The weekly series of classic documentary screenings from the National Library Collection returns today (Thursday).

Two seminal films from the British documentary tradition will screen tonight: John Grierson's "Drifters" and "Housing Problems".

Drifters is a key film of the British documentary movement. For the first time in the British cinema, workers at their jobs (the men of the herring fleets) were the central subject of a film. The film was made in 1919 and is 60 minutes in duration.

Housing Problems uses synchronous sound to present an account of living conditions in the slums of South London. Instead of using a commentator or narrator characteristics of Grierson documentaries, slum-dwellers speak directly to the camera in an attempt to achieve a degree of naturalism rare in the cinema of the times.

These documentaries will be screened tonight (Thursday) in the Old Magistrate's Court (Building 353), East Street, at 7pm. Wine and cheese will be served and admission is a gold coin donation.