We had a very busy year last year with Queanbeyan’s 175th Birthday Celebrations.  The celebrations started with a bang with an historical film screening:

Queanbeyan’s Moving Memories

We began the year with our involvement with Queanbeyan City Council’s film screening : Queanbeyan’s Moving Memories. Members assisted with the original concept and choice of historic film clips and the Feature Film Around The Boree Log (Australia 1925) from the NFSA collection. This silent film was adapted from the poems of John O’Brien (Patrick Joseph Hartigan) and tells of a priest’s life around the southern highlands in the 1870s. Council assisted by hanging the Museum’s 1920s Cinema Curtain in the Foyer of The Q Theatre. We also provided a slide show of historic photographs which screened before the screening and at interval, and a display about the history of cinema going in Queanbeyan. There were two sold out shows, showing that locals are keenly interested in their town’s history. The clips of billy cart races, robbing bees at Burra and the Raiders win in 1989 were popular. Check out part of the Raiders clip on the NFSA website: http://www.nfsa.gov.au/blog/2013/09/09/canberra-raiders-1989-grand-final-heroes/

There were many requests for a DVD of the chosen historical clips. This may be a project the Museum could undertake in the future.

Almost 90 years old!

For more information on the history of cinema in Queanbeyan go to our media page