The North East Film Archive is one of a network of regional film archives established to collect, preserve and show film made in, or about the North East of England. Our collections are non-fiction, and date from the early 1900s to the present day, providing a rich record of life in the region over the 20th century. Many of our films are available to watch, free of charge, on our website.
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Eye to the Future
A new recruit drives off into a chemical sunset and a future with ICI Wilton but first theres some serious business with an analogue computer.
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Overview
A new recruit gets a marvellous glimpse at the weird impersonal plants filling the Teesside skyline at ICI Wilton. This slick piece of sponsored filmmaking is a product of post-war efforts to attract young engineering graduates into Imperial Chemical Industries. Lest the restless youth find supersonic wind tunnels and analogue computers dull, tiddly winks and cool jazz in a cellar beckon.
The production of the ICI Film Unit, formed in 1929, mirrored the needs of government propaganda in this 1961 recruitment film, as ICI Wilton chemical was built in 1946 to help in Britains great reconstruction drive after World War Two. The use of tracking shots gives a suitably apocalyptic sense of the colossal chemical plants built between Redcar and Eston.
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