The third and final volume of BFI deluxe double-disc box sets presenting all the key films of the GPO Film Unit on DVD for the first time will be released on 6 July 2009. The 18 films in this collection provide a fascinating and poignant insight into a nation on the cusp of war and its transition to the brutal realities of life in the Blitz.

Created in 1933 out of the ashes of the Empire Marketing Board Film Unit, the GPO Film Unit was one of the most remarkable creative institutions that Britain has produced. A hotbed of creative energy and talent, it provided a spring board to many of the best-known and critically acclaimed figures in the British Documentary Movement, including John Grierson, Alberto Cavalcanti, Basil Wright and Harry Watt, alongside innovators and experimentalists such as Len Lye and Norman McLaren. Their work embraced public information films, drama-documentary, social reportage, animation, advertising and many points in between.

The BFI National Archive, in partnership with The British Postal Museum & Archive (BPMA), Royal Mail and BT Heritage has curated and preserved the legendary output of short films produced by the GPO Film Unit.

This final volume of three sets covers 1939-1941, the last years of the GPO Film Unit before it evolved into the Crown Film Unit. This period saw it at its most technically sophisticated, with directors such as Humphrey Jennings, Harry Watt and Alberto Cavalcanti leading the way in the use of documentary cinema in support of the war effort. Among the films in this collection are Jennings' poetic masterpiece Spare Time and the rousing classics London Can Take It! and Christmas Under Fire.

The discs are presented in a deluxe box with a 68-page bound book containing introductory essays, film notes and selected biographies. The films are:

Disc one:
The City (Ralph Elton, 1939)
The Islanders (Maurice Harvey, 1939)
Spare Time (Humphrey Jennings, 1939)
A Midsummer Day's Work (Alberto Cavalcanti (uncredited), 1939)
If War Should Come (uncredited, 1939)
The First Days (Harry Watt, Humphrey Jennings, Pat Jackson, 1939)
SS Ionian (Humphrey Jennings, 1939)
War Library Items 1, 2, and 3 (uncredited, 1940)

Disc two:
Squadron 992 (Harry Watt, 1940)
La Cause Commune (Alberto Cavalcanti, uncredited, 1940)
French Communiqué (Alberto Cavalcanti, 1940)
The Front Line (Harry Watt (uncredited), 1940)
Men of the Lightship (David MacDonald, 1940)
London Can Take It! (Harry Watt, Humphrey Jennings (both uncredited), 1940)
Spring Offensive (Humphrey Jennings, 1940)
The Story of an Air Communiqué (Ralph Eton, uncredited, 1940)
War and Order (Charles Hasse, 1940)
Christmas Under Fire (Harry Watt, 1941)

Special features:

• Britain Can Take It! (1940) Slightly shorter version of London Can Take It! which was made for British audiences;
• Interview with director Pat Jackson (2007).

If War Should Come will be released on UK DVD by the BFI on 6th July 2009 at the RRP of £24.99.