural skills. Here we see some of the boys enjoying the snow in the school grounds in winter 1939. 

The historical significance and value of amateur film

Last month I attended an international conference at the Filmoteca in Barcelona entitled Amateur Cinema: A Global History. It was fascinating to hear presentations on different aspects of amateur film from various time periods and countries including Spain, Italy, Portugal, France, Croatia, Hungary, Cuba and the USA. The conference highlighted the rich and diverse history of amateur filmmaking, which is still largely unknown outside film archives.

Research for my presentation on a selection of British amateur films made during wartime led me to investigate this part of IWM’s film collection more closely. IWM was one of the first institutions to understand the historical significance and value of amateur film and the museum started collecting amateur film proactively in the 1970s. In many cases the films were donated along with first hand accounts, original documentation and commentaries recorded by the filmmakers themselves, which can provide unique context for the films. These films date from the 1920s onwards and were shot on 8mm, Super 8, 9.5mm and 16mm.

Find out More

For further information and help with archive research, contact the Image & Film Licensing team.