In 2020 a mysterious film reel returned to the hands of the Ballarat National Theatre board. It was old, weathered, and clearly damaged. There was no case or label that indicated what was on the footage or where it had come from. The board moved to get the film restored, to see if any part of it could be salvaged and if it could, what stories were captured by the camera that had used it… These five films are silent vignettes from the stage performances of Ballarat National Theatre in the 1960s.
Until now, we have not been able to identify which productions were captured in these films.
In 2023 the company was successful in an application for the Ballarat Connected Communities Grant for a new website that would enable us to better archive BNT’s community history. Since the implementation of the new website, board members Evelyn Zeven and Liana Emmerson have been curating, updating and correcting historic production information. In this process, they have been able to identify the productions in the films.
