Watch films for free at the BFI Mediatheque

This is a fantastic place. I've known about it for a while but only got round to visiting for the first time yesterday and will definitely be going back for more. The BFI Mediatheque is at the back of the BFI Southbank building (what used to be the National Film Theatre) and provides access to the thousands of films in the BFI national archive for free.

The place itself consists of a room with around a dozen viewing stations each with a screen and keyboard. Using it is very easy, you just turn up, register at the reception desk where you are allocated a station and given a unique login number and a set of headphones. Plug your headphones in, type in the login number and you're away. The only difficult bit is deciding what to watch!

As well as thousands of feature films, there are documentaries, short films, TV soaps operas, public information films, home movies and more covering all time periods since filming first began. Luckily, the BFI provide you with some ideas of where you might want to start such as their new collections which currently include 'Into the White: 100 Years of Polar Exploration on Screen' and 'Bogarde on the Box' featuring some of his small screen work.

The introductory suggestions also included 'Ten to try' which is where I started.  This included 'Heart of the Angel' which is the first thing I watched. It is a 40 minute documentary by Molly Dineen about the working life of the staff at Angel tube station, made in 1989, prior to the refurbishment that provided escalators and increased platform capacity at this busy underground station. It features disillusioned staff, grumpy customers, constant lift failures and an interesting insight into the work of those keeping the tube going after hours - the night-time cleaning and maintenance staff, doing dirty, unpleasant work in really grim conditions (the cleaning staff had such poor facilities they had to get changed on the platform).  The whole programme was a good reminder that the modern-day tube may not be perfect but some things have definitely improved. Molly Dineen has described it as her favourite of all the films that she's made and I can see why.

If you have something specific in mind, a search facility allows you to search for films by title, director, year, cast etc or to search for footage by genre or region. I didn't always find this very easy to use. I might just have failed to input the right information but when I tried searching for a film I was interested in ('The Go-Between' as I'd read and enjoyed L.P. Hartley's novel that it is based on) I was told there were no results found but I later found this same film just scanning through lists of the feature films available. I will have to go back to watch it another time.

That's a minor gripe though and overall I found it a great experience. My other highlights included:

• 'Ladies on Bicycles' (1899) - a very short (1 min) clip of Victorian ladies in long skirts demonstrating their slalom cycling skills.
• 'A Day in the Hayfields' (1904) - another short (3 mins) clip showing a long-changed rural way of life.
• 'The Battle of Kinder Scout' (1970) - a 20 minute documentary with Ewen McColl telling the story of the mass trespass in April 1932 which eventually paved the way for greater access for ramblers.
• 'Here's a Health to the Barley Mow' (1955) - showing the drinkers at the Ship Inn in Blaxhall in Suffolk enjoying a lively evening of folk singing and step dancing which concludes with everyone singing God Save the Queen at closing time (not something I expect you'd see nowadays).

One excellent feature is the 'Why not try?' section which appears at the end of the write-up of some of the films and leads you on to other similar clips you might also want to view. If you had the time (and there wasn't a 2 hour maximum booking) you could spend all day there following on from one clip to the next.

The BFI Southbank Mediatheque is open 12-8pm Tues-Sat and 12.30-8pm Sun (closed Mon except bank holidays) and is also available for school groups in the mornings. You can book a viewing session in advance if you want and that would probably be advisable if you're planning to visit in the evening or at week-ends. Three are also a number of other BFI Mediatheques around the UK. Happy Viewing!