NFSA blog entries by Simon Smith

Simon Smith sheds light on The Australians in Toronto, a rare film of Sir Donald Bradman in action in Canada 80 years ago.

These film fragments represent the earliest known surviving moving images of Tasmanian Australian Rules football action, filmed in 1911.

As the world turns its attention to London, host city of the 2012 Olympic Games, Simon Smith explores an endearing travelogue of the city made 80 years earlier.

Simon Smith reports on a feature-length selection of silent films curated by the NFSA for the 2012 Sydney Film Festival.

The NFSA marks the tenth anniversary of the last flight of Ansett Australia on 5 March 2002 with two highlights from its new Ansett collection.

For nearly a decade, the NFSA has demonstrated its commitment to supporting Australia’s next generation of filmmaking talent by its ongoing sponsorship of the VCA School of Film and Television Graduate Screening Awards night.

The NFSA was on hand at the 2011 St Kilda Film Festival to present the Audience Award for the SoundKilda Australian Music Video Competition.

We are celebrating the 100th anniversary of the earliest known surviving film of Test cricket in Australia with a new digital video master. The restored 1910 film is complete with the original orange-tinted intertitle and available for the first time at the correct film speed of 16-frames per second. It can be viewed on the NFSA YouTube channel and is likely to be seen in an upcoming edition of 7.30 Report about English cricketer Percy Fender’s home movies during the 1928-29 Ashes tour of Australia. Fender’s films capture what is believed to be the earliest known footage of cricket legend Donald Bradman.

September in Melbourne is Aussie Rules footy finals time! The city is abuzz and NFSA is screening footage of one of its most important sporting films in the heart of Melbourne at Federation Square, on the big screen, from  8 to 25 September.