NFSA Restores is an exciting program to digitise, restore and preserve, at the highest archival standards, classic and cult Australian films so they can be seen on the big screen in today’s digital cinemas.

Restored films include Shame (1988), Storm Boy (1976), Starstruck (1982), Bliss (1985) and Proof (1991).

An excerpt from the NFSA Restores version of documentary The Coolbaroo Club (1996), which mentions celebrity guests of the club including Nat 'King' Cole and The Harlem Globetrotters. 

The Coolbaroo League began in Perth in 1946. It ran the Coolbaroo Club to give Aboriginal people a place of their own to gather.

The Coolbaroo Club’s popular dance nights were attended by Indigenous people from all over the city and from neighbouring camps and towns.

They also attracted Black musicians, performers and celebrities from all over the world, some of whom were barred from performing in other venues.

Read the story behind the award-winning documentary as told by guest contributor Stephen Kinnane, the co-writer and co-producer of The Coolbaroo Club (1996) and a Marda Marda from Miriwoong Country.

The NFSA restoration of The Coolbaroo Club premiered at the 2023 Melbourne International Film Festival.

At the Pan Pacific championships, Doug Hastings (Barry Otto) starts a handclap in support of son Scott (Paul Mercurio) and his partner Fran (Tara Morice). Scott and Fran give a thrilling exhibition of their rule-breaking paso doble. The crowd goes wild.

NFSA Restores: Strictly Ballroom was selected to screen as part of Cannes Classics at the 2022 Cannes Film Festival. It also screened at the 2022 Sydney Film Festival. Learn more about the restoration.

A Q&A session with Strictly Ballroom stars Paul Mercurio and Tara Morice at the NFSA in September 2022.

In September 2022, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Strictly Ballroom (Baz Luhrmann, Australia, 1992), and the NFSA Restores restoration for the anniversary, the NFSA threw the film a party! 

Following the sold-out screening of the film, our audience was thrilled to welcome lead stars Tara Morice and Paul Mercurio on stage for a Q&A, moderated by Public Engagement Manager, Karina Libbey.

The conversation was fantastic; Tara and Paul were exceptionally friendly and generous in sharing their experience of making the film and entertained us with many enjoyable anecdotes.

You can listen to the full audio here.

The NFSA's digitally restored version of Clara Law's Floating Life premiered at the Hong Kong Film Festival in April 2021 and also screened at the Brisbane International Film Festival and Sydney Film Festival in 2021. Read more about the restoration of Floating Life (1996).

The film explores the Asian migrant experience in Australia in the early 1990s. The Chan family arrives in their new home in Australia – a new house on a new street in a new suburb. Mr Chan (Edwin Pang) marvels at the size of the kitchen. The younger boys Chau and Yue (Toby Chan and Toby Wong) immediately set off to explore the house.

Bing (Annie Yip) warns everyone of the dangers of life in Australia – from skin cancer to redback spiders to pitbull terriers. Mrs Chan (Cecilia Lee) unwraps the family altar, which has travelled on the plane with her. 

Summary by Paul Byrnes

This is a clip from the NFSA Restores digital restoration of Wrong Side of the Road (Ned Lander, Australia, 1981).

In this clip, the members of the band No Fixed Address leave for their gig. During their performance the police arrive.

Summary by Romaine Moreton

You can stream Wrong Side of the Road in full as part of the Buwindja collection on NFSA Player.

STREAM WRONG SIDE OF THE ROAD

This is a clip from the NFSA Restores digital restoration of My Survival as an Aboriginal (Essie Coffey, Australia, 1978).

Essie Coffey gives the children lessons on how to survive in the bush. She shows them different sorts of fruits and trees. Summary by Romaine Moreton.

You can stream My Survival as an Aboriginal in full as part of the Buwindja collection on NFSA Player.

STREAM My Survival As An Aboriginal

This is a clip from the NFSA Restores digital restoration of Lousy Little Sixpence (Alec Morgan and Gerry Bostock, Australia, 1983).

