Given that cinema along with television are two of the most important and influential platforms through which we get images presented to us and understand the world it is surely significant that images of Africa are limited: limited to either conflict, crisis or natural history.

In short, the BBC is flush with cash - nearly £5 billion each year - but doesn't quite know what it should be doing with it. It's not quite sure if it's a quasi-business or a public service, it's nervous of sounding patrician and it's terrified of taking big creative risks for fear of losing ratings.

30 years ago today, on 7 June 1982, Britain's first media and communication centre opened its doors to the public. At a time when VHS was winning over betamax as the domestic recording technology du jour and "the web" was something spiders made, Bristol's Watershed "multi-media hub" as it was then known, was born.