This film is part of Rentals
The Glitterball
Somewhere in 1970s England, a UFO crashes in a potting shed. Inside is a strange round visitor from space: the Glitterball. How will it get home?
Children's 1977 56 mins
Director: Harley Cokliss
Overview
This ingeniously small-scale sci-fi adventure of a tiny, shiny alien ball-being with strange powers and a taste for electricity, crisps and custard, was released the same year as Star Wars, and foreshadows E.T., but was made for just a fraction of the cost of either. It was produced for The Children’s Film Foundation, makers of intelligent, fun films for British kids, from the 1950s to the 1980s.
Like all CFF films, this compact tale of close encounters was shot on a shoestring. But it still boasts outstanding visuals, with striking special effects by Brian Johnson (who worked on 2001 and Alien) and Barry Leith (animator of Paddington and the Wombles). Not long afterwards, director Harley Cokeliss was enlisted to shoot the SFX sequences for the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back.
Related
Children's
The Jungle Book
Children's 1942 106 mins Director: Zoltan Korda
A Technicolor marvel and early adaptation of Rudyard Kipling’s celebrated novel, following a young boy raised in the jungle by animals.
Wonderstruck
Drama 2017 116 mins Director: Todd Haynes
Julianne Moore stars in Todd Haynes' playful adaptation of Brian Selznick’s acclaimed young adult novel, which follows two children from different eras as they set out to find people from their pasts.
Paddington 2
Children's 2017 103 mins Director: Paul King
Britain’s favourite bear returns for another adventure. Porridge rather than marmalade looks set to be Paddington's new staple after he's framed for a robbery, unless the Brown family can help solve the mystery.
The Hunting of the Snark
Animation & Artists Moving Image 1967 24 mins Director: Diana Potter
“Live animation” of Lewis Carroll’s nonsense poem adventure from the maker of Captain Pugwash
One Hour to Zero
Children's 1976 55 mins Director: Jeremy Summers
When two boys return home to their Welsh village to find it empty, they set out to discover why
Cup Fever
Children's 1965 61 mins Director: David Bracknell
Youth football team Barton Utd triumph against the odds in a Children's Film Foundation classic
Sci-Fi Voucher Collection
Saturn 3
Science Fiction 1980 87 mins Director: Stanley Donen
A pair of scientists' idyllic life on Saturn's moon is ruptured by the arrival of a sinister psychopath and his murderous robot.
Capricorn One
Science Fiction 1977 123 mins Director: Peter Hyams
Stunning sci-fi thriller steeped in post-Watergate paranoia, following a hoaxed mission to Mars and a trio of astronauts' desperate flight for survival, with Elliott Gould, James Brolin and O.J. Simpson.
Kadoyng
Children's 1972 60 mins Director: Ian Shand
It looks like the quaint village of Byway will be bulldozed to make way for a motorway – until alien outcast Kadoyng arrives from Outer Space to help.
The Mysterians
Science Fiction 1957 85 mins Director: Ishiro Honda
The team behind Godzilla (1954) reunites for Toho’s first colour widescreen sci-fi, an arresting spectacle about the arrival of an alien race and their giant, destructive robot.
The Day the Earth Caught Fire
Science Fiction 1961 100 mins Director: Val Guest
The BFI’s new HD remaster of the British sci-fi classic. A journalist discovers that the Earth has been knocked off its axis and is moving ever closer to the sun. Is the Earth doomed?
Millennium
Science Fiction 1989 101 mins Director: Michael Anderson
Flight crash investigator Bill Smith (Kris Kristofferson) discovers that time travellers from the future are visiting the present day and stealing passengers from doomed aircraft to repopulate a future, infertile human race.
Featuring Keith Jayne
Sammy's Super T-shirt
Children's 1978 58 mins Director: Jeremy Summers
Puny young Sammy gets a super-strength makeover when his lucky t-shirt is imbued with special powers, in this classic from Children’s Film Foundation.
Directed by Harley Cokliss
Dream Demon
Fantasy 1988 89 mins Director: Harley Cokliss
A young woman becomes haunted by terrifying dreams, which soon begin to pull people around her into a nightmarish netherworld.
New
The Wicker Man
Horror 1973 88 mins Director: Robin Hardy
Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward star in the folk horror classic about a policemen investigating an island given over to paganism.
Maborosi
Drama 1995 109 mins Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Koreeda’s first fiction feature is an exquisite meditation on loss, loneliness, uncertainty, and coming to terms with the past.
After Life
Drama 1998 119 mins Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Koreeda's lyrical fantasy challenges the viewer to reflect on the experiences that most make life worth living.
Still Walking
Drama 2008 115 mins Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Koreeda’s subtle, moving account of the tensions within a family is his most Ozu-like film.
Nobody Knows
Drama 2003 141 mins Director: Hirokazu Koreeda
Koreeda’s drama about four children left to fend for themselves is a heartbreaking study of childhood neglect.
Diamantino
Comedy 2018 97 mins Director: Gabriel Abrantes
Diamantino, Portugal’s (the world’s!) top football player, becomes embroiled in a genetic experiment and a conspiracy to leave the EU, in this joyful, postmodern political fantasy.