Scottish Screen Archive - National Library of Scotland

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Scotland
Website: ssa.nls.uk/
Phone: +44 845 366 4600
Fax: +44 141 880 2301
Email Address: ssaenquiries@nls.uk
The Scottish Screen Archive was established in 1976 to locate, preserve and provide access to Scotland's moving image heritage. 
 
The Archive is a public body and is  part of the National Library of Scotland.
The film and video collection offers evidence of 20th century Scottish social, cultural and industrial history, reflects the lives of ordinary Scots across the generations, and records the achievements of our native film makers in the craft  of  film production. This collection has been built up largely through donations from all sectors of the community, from industry, local authorities,  film and television companies and individual members of the public.

The holdings of the Archive are predominantly non-fiction, reflecting the nature of indigenous  Scottish  production,  and include  documentary, actuality, newsreel, educational, industrial, television and public information films. There is a large collection of amateur footage, reflecting on the lives of the film makers and their families as well as the Scotland they observed on camera.    There are about 16,000 titles in the collection dating from 1895 to the present day.
 
A key collection in the Archive is the Films of Scotland Committee, formed in 1954. Its remit was to arrange for the production of films to promote Scotland's social, cultural and industrial attributes both nationally and internationally. During its thirty year  lifetime some one hundred and fifty documentary films were made, including Seawards the Great Ships (1960) the first Scottish made film to win a Hollywood Oscar. The  Archive preserves,  on videotape, television broadcasts in the Gaelic language since 1993.

Scotland's indigenous film  industry has traditionally been founded on  non fiction  productions and this is reflected in the holdings of the Archive. In  the last decade however production of fiction films has grown, resulting in both feature films and shorts for  theatrical and television release. The Archive's collecting policy has evolved to reflect this change in production  and new fiction works are now  collected by the Archive.
 
To complement the moving images there is an archive of written materials concerning the history of Scottish film production and cinema exhibition, a collection of related photographs, oral history and ephemera.
 
The  Archive's catalogue of viewing copies is published online. 

The Archive is a founder member of the UK Film Archive Forum, an associate of the International Federation of Film Archives (FIAF) and member of  the International Federation of Television Archives (FIAT).

Scottish Screen Archive is supported by the  UK  Heritage Lottery Fund.
 
Presented film(s)
John MacFadyen - 1970 - Nationality: Scottish - About the film
Gordon Highlanders - 1899 - Nationality: Scottish - About the film
Da Makkin o' a Keshie - 1932 - Nationality: Scottish - About the film
Dundee Police Sports - 1921 - Nationality: Scottish - About the film
The Queenshill Cup at Castle Douglas - 1952 - Nationality: Scottish - About the film
Bo'ness Public School. Queen Kathleen Jamieson - 1930 - Nationality: Scottish - About the film

The Collection

All films New additions



Discover more droite gauche

About the film Hollandse tulpen en klompen - Europa Film Treasures 1920 - Dutch
About the film The Queenshill Cup at Castle Douglas - Europa Film Treasures 1952 - Scottish
About the film The Battle of the Century - Europa Film Treasures 1921 - American
About the film Gore Sary - Europa Film Treasures 1913 - Russian
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