Under a month ago a fantastic new BFI DVD was released which celebrates the British coastline. From the Sea to the Land Beyond is a film by award winning director Penny Woolcock and is a lyrical portrait of Britain’s coastline, created through an exquisite combination of evocative archive footage (all drawn from the BFI National Archive) and not only celebrates our identity with the British sea and coastline, but celebrates the superb archive which is held at the BFI.

Travelling from 1901 through both World Wars, into peacetime and the modern age, From the Sea to the Land Beyond shows our coast as a place of leisure, industry and wild nature. With an emphasis on the romantic and the ritualistic, the archive footage used in the film’s assembly is rich and varied. Both film and music incorporate themes of work, play, childhood, romance, melancholy, hope, transportation, wilderness, the power…