Gifts for library and film archive

Press, 1 April 1985, Page 14

Gifts for library and film archive

PA Wellington Two ■ $lO,OOO donations, one to the New Zealand Film Archive and the other to the Alexander Turnbull Library’s centennial fund, have been announced by the Westpac Banking Corporation.

The gifts were presented in Wellington by the Austra-lian-based chairman of the corporation’s board of directors, Sir Noel Foley, to mark the visit of the board to New Zealand.

The director of the archive, Mr Jonathan Dennis, said 10 films, made between 1923 and 1931, which urgently required preservation, would be restored with the $lO,OOO gift. The films, which ranged in length from about 15 minutes to about three minutes, included “The Romance of Maoriland, Part 4” (1930), the only

surviving part of an early New Zealand documentary feature, and an advertisement made in 1931, “The Manufacture of Breakfast Foods,” which was one of New Zealand’s early talkies. Mr Dennis said the $lO,OOO gift was the largest corporate contribution the archive had yet received. The chief librarian of the Turnbull Library, Mr Jim Traue, said the money was a gift to the Friends of the Turnbull Library Centennial Fund. The Friends were attempting to raise $lOO,OOO to make some important purchases to mark the first 100 years of the collections. The Turnbull Library was discussing with Westpac the possibility of using the gift to sponsor a set of prints which could be sold to raise more money for the centennial fund.