Moving Images

Moving images are motion picture film and videotape recordings, in any gauge or recording format, with or without an accompanying sound track.
 
The Archives' moving images collection includes a copy of Down Western Slope which was shot in 1899 and is some of the first film footage shot in British Columbia.  There are also glimpses of the first years of the 20th century recorded on film. However, it is the era from 1935 to 1985 that is most strongly documented. This was a period of tremendous change, not just in terms of industrial development, but also in the domestic and working lives of British Columbians. Often captured in no other way, these facets of BC history are uniquely documented in the moving image collection of the British Columbia Archives.

The collection was established in 1979 and grew quickly during the 1980s and early 1990s. Today the Archives holds well over 4,000 titles (about 10,000 individual items) in a variety of film and videotape formats, spanning the first century of film history. These works include travelogues, industrial and promotional films, documentaries, newsreel items, television news footage, educational films, dramatic and experimental shorts, and family home movies.

Search the online catalogue for moving images.  Reference copies, where available, are indicated in the online description.