Flo Caldwell, born in 1910, from Ulgundarhi Reserve and Violet Shea, born in 1912, talk of their experience of schooling on the reserve and being selected by the Protection Board inspector for cheap labour. Summary by Romaine Moreton.

You can stream Lousy Little Sixpence in full as part of the Buwindja collection on NFSA Player.

STREAM Lousy Little Sixpence

The NFSA has completed a full digital restoration of Radiance (1998). 

In the film Radiance, based on the 1993 Louis Nowra stage play, three sisters reunite for the funeral of their mother after having not seen each other for an extended period of time. They are forced to confront their mother's legacy of half-truths, unfinished business and family secrets.

Radiance is a significant Australian film, being Rachel Perkins' first feature and only the second film directed by an Indigenous woman, after Tracey Moffatt's BeDevil (1993). It boasts a powerful female cast including Deborah Mailman, Rachael Maza and Trisha Morton-Thomas. 

NFSA Restores: Radiance had its world premiere at the Brisbane International Film Festival in October 2021 and also screened at the 2021 Sydney Film Festival.

Read more about the restoration of Radiance (1998) and watch behind-the-scenes clips from the film.

This documentary film examines the way Australians see themselves 200 years after the British fleet sailed into Sydney harbour to found a colony.

As part of our NFSA Restores program we have restored the landmark observational documentary Australia Daze (1988). The digital restoration will screen on 26 and 27 January 2021 in various locations across Australia. 

The production of Australia Daze involved dozens of camera crews across the nation, under the overall direction of Pat Fiske. They filmed from midnight to midnight on 26 January 1988 to capture the many facets of the bicentenary of European settlement in Australia.

From First Fleet re-enactments to Indigenous protests, backyard barbeques to royal visits, Australia Daze chronicles a broad array of events on that historic day and diverse voices and perspectives from across Australian society.

Australia Daze is a snapshot of one day in the millennia-long history of the country. The film is an opportunity for Australians to remember where they were, or to catch a glimpse of Australia’s past before they were born or arrived here.

It is a chance to reflect on how much things have changed in 33 years – and also how little has changed.

The NFSA has completed a digital restoration of Mabo: Life of An Island Man.

The documentary tells the private and public story of Eddie Koiki Mabo, who was born on Murray Island in the Torres Strait. Mabo's actions helped change the legal and political landscape of Australia. 

On 3 June 1992, six months after Eddie Mabo's tragic death, the High Court of Australia upheld his claim that Murray Islanders held 'native title' to three islands on the eastern fringe of the Torres Strait.

Eddie Mabo is seated on the right in the image from Mabo: Life of An Island Man, 1997, Film Australia Collection © NFSA.

One of Australia’s greatest silent films celebrates its 100th anniversary with a new digital restoration by the NFSA.

Based on the verse novel The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke by CJ Dennis, this is a tale of romance, jealousy, temptation and redemption.

It tells the story of Bill ‘The Kid’ (Arthur Tauchert), a larrikin who cleans up his act when the beautiful Doreen (Lottie Lyell) enters his life.

Directed by legendary filmmaker Raymond Longford, The Sentimental Bloke is set in the then-rough streets of Woolloomooloo and the beaches of Manly, offering contemporary audiences a rare glimpse of Sydney 100 years ago.

A huge box-office hit at the time, The Sentimental Bloke is one of few silent-era Australian films to have survived in its entirety.

NFSA Restores: The Sentimental Bloke premieres at Sydney OpenAir Cinema on 15 February 2020, accompanied by a new musical score composed by ARIA Award-winning musician Paul Mac, who will also perform it on the night.

The NFSA has completed a digital restoration of Black Robe, directed by Bruce Beresford. You can rent or purchase the full film from Umbrella Entertainment.

In this scene, Father Laforgue (Lothaire Bluteau), his young French accomplice Daniel (Aden Young) and a party of Algonquin led by Chomina (August Schellenberg) are blessed by a Jesuit priest before they set off by canoe. This is where the hazardous journey begins. Summary by Lynden Barber.

The acclaimed 1994 Australian documentary film Eternity has been digitally restored as part of the NFSA Restores program.

