Cheese Mites

What’s in your cheese? The microscopic mites here are unpleasant today but caused a sensation in 1903, in one of the Britain’s earliest exhibited scientific films.

Part of Charles Urban's 'Unseen World' series, which brought the microscopic world to the screen, Cheese Mites showed large-as-crabs mites wandering about the nation's favourite lunchtime snack to the joyful disgust of audiences.

For 80 years the BFI only held the shot of the creepy crawlies but now a new version has been discovered showing a professor (F Martin Duncan) horrified by examining his bread and cheese through a magnifying glass. A spoof, called Unclean World appeared shortly after and is also available to watch on BFI Player, as is Urban’s later cheese-related film Manufacture of Stilton Cheese.