National Film and Sound Archive
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting, and providing access to a national collection of film, television, sound, radio, video games, new media, and related documents and artefacts. The collection ranges from works created in the late nineteenth century when the recorded sound and film industries were in their infancy, to those made in the present day.
"NFSA" redirects here. For the non-deterministic finite state automaton, see Non-deterministic finite automaton.Established
5 April 1984
McCoy Circuit, Acton, Australian Capital Territory, Australia
Audiovisual Archive
3 million works
Patrick McIntyre
Caroline Elliot
162 (as of June 2019)[1]
Free parking surrounding the building on Liversedge Street
The NFSA collection first started as the National Historical Film and Speaking Record Library (within the then Commonwealth National Library) in 1935, becoming an independent cultural organisation in 1984. On 3 October, Prime Minister Bob Hawke officially opened the NFSA's headquarters in Canberra.
Preservation[edit]
Films are digitised as part of their preservation strategy, so that the original does not need to be seen as often. The oldest films in the collection, some over 100 years old and those made up until the 1950s, were made on nitrate cellulose film, of which NFSA holds around 10,000 cans. This type of film has a distinctive visual impact, being "very bright and colourful, dazzling..."; however, it also carries a high fire risk, and, if not properly stored, can deteriorate and become brittle. It needs to be kept cold and dry, but not too dry. Curator Jeff Wray believes that it is important to keep the original despite digitisation — "it has a great amount of information, a colour story, a technology story". Among other films made on nitrate cellulose, there is film of the Bodyline cricket series in the 1930s, and the first feature film ever made, The Story of the Kelly Gang, released in 1906. In May 2024, the federal government's budget allocated A$9.3 million towards the preservation of these films.[22]
Australian Screen Online[edit]
Australian Screen Online (ASO), also known as Australian Screen or australianscreen, is an online database operated by the NFSA. It has both a promotional and educational function, providing free worldwide online access to information about Australian cinema and the television industry in Australia.[23]
ASO provides information about and excerpts from a wide selection of Australian feature films, documentaries, television programs, newsreels, short films, animations, and home movies, provided by a collaboration of the NFSA with the National Archives of Australia, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, SBS, and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies (AIATSIS).[23] The educational content is designed for teachers and students, and includes a collection of film clips accompanied by teachers' notes and curators' notes written by experts.[24]
Since the initial launch of the website on 18 July 2007, with more than 1500 Australian film and TV clips,[25] it has won numerous awards as an educational resource and for its website design.[23] The website was revamped and re-launched in 2009, including new features such as exclusive interviews with filmmakers, a news section, forums, games, detailed profiles of producers, directors, screenwriters, film score composers and actors. At the time, it reported about 90,000 visitors per month to the website, with 25 per cent coming from outside Australia.[26]
Awards[edit]
Ken G Hall Film Preservation Award[edit]
The Ken G Hall Film Preservation Award was established in 1995 as a tribute to producer/director Ken G Hall. It is presented in recognition of an individual, group, or organisation, for their outstanding contribution to the art of moving image and its preservation. It is presented to candidates where there is a significant link between their work and its impact or relationship to the Australian film industry. Examples of this contribution include technical innovation, scholarship in the field, involvement with the survival of film as an art form and as a cultural experience, advocacy, sponsorship and fundraising.
The following exhibitions have been developed by the NFSA:
From August 2018, the NFSA re-opened its exhibition gallery to present temporary exhibitions, including:
In 2023, to mark the centenary of radio in Australia, the NFSA published a digital exhibition, Radio 100.[32]