Eternity tells the story of Sydney personality Arthur Stace. He famously wrote the word 'Eternity’, in perfect copperplate script, on the footpaths of Sydney more than half-a-million times over a 40-year period.

Known to many as ‘Mr Eternity’, he became part of Sydney iconography and mythology.

The restoration of Eternity premieres at the Sydney Film Festival in June 2019.

The NFSA has completed a digital restoration of Sunday Too Far Away, starring Jack Thompson. You can rent or purchase the full film from Umbrella Entertainment.

In this scene from the newly restored version, Foley (Jack Thompson) discovers he has competition from an unknown, Arthur Black (Peter Cummins). Shearing contractor Tim King (Max Cullen) gives Jim the learner (Graham Smith) a second chance.

Summary by Paul Byrnes

The empowering 1979 classic Australian film My Brilliant Career has been digitally restored as part of the NFSA Restores program. 

Film Synopsis

During the drought of 1898, headstrong and vivacious Sybylla Melvyn (Judy Davis) dreams of escaping the drudgery of farm life for a career as a writer. On an extended visit to her aristocratic grandmother (Aileen Britton), she meets Harry Beecham (Sam Neill), a well-to-do grazier. Sybylla must decide if love will interrupt her plans for a brilliant career.

The NFSA has completed a digital restoration of Celia (1989), the debut feature from Ann Turner. The film explores Australian suburban childhood in the 1950s through the eyes of a nine-year-old girl.

In this clip, an excerpt from the NFSA's digital restoration of the film, Celia (Rebecca Smart) and her friends are playing with a Japanese mask that she has taken from her grandmother's room. Another girl steals the mask and runs away with it into the woods. Celia gives chase but is stopped in her tracks by what seems to be an eerie and unsettling supernatural force moving through the woods. 

In the film, Celia lives with her conservative parents (Nicholas Eadie and Mary-anne Fahey). When her beloved grandmother dies, a devastated Celia befriends her new neighbour Alice (Victoria Longley) and her young children.

When Alice is outed as a communist sympathiser, Celia's father forbids her from seeing Alice or her children. Then Celia's pet rabbit is taken from her – a result of the 1950s government program to eradicate the rabbit plague. As Celia's world spirals out of control, her blurred perceptions of real life and fantasy have tragic consequences.

You can rent or purchase the full film from Umbrella Entertainment.

The NFSA has completed a digital restoration of Witches and Faggots, Dykes and Poofters (One in Seven Collective, produced by Digby Duncan, 1980).

The documentary tells the story of the very first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras on 24 June 1978, a protest march that ended in 53 arrests.

In this clip, one of 'the 78ers' describes what happened after her arrest on the night of the first Mardi Gras.

This clip is from the NFSA Restores digital restoration of Rocking the Foundations (Pat Fiske, Australia, 1985). You can rent the full film from the Ronin Films website.

Sydney, Australia, is established as the location of the film and the narration introduces the film’s premise and establishes the filmmaker as the story-teller. Summary by Susan Lambert.

The NFSA has completed a digital restoration of Gallipoli (1981).

Lost in the desert, on their way to join up, Archy (Mark Lee) and Frank (Mel Gibson) discuss politics, patriotism and the reasons for war.

Gallipoli remains one of the most loved of all Australian films. It’s one of Weir’s most nakedly emotional films and one of his most poetic.

Summary by Paul Byrnes.

The NFSA has completed a digitial restoration of Newsfront (1978).

In Australia in the late 1940s, before the coming of television, Len Maguire (Bill Hunter) and his young sidekick Chris (Chris Haywood, both pictured) cover the big news stories for the Cinetone newsreel company. Times are changing and Len struggles to maintain his principles in a turbulent era.

The award-winning classic film, directed by Phillip Noyce, makes extensive use of real newsreels; it integrates new and old footage, shifting effortlessly between black-and-white and colour. The cast also includes Wendy Hughes, Bryan Brown, Gerard Kennedy and Angela Punch McGregor.

The NFSA restoration premiered in 2014.

