Long search for rare items of film history

Press, 19 November 1982, Page 15

Long search for rare items of film history

PA Wellington Searching for lost reels of film in the Soviet Union may sound like an assignment for James Bond but there is nothing glamorous about the task for the New Zealand Film Archive. The archive is working desperately to find and preserve New Zealand-made films — “priceless records of our identity, history, and culture,” said the director, Mr Jonathan Dennis. The archive was established in March, 1981, on the initiative of film industry groups such as the Film Commission, the Federation of Film Societies, and the Broadcasting Corporation. They felt that an organisation was needed to take charge of a national collection of film and television material, much of which was in danger of being lost forever.

For the archive, this task is proving daunting. Much of the material has been lost. Fourteen of the 22 feature films known to have been made between 1914 and 1939 cannot be found, and some of the material which has been located is in poor shape.

Most of the pre-1950 commercial. films were made on nitrate stock, which is highly flammable, unstable, and begins to decompose the moment it is made. “Whatever the conditions of storage, all nitrate sooner or later comes to an unstable, festering, sticky end. “To be saved, all must be repaired and copied on to the more stable acetate or ‘safety’ film,” said Mr Dennis.

Of the film already in the archive’s collection, almost one million feet is on nitrate, and must be wound through and checked for decomposition. Each sorting, an annual event, takes several months. This year 50 of the archive’s 800 titles have been found to be in poor condition, needing restoration and copying by Mr Dennis and three part-time assistants. While most people would associate the New Zealand film industry with recent films such as “Skin Deep,” “Goodbye Pork Pie,” and “Solo,” Mr Dennis says New Zealand has always had ouite an active film industry. New Zealand’s -first feature film, “Hinemoa,” was made in

The search has found films in unlikely places. The only surviving film by the South Canterbury Picture Company, “Scenes In and Around Beautiful Temuka,” was discovered earlier this year still in good condition, in a cupboard in Timaru. The archive also maintains close contact with overseas film archives in the hope that local films may be found in some other country. It is combing the Soviet Union for a duplicate negative of “Runaway,” made here in 1964. The original negatives were lost and although the archive has the British release, that was 16 minutes shorter. The first reel of the 1926 feature film, “The Romance of Hinemoa,” was found in Britain and returned with the help of the National Film Archive m London. Five reels are still missing. Stills from films made overseas have also turned up in New Zealand. The archive has the early American work, “Mr Edison at Work in his Chemical Laboratory” (1897). The archive depends for

survival on grants by the Government, the Film Commission, and the Federation of Film Societies, and private donations. Its income last year was $83,000, of which $50,000 was set aside for film preservation. Two recent bonuses for the archive have been the move to larger premises in Wellington, with room to develop a Museum of Cinema, and the acquisition of the original material from Geoff Steven's 1979 feature, “Skin Deep.”

The first of the recent commercial films given to the archive was “Sons for the Return Home” (1979), and the archive has just received the master negative of Steven’s new feature, “Strata.”

Mr Dennis says it is encouraging that producers are now recognising the immense importance of preserving material from filmmaking activities.

The archive is also building a collection of equipment and memorabilia from the pioneer days of New Zealand film-making for its Museum of Cinema.