If you're not familiar with the work of director Peter Whitehead then it's not that surprising. A documentary filmmaker with an individual style and voice, he began making films in the mid 60s and gave up filmmaking to concentrate on falconry just 12 years later, but during that time was responsible for some of the most important and fascinating records of the music and youth of the time. His filmography includes the hardly seen 1966 Rolling Stones documentary Charlie Is My Darling, the 1967 record of swinging London, Tonight Let's All Make Love in London, and his 1969 examination of opinions of the Vietnam War, The Fall.

In March of this year the National Film Theatre hosted a comprehensive retrospective of Whitehead's work, and now the BFI has announced a DVD release of two of his films for the first time, Wholly Communion (1965) and Benefit of the Doubt (1967), coupled with a new interview with Whitehead and additional rare footage. With over three hours of material, Peter Whitehead and the Sixties is a fascinating document of the radical, experimental, literary and theatrical scenes of 60s London. Having not seen the films ourselves but intrigued by what we've heard, we'll let the press release do the talking:

On 11 June 1965, the Royal Albert Hall played host to a slew of American and European beat poets for an extraordinary impromptu event - the International Poetry Incarnation - that arguably marked the birth of London’s gestating counterculture. Cast in the role of historian, as a man-on-the-scene, and massively elevating his limited resources, Whitehead constructed the extraordinary Wholly Communion from the unfolding circus. As Allen Ginsberg, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Gregory Corso, Harry Fainlight, Alexander Trocchi and others took to the stage, Whitehead confidently wandered with his borrowed camera, creating a participatory and anarchic film that is as much a landmark as the event itself, and launched his career.

Following this success, Whitehead was invited to film a controversial new play, US, by radical theatre director Peter Brook. Building on the provocative question of Britain’s relationship to America during the Vietnam War, Whitehead pushed the issue of complicity further, challenging the relationship between the actors - including a young Glenda Jackson - and their performances. Steadfast and provocative in its consideration of international relations and war, Benefit of the Doubt has troubling relevance to the current political climate.

The DVD is to be released by the BFI on 29th October 2007 at the RRP of £19.99. The following extra features are included:

• Exclusive specially commissioned interview with Peter Whitehead, for which he returns to the Soho flat he once lived in (44 mins);
• Jeanetta Cochrane (1967), Whitehead’s rarely seen experimental short, featuring music from Pink Floyd;
• Footage from the George Devine Memorial Plays Performances at The Old Vic featuring Laurence Olivier, Alec Guinness and Albert Finney;
• Footage of Vanessa Redgrave at the Royal Albert Hall (1966);
• An 18-page illustrated booklet with an essay by William Fowler, Curator of Artists' Moving Image, BFI National Archive, biography of Peter Whitehead, notes on the extras and credits.