Australian archive gives some greatest hits
Australia’s massive archive of historic and contemporary recordings is celebrating its birthday, and has posted its greatest hits online to mark the occasion.
The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA) has posted an interactive timeline chronicling its 30 years of collecting and archiving our audio/visual history.
The immense catalogue of works in the NFSA actually dates back nearly 80 years, when the National Historical Film and Speaking Record Library was established by the federal government in 1935.
After thirty years as the NFSA, the collection now contains over two million items spanning more than100 years of creativity and documentary in film, sound, and broadcast.
The oldest items all date from 1896, including: The Hen Convention, a sound recording on wax cylinder; the famous Lumiere film Workers Leaving the Factory; and Australia’s earliest surviving moving image shot at the 1896 Melbourne Cup carnival.
Among the most-visited exhibits are: the 1943 Oscar for Kokoda Frontline; costumes from The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and Muriel’s Wedding; the car that splits in half from Malcolm; Graham Kennedy’s throne and crown; and the world’s first feature-length narrative movie The Story of the Kelly Gang (1906).