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.
This film is part of Free
The Gift
A thief’s creative accounting gets the better of a Newcastle debt collector.
From the collection of:
Overview
A cunning thief balances the books when he outwits a debt collector at his own game. The collector’s customers in working class Heaton are surviving on tick. Running late after car trouble, he fails to bank the money and returns home to his semi-detached home in the new suburbs. The mildly moralistic, double entry accounting that unfolds may strike a nerve in this debt-ridden post-millennial era.
Enjoyable in a schadenfreude kind of way, this amateur Super 8 drama was the work of a ‘beginner’s unit’ from the Newcastle and District Amateur Cinematographers Association (ACA) and was awarded three stars in the Movie Maker’s Ten Best competition. These annual ‘Oscars of the amateur world’ were initiated by Amateur Cine World magazine, first published in April 1934.
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