I did a lot of my growing up at the Sydney Film Festival. The films we saw taught us about the wonders and cruelties of the world and made us think about how to fix things. We developed our critical faculties, honed our ideas in discussions and debates, went deeper by meeting the filmmakers. The Festival is a living archive of memories and dreams – and after 70 years, there is also a vast and valuable material archive that’s worth preserving for future generations.

— Paul Byrnes, Festival Director 1989-1998

Sydney Film Festival has reached its 70^th Anniversary.
That’s 70 years of cutting-edge, audacious and courageous films from around the world; 70 years of inspiration and provocation, debate and exchange; 70 years of community, forged and strengthened through the collective experience of great cinema.

The Archives Renewal project honours this legacy.
It aims to document, preserve, share and celebrate SFF’s remarkable journey from film society gathering to iconic international Festival – a story made up of not only films, talks and filmmaker guests, but a community of passionate film lovers and thousands of transformative cinematic experiences.

But the Archives Renewal is not just about the past.
As SFF evolves and grows, understanding the Festival’s extraordinary heritage and finding new ways to share its story will be crucial to its future.

WE NEED YOUR HELP

SFF’s Archives Renewal is a substantial project that requires a significant investment of resources. To get started, SFF allocated seed funds from within its current budget and sought additional support through government, private grants and opportunities for collaboration with the Festival’s partners. Your support and that of the SFF community is critical to the project’s ongoing success. So I invite you to please join us by making a tax-deductible donation to help make this vision a reality.

— Nashen Moodley, Festival Director since 2012

THE PROJECT
The Archives Renewal is a timely and transformative ongoing project encompassing:

• Major upgrades to the public-facing, online Living Archive to allow for the creative presentation of materials and to improve accessibility and the user experience
• Recording of new oral histories to capture the memories and reflections of those who have shaped and were shaped by SFF over the decades
• Engaging an archivist to maintain SFF’s physical and digital archival systems
• Involving volunteers and alumni to conduct cataloguing, digitising and ongoing maintenance of materials, strengthening the SFF community.

Living Archive
When it launched in 2013 to mark the Festival’s 60th Anniversary, the Living Archive broke new ground as a digital initiative – a comprehensive chronicle of SFF’s history and a testament to the central role the Festival has played in the evolution of Sydney’s cultural life.

Through the Archive Renewal, this resource has undergone substantial revitalisation and upgrades to the underlying architecture, user interface and editorial potential. It has been expanded to highlight the extraordinary role the Travelling Film Festival has played in bringing international cinema to regional audiences since 1974. It now also invites community submissions which our team of volunteers and core staff will monitor and respond to.

Oral Histories
A distinctive feature of the Living Archive is that it captures more than just the films, talks and parties that make up the Festival each year. Through essays, reflections, anecdotes and ephemera from Festival-goers, past Festival Directors, cultural critics, academics and Staff, it documents the memories and moments that stick with us long after the credits roll.

To honour SFF’s community origins and enrich the Living Archive, the Archives Renewal project has produced a new series of filmed oral to be published later in 2023.

SFF Archivist
Our Archivist Jess Furlong has been overseeing all of these changes. As well as cataloguing the past, Jess has set up processes and protocols so that the Festival is prepared to document and preserve its future activities and achievements. Working with the SFF Community, they are gathering a team of passionate volunteers to help discover, catalogue and share materials so that the Festival’s history can be better understood and its remarkable story more effectively told.

All donations over $2 are fully tax-deductible.

Sydney Film Festival sincerely thanks those who have donated to the Archives Renewal project.
Check out the list of SFF Donors here. 

LEAVE YOUR SFF LEGACY
If you’re unable to make a contribution to the Archives Renewal at this time but would like to know more about how you can make a transformative impact, we’d love to talk to you about leaving a gift to Sydney Film Festival in your Will. Please get in touch with Georgia using the details below.