Media Releases
NFSA Celebrates Special Film Preservation Project for World AV Heritage Day
Date: 24 October 2008
Monday 27 October is UNESCO’s World Day for Audiovisual Heritage and the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia is celebrating the day by highlighting a special project, the preservation of The Corrick Collection of early cinema.
The Corrick Collection is a treasure trove of more than 135 films produced in the earliest years of the 20th Century. The films were exhibited as part of a highly successful musical and cinematic traveling show presented by the Corrick family who toured Australia and overseas from 1901 to 1914. land.
The Collection is an extremely rare, diverse collection of works which in some cases are the only known copies still in existence anywhere in the world. The films range from mad chase stories, to tender fairy tales, films of world travels and amazing early trick photography as well as tinted and stenciled colour on film, reminding us that film has always been a wonderful medium for manipulation.
Blending the earliest comic, travel and dramatic short films being produced in France, Britain and the United States, with similar Australian fare made by the Corricks themselves, the collection had been well cared for over many years by the family before being donated to the NFSA.
The NFSA is progressively preserving the entire collection and producing quality 35mm screening prints for exhibition with live musical accompaniment so that audiences today can enjoy an actual silent cinema experience close to the original.
In the past two years, the NFSA has been presenting the newly preserved titles at the pre-eminent Pordenone Silent Film Festival in Italy, with enormous success.
The NFSA’s Chief Curator, Meg Labrum, said today that work on The Corrick Collection is opening up new opportunities to experience irreplaceable audiovisual heritage both nationally and internationally, and to fulfill major scholarly needs world wide. The widest possible delivery of the entire Corrick Collection to audiences near and far is the important ultimate goal for this major preservation project.
UNESCO’s World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, which has been celebrated officially since 2006, highlights the crucial importance of the world’s moving image and recorded sound for both present and future generations.
For media enquiries please contact Heather Millard, Manager, Marketing and Communications on (02) 6248 2101, 0418 417 600 or heather.millard@nfsa.gov.au.
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NFSA Celebrates Special Film Preservation Project for
World AV Heritage Day
For further information, contact:
Heather Millard
Telephone: 02 6248 2101
Mobile: 0418 417 600
Email: heather.milard@nfsa.gov.au
