Film over a lightbox
Film over a lightbox
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2022 Annual Appeal

ACMI is the worlds’ leading global museum of the moving image, inspiring wonder and curiosity through storytelling, technology, film and art. We believe that by preserving screen culture, we connect and engage generations of watchers, players and makers on our shared history, present and future.

For our 2022 Annual Appeal, we are seeking your support to safeguard the future of the ACMI Collection.

The ACMI Collection holds over 250,000 films, TV, video art works and games, spanning a 75-year screen legacy across Victoria, as well as nationally and internationally.

Over our 20-year history, the ACMI Collections team has preserved thousands of objects, with items dating back from 1896 to now – saved for future generations.

Our collections are never static. We acquire new items across varied mediums that address underrepresentation across cultures and gender, including Yankunytjatjara artist Kaylene Whisky’s video work Ngura Pukulpa, Sue Ford’s experimental feminist masterpieces, Canopy by prolific storyteller John Harvey, Keerray Woorroong Gunditjmara artist Vicki Couzens’ Yanmeeyarr installation and even Tony Agapitos’ Home Movie Collection.

"We preserve everything from experimental video art that captures Melbourne’s 90s rave scene to First Nations storytellers and feminist short films by Sue Ford,” says Time-based Media Art and AV Conservator, Candice Cranmer.

As modern technologies evolve and older materials become obsolete, preserving these important stories becomes more urgent. We currently have over 40,000 videotapes, CDs and DVDs in our collection that require urgent digitisation over the next three years, including content produced by independent filmmakers, amateur enthusiasts (home-movie makers), videogame creators and government agencies. If irreparably deteriorated, these cultural histories will be lost forever.

A woman and her daughter look at videos projected on their hands in the Memory Garden at ACMI - Eugene Hyland

Credit: Eugene Hyland

2022 marks our 20th Birthday. We ask you to celebrate with us by helping preserve our legacy and protect our future.

We are raising $30,000 before 30 June to invest in urgently needed, costly modern technology, such as a RIP Station Robot that digitises CDs and DVDs. This will help expedite the preservation process before these devices are irreparably deteriorated.

For our staff in the Blackmagic Design Media Preservation Lab, digitisation is a real time process. A single videotape can take up to 5 hours for a final digital copy to be produced.

"It costs $30,000 to digitise 270 videotapes,” says Head of Collections, Nick Richardson.

We are a cultural museum with one of the most accessible collections archives in the world. Over the last year, our collections team have kept more than 1,000 stories alive through our YouTube channel, website and Memory Garden display, part of our ongoing free exhibition, Story of the Moving Image. The ACMI Collection has engaged over 526,000 people over the last 12 months and grows in popularity each day.

A tax-deductible donation helps us preserve our collection as a living memory for future generations to experience.

Donate by clicking the button below or tap our donation points during your next visit.