This film is part of Free

Cheese Mites

What’s in your cheese? The microscopic mites here are unpleasant today but caused a sensation in 1903, in one of the Britain’s earliest exhibited scientific films.

Interest film 1903 2 mins Silent

Overview

Part of Charles Urban's 'Unseen World' series, which brought the microscopic world to the screen, Cheese Mites showed large-as-crabs mites wandering about the nation's favourite lunchtime snack to the joyful disgust of audiences.

For 80 years the BFI only held the shot of the creepy crawlies but now a new version has been discovered showing a professor (F Martin Duncan) horrified by examining his bread and cheese through a magnifying glass. A spoof, called Unclean World appeared shortly after and is also available to watch on BFI Player, as is Urban’s later cheese-related film Manufacture of Stilton Cheese.