The National Film and Sound Archive is Australia’s ‘living’ archive – the custodian of over 3 million items that they not only collect but preserve for future generations and share in many diverse ways.

The NFSA collection holds more than 3 million works, including films, television and radio programs, videos, audio tapes, records, compact discs, phonograph cylinders and wire recordings. It also encompasses documents and artefacts such as photographs, posters, lobby cards, publicity items, scripts, costumes, props, memorabilia, oral histories, and vintage equipment.

The NFSA is located in Acton, Canberra with offices in Sydney and Melbourne and access centres in each other state:

NFSA (Canberra) – for address, see below.

NFSA Sydney:
Level 1, 45 Murray Street, Pyrmont NSW 2009
PO Box 397, Pyrmont NSW 2009
Telephone: 02 8202 0100
Fax: 02 8202 0101

NFSA Melbourne:
Level 4, 2 Kavanagh St, Southbank VIC 3006
GPO Box 4317, Melbourne VIC 3001
Telephone: 03 8638 1500
Fax: 03 8638 1501

Collection items that have been digitised or that have an analogue format ‘Access Copy’ listed under ‘Holdings’ in the item’s catalogue record can generally be made available at an Access Centre.

The public is able to access many titles from the collection online.

Is everything in the collection online? 

No. But a lot is!

Hundreds of hours of material from the collection are available to view and listen to online for free. You can browse:

• Curated Collections and Collection Stories (Online Exhibitions)
• Films and mash-ups on the NFSA Films YouTube channel
• Music, sound recordings, field recordings and oral histories on their SoundCloud channel
• australianscreen

NFSA Online Shop – selected titles from the collection, including Film Australia documentaries, are available to purchase as digital files from their Online Shop for use by educational institutions, cultural institutions and individuals

Kanopy – if you are a member of a public library, you can stream selected titles from the collection for free on Kanopy

Education Shop – some titles can be also purchased from The Education Shop

Ozflix – selected NFSA classic films are available to stream on Ozflix

NFSA Gifts – the NFSA has thousands of beautiful and iconic images in the collection. A selection of these images is available for you to purchase your own unique prints and gifts

Postal address:
GPO Box 2002, Canberra ACT 2601