600 films from the Technicolor cinemagazine Roundabout (1962-1974) are now freely available on News on Screen.

Produced by the Central Office of Information (COI) to showcase British manufacturing and promote the ethos of the Commonwealth, this eclectic mix of official opening ceremonies and factory production lines bears glamorous witness to a Britain and Asia projected exclusively to cinema audiences that stretched from Pakistan through Burma to South Korea.

Roundabout documents an exercise in soft propaganda that lasted over a decade and now provides us with rare colour footage of the incidental that is so fundamental to building an authentic picture of Britain and Asia in the 1960s and early 1970s.

The Roundabout site includes three playlists: Arts, Expo’67 and Research to showcase content and a short history of the series ‘Roundabout: National Projection with a Technicolor Gloss‘.

Roundabout has recently been restored from the original 35mm elements by British Film Institute and is published in partnership with them.