A scene from the NFSA Restores digital restoration of The Man From Kangaroo (1919). Directed by Wilfred Lucas and starring Reg L 'Snowy' Baker.

After two thieves attack and rob a wealthy farmer, John Harland (Snowy Baker) knocks one of them to the ground before chasing the other through city alleyways and streets, climbing a steep wall and jumping from a high bridge. Crash-tackling the second thief, Harland delivers both thieves to police.

Summary by Graham Shirley

A scene from the NFSA Restores 2K digital restoration of The Empire Builders (Duke Worne, USA, 1924).

This silent film with English intertitles was the second film made by Reg L 'Snowy' Baker in the USA. It is set during the Second Boer War, starring Baker as Captain William Ballard of the British Army Territorials. Ballard is sent to make a treaty, but he meets with resistance.

We restored the film in collaboration with Haghefilm Digitaal in the Netherlands, completing a new HD scan of a 35mm tinted nitrate negative following an extensive clean-up of the image. Unfortunately the source components for the start of the film were so badly deteriorated as to be unusable. To fix this problem, we used a 16mm print that had been donated to the NFSA in the 1980s as a substitute source for the early deteriorated sections.

Snowy Baker is one of the greatest all-round athletes in Australian sporting history and all his skills are on display in The Empire Builders, his third partnership with prolific Hollywood producer Phil Goldstone. Also starring Hollywood silent film starlet Margaret Landis, the film features Snowy's trademark stunts, equestrian skills and some spectacular dives that thrilled cinema audiences, particularly in Australia where it was a big hit.

While Baker only made two more major films – The Sword of Valor (Duke Worne, USA, 1924) and Fighter's Paradise (Alvin J Neitz, USA, 1924) – he found a new career as manager of the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. There he taught Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn sword and fencing techniques and coached the 12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor in horseriding for National Velvet (Clarence Brown, USA, 1944).

The NFSA has completed a digital restoration of The Sword of Valor (Duke Worne, USA, 1924), starring Snowy Baker as an American sailor who falls in love with the daughter (Dorothy Revier) of a Spanish noble.

We restored the film in collaboration with Haghefilm Digitaal in the Netherlands, completing a new HD scan of a 35mm tinted nitrate negative following an extensive clean-up of the image.

Baker utilises his strong horseriding skills in this action comedy set in Spain and the French Riviera. His beloved horse Boomerang receives a prominent credit and is even front and centre on the film's poster!

The Sword of Valor also features daring stunts and fine swordplay between Baker and the moustache-twirling villain played by Edward Cecil.

While Baker only made one major film after The Sword of Valor – Fighter's Paradise (Alvin J Neitz, USA, 1924) – he found a new career as manager of the Riviera Country Club in Los Angeles. There he taught Douglas Fairbanks and Errol Flynn sword and fencing techniques and coached the 12-year-old Elizabeth Taylor in horseriding for National Velvet (Clarence Brown, USA, 1944).

The NFSA has completed a digital restoration of the silent version of The Cheaters (1929), one of the earliest Australian films made by a team of female filmmakers.

The McDonagh sisters - Paulette (director), Phyllis (art director) and actress Isabel (billed as Marie Lorraine) - experienced great success with their first two films, Those Who Love (1926) and The Far Paradise (1928). 

In The Cheaters, Paula Marsh (played by 'Marie Lorraine') decides to end her career as a thief after falling in love with Lee Travers (Josef Bambach), son of a wealthy businessman.

The film was completed as a silent movie in 1929, after American 'talking pictures' were already flooding the market. The McDonagh sisters tried to broaden the film's appeal by converting it to a part-talkie and later to a full-talkie film in 1931, but it was too late.

Today it is the original silent film that survives as the most complete version of The Cheaters. The restoration is based on the only 35mm (nitrate) film print known to exist.

The digital clean-up achieved significant improvements in re-stabilising, de-flickering and grading the image, and extra time was needed to address some remaining distracting scratches and spots and return the image to a condition as close as possible to the original without changing it.

