Loving Memory (1969) was the extraordinary debut from one of Hollywood's most bankable UK ex-pats, Loving Memory is the dark tale of a mysterious brother and sister who live in isolation with their memories and a grisly secret...

Tony Scott, director of big-budget blockbusters and feature films such as Enemy of the State, True Romance, Top Gun and The Hunger, made his first feature when he was just 26.

Beautifully photographed by celebrated cinematographer Chris Menges (If...., Kes) Loving Memory features a stunning, sinister performance from Rosamund Greenwood (Village of the Damned, The Witches) as a haunted innocent.

The film was chosen to inaugurate the second NFT auditorium in September 1970 and was selected for the Critics' Week at the Cannes Film Festival a few months later. It had a successful run in film festivals and received considerable critical praise.

Previously unavailable for home viewing, this is the latest release in a series of early films made by established British directors which are preserved in the BFI National Archive and now brought to BFI DVD and Blu-ray. Past titles have included the work of Terence Davies, Bill Douglas, Derek Jarman, John Maybury, Isaac Julien and Horace Ové, and the BFI will be unearthing more buried treasures in months to come.

Loving Memory will be released as a Dual Format Edition (which includes both DVD and Blu-ray) on 23rd August 2010 by the BFI at the RRP of £19.99. Special features will include:

• One of the Missing (Tony Scott, 1968, 27 mins): a taught psychological short about the lonely fate of a confederate soldier in the American Civil War;
• Boy and Bicycle (Ridley Scott, 1965, 28 mins): follows the adventures of a truant schoolboy – played by the young Tony Scott – as he cycles around Hartlepool;
• Illustrated booklet with newly commissioned essays The Films of Tony and Ridley Scott by Kim Newman and The Scott Brothers and the BFI by Christophe Dupin; film notes, original stills and full cast and crew credits.

Other films to be released in high definition by the BFI on 23rd August are: The Innocents (Jack Clayton, 1961), The Edge of the World (Michael Powell, 1937) and A Zed & Two Noughts (Peter Greenaway, 1985). Details will folow in the next few days.