Overwhelmed archive eyes state-of-art storage

The New Zealand Film Archive is launching a fundraising drive to build an international-standard coolstore to house its collection, after running out of space for its 300,000 cans, reels and cassettes of video and film.

The archive's film and television items, and thousands of photographs, publications and papers dating back to 1896, are double-stacked or packed in boxes in seven vaults across four Wellington sites.

Chief executive Frank Stark said he didn't want to alarm the 2000 people who had deposited items with the archive, but its storage conditions were substandard by international standards.

About 40 per cent of the collection is held in spaces which are not thermal-controlled.

The Film Archive has bought land at Plimmerton, north of Wellington, so it can develop a new thermal-controlled site - actually a kiwifruit coolstore - to house the collection in temperature and humidity-controlled conditions.

Construction is set to start in February and finish in March - a rapid build thanks to the simplicity of building a kiwifruit coolstore, Mr Stark said.

The project, and the relocation of the Buckle St and Taranaki St collections, should be finished by May. The coolstore will house about half of the Film Archive's containers of film and video, with shelf space for up to 10 years of the collection's growth.

The site is large enough that another vault of equal or larger size could be built later.

The open-plan 360sq m vault will have walls and a roof made from sandwiched steel and polystyrene, a construction material originally developed for horticultural coolstores, and will comply with storage condition standards for extended periods without external energy supplies.

The building project could cost up to $750,000, and the Film Archive has approached funding bodies and trusts for help. It is also asking the community for donations.

Arts, Culture and Heritage Minister Chris Finlayson launched the fundraising campaign last night at Peter Jackson's state-of-the-art cinema at Park Road Post Production in Wellington.

MPs Steve Chadwick (Labour) and Sue Kedgley (Greens) also attended, as did representatives of the New Zealand Film Commission, Archives New Zealand, NZ On Air, Te Papa, the National Library and NZ Film.

- NZPA