The NFSA has completed a digital restoration of The Year My Voice Broke. Made 30 years ago, the negative in a few places was already showing early signs of degrading, and if this preservation work had not been undertaken, sections may well have been irretrievably lost.

Writer-director John Duigan: 'Thanks to the care and meticulous attention to detail of the NFSA team, a definitive and very beautiful digital version of the film is now preserved. The work of film preservation is of incalculable value to our culture. Without it whole swathes of our film heritage, including classics from the relatively recent past, may, sooner than we think, be lost forever.'

Danny (Noah Taylor) meets Thandiwe (Thandiwe Newton) at a football match - which he refers to as 'a mating ritual'. Nicole Kidman and Naomi Watts also feature in this clip.

Written and directed by John Duigan, this sequel to The Year My Voice Broke (1987) also won the AFI (Australian Film Institute) Award for Best Film, in 1990.

Flirting has been digitally restored as part of the NFSA Restores program. It premiered at Arc cinema in Canberra in August 2017.

Perth lawyer Asta Cadell (Deborra-lee Furness) arrives in a small town in Western Australia, and get her first impression of the locals.

Ground-breaking 1988 Australian film Shame was digitally restored as part of the NFSA Restores program. 

The restoration premiered at the 2017 Melbourne International Film Festival on 13 August with stars Deborra-lee Furness and Simone Buchanan and director Steve Jodrell in attendance.

You can rent or purchase the full film from Umbrella Entertainment.

In commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Battle of Long Tan in 2016, the NFSA completed a digital restoration of The Odd Angry Shot.

Directed by Tom Jeffrey the 1979 film features an all-star cast including, Graham Kennedy, Bryan Brown, John Jarratt and John Hargreaves.

The Odd Angry Shot follows a single tour of duty of an Australia Special Air Service Regiment reconnaissance team in Vietnam, and their daily life in camp.

Less about the politics of Australia’s involvement in the war, this film was more about the men, the conflict and their adjustment to life back home.

The restoration is from the NFSA Restores program to digitise and restore classic and cult Australian films, so they can be seen in today’s digital cinemas.

Producer David Elfick, cinematographer Russell Boyd and director Gillian Armstrong all contributed to the restoration process. It was complicated as there were two versions of the film: a 105-minute Australian version and a 95-minute international one. The NFSA did not have complementary picture and sound components, but with the assistance of Mr Elfick, we were able to source the international soundtrack to match the interpositive we have in the national collection.

PROOF has been digitally restored by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), with the generous support of the public.

Martin, a visually impaired man, lives an emotionally isolated life. Holding a deep-seated mistrust for the people around him, he takes photographs of his surroundings as a safeguard against being deceived. An object of obsessive but unrequited desire for his housekeeper, Martin embarks on a cautious friendship with a young restaurant worker. In doing so, he sets in motion a love triangle in which trust can be built and shattered.

Ray Lawrence’s 1985 AFI Award-winning classic Bliss has been digitally restored by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) as part of its NFSA Restores initiative.

Based on the 1981 novel by Peter Carey, Bliss premiered in competition at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. Despite a rocky start - 400 of the 1,600 audience at Cannes walked out - the film became an art-house hit in Australia, with glowing reviews and the AFI Awards for Best Picture, Best Direction and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Jerboa (Imogen Annesley) escapes her tribe to seek refuge in Sydney. She meets and falls in love with Donny Martin (Leigh Biolos), who refuses to believe her when she confides she’s a werewolf.

Their union results in the birth of a marsupial werewolf baby that Jerboa and Donny will have to protect from those who seek to capture the child.

This before and after clip shows the work of the NFSA in restoring 35mm prints. The NFSA has the original camera negative for Howling III: The Marsupials, which was used to create a digital master.

Director Philippe Mora explains: ‘As I recall, the negative did not need much fiddling with at all – exposed right down the middle’. When cinematographer Louis Irving sat in on a screening he was extremely pleased with the final result.

The NFSA restoration of Howling III premiered at the 2015 Adelaide International Film Festival. You can rent or purchase the full film from Umbrella Entertainment.

