[KenRa Films Present: the Kenneth Rankine Home Movie Collection]

Kenneth Carruthers Rankine (1890 - 1968) was a keen amateur cinematographer and filmmaker. This collection of his home movies has been donated to ACMI by Kenneth’s granddaughter. The collection represents a wonderful slice of life in Australia; with contents including scenes of everyday life, major family occasions, holidays around Victoria and views of Melbourne.

Films aren’t just for entertainment – they can document experiences, transport us to other worlds or act as windows into the past. The home movie collection of amateur filmmaker Kenneth Carruthers Rankine (1890–1968) is all three.

Did you know that there was an outdoor Olympic pool across the train tracks from where Fed Square now sits in the 40s? How about the high-octane car race the Templestowe Hill Climb, which snaked through 960 metres of outer suburb scrub?

Thanks to Kenneth’s granddaughter, who donated his films to our collection in August 2016, we can peer back into Melbourne’s past, sharing everyday and extraordinary experiences.

Comprising 38 cans of silent, colour 16mm films, Kenneth’s collection portrays gardens, regional and interstate holidays, beauty pageants, shipping ports, water skiing and royal visits, many of the films introduced by his custom-made title, “KenRa Films Present”. No surprise for a celluloid enthusiast who had a movie studio behind his Caulfield home.

Kenneth even came third in a Western Australian amateur film competition for Every Many Should Have A Hobby, a fictional narrative of a man pursuing his secret filmmaking passion. The film is currently undergoing conservation treatment due to acetate deterioration, but we’re hoping to get it digitised like the wonderful home movies in this collection.