Patineur Grotesque (March 2010)

Australia's earliest surviving film was only discovered in 2005 and has just been screened again for the first time since 1896. The film is Patineur Grotesque (Humorous Rollerskater), filmed late October 1896 by French camera operator Marius Sestier, who was working for the Lumières. The film shows a comic roller skater performing in a park before a small crowd. Its 2010 screening is possibly the first time it has been seen in Australia, as there is no record of the film having been screened in the country at the time it was made. The film has been restored by the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra, and a ten-second clip is available to view on Australian Screen.

UK Web Archive (February 2010)

The British Library has officially launched the UK Web Archive, an archive of UK websites since 2004. There are 6,000 websites listed so far, though the expectation is that when the right legislation is enacted that the British Library will be able to harvest the eight million or so UK websites automatically and so be able to preserve the documents - as valid for research as any book or journal that the Library holds - and make them available in perpetuity. At present the Library has to select sites of particular interest, and we are proud that Who's Who of Victorian Cinema is one of the 6,000, having been archived back to April 2007 - see the record here.

Dave Berry (January 2010)

Sadly the death has been anounced of Dave Berry, one of the contributors to the Who's Who of Victorian Cinema book and this website with his entry on Welsh film pioneer Arthur Cheetham. Dave was the great chronicler of Welsh cinema, author of the magisterial Wales and Cinema: The First Hundred Years (1994). This work champions the pioneers of Weksh cinema, including those such as Birt Acres who first brought film to the principality. He was an unquenchable enthusiast for every aspect of early cinema, one who backed up his enthusiasms with definitive reference works, screenings, events and constant persuasive advocacy. He will be much missed.