Sons of Matthew is a legendary film in the history of Australian cinema. It is arguably Charles Chauvel's most personal and ambitious work and took 18 months to complete, with filming in Queensland affected by flooding and heavy rain. It was a huge success with local audiences when it opened in December 1949, and was also released in the UK and US (as The Rugged O'Riordans).

The film pays tribute to the pioneering farmers of northern New South Wales and south-east Queensland. Chauvel's family had roots in this area and he worked on cattle stations while he was growing up. In this clip from the NFSA digital restoration completed in 2017, the cattle have broken out of their pens during a cyclonic storm. Cathie (played by Wendy Gibb) is riding after them when a falling tree knocks her from her horse. Shane (Michael Pate) rushes into the forest in search of her.

You can rent or purchase the full film from Umbrella Entertainment.

The NFSA’s experts had their work cut out for them when they discovered the oxide was lifting off two reels of the final sound mix. This required ‘baking’ them in a low humidity rejuvenation chamber for seven days before they could be safely digitised.

Restoration partners Frame, Set and Match had to spend almost twice the time on digitally cleaning and grading the picture than with the restorations of Starstruck (1982) and Howling III: The Marsupials (1987). 

Producer Matt Carroll contributed to the process and the South Australian Film Corporation (SAFC) were very happy to see the film digitally restored.

Following a year-long restoration project, the NFSA presents a film once thought lost to Hollywood mythology. In Three Days to Live Frank Capra is credited as Editor and Titles, two very creative roles. It is also thought, according to biographer Jim McBride, that Capra was assistant director.

The film is a mystery set across San Francisco’s share market and India, where a shadowy investor is forcing people into bankruptcy. When Grace (Ora Carew) realises her father is being targeted, she seeks police protection but takes events into her own hands. Also starring Helen Howell, who would later become Capra’s wife.

The restoration is from the NFSA Restores program to digitise and restore classic films, so they can be seen in today’s digital cinemas.

Jeffrey Walker reflects on his role as eight-year old Martin (Hugo Weaving plays the adult version) in the 1991 film PROOF, and his relationship with actress Heather Mitchell, who played his mother.
Margaret Pomeranz, Ambassador for NFSA, is urging the public to help raise $25,000 to restore PROOF, which launched the careers of Russell Crowe, Hugo Weaving and director Jocelyn Moorhouse (The Dressmaker).

Ray Lawrence’s 1985 AFI Award-winning classic Bliss has been digitally restored by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) as part of its NFSA Restores initiative.

Based on the 1981 novel by Peter Carey, Bliss premiered in competition at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. Despite a rocky start - 400 of the 1,600 audience at Cannes walked out - the film became an art-house hit in Australia, with glowing reviews and the AFI Awards for Best Picture, Best Direction and Best Adapted Screenplay.

We need your help. We are restoring as many films as our resources permit, but the support of the public will allow us to do more. Help us keep this part of Australia’s history alive!

The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia has an exciting new program to digitally restore and preserve classic and cult Australian films, so they can be seen in today’s digital cinemas. It’s called NFSA Restores, and we’ve already worked on a number of titles, including the much loved 1976 movie Storm Boy.

But we need your help to do more.  Our next project is Proof, an iconic 1991 film by one of our most celebrated directors, Jocelyn Moorhouse (The Dressmaker), and producer Lynda House.  It features spellbinding performances by two actors who would soon become global stars: Russell Crowe and Hugo Weaving.

Proof can’t be kept alive for future audiences to experience on the big screen, as it was intended unless we can digitally restore and preserve the fragile analogue film. New generations won’t be able to enjoy the emotional, communal experience of watching it on the big screen.

Together, we need to raise $25,000 to help preserve and bring this Australian classic back to the big screen.  All pledges to the campaign are tax-deductible, and include an acknowledgement on the Proof restoration webpage.

NFSA Ambassador Margaret Pomeranz has made the first donation towards the restoration of Proof.

NFSA Ambassador Margaret Pomeranz thanks the 266 people who supported the digital restoration of the 1991 Australian film PROOF, particularly the 'Film Conservators' who donated $1,000 or more.