The East Anglia Film Archive

Moving images of the past

By Daphne Knott

The East Anglian Film Archive’s collections comprise thousands of hours of moving image material on different formats. The film and video collections – made, since 1896, primarily in the six counties of the East of England – are mainly of non-fiction material such as advertising films, corporate videos, documentaries, family and personal films, home movies, local newsreels and television news, publicity films, educational material, travelogues, and films by civic bodies and regional organisations.

Subjects that are particularly well represented in the collections include images of workers, communities, agriculture and fishing, industry, transport, the effects of the weather, popular culture, holidays, personal history and family life. Sound tracks often provide a record of local speech patterns, accent and dialect and period music.