“The twentieth century began with utopia and ended with nostalgia.” Svetlana Boym One of the Moving Image Archive’s treasure troves is a collection of films produced for Films of Scotland, an agency set up by John Grierson for the Empire Exhibition of 1938 to make films promoting Scotland’s social, cultural and industrial heritage to the […]
Author: Kelvin Hall Access Staff

‘Paint with light’ : Photography and the Moving Image Archive
According to the enthusiastic narration on ‘Amateur Cinematography’ held by the Moving Image Archive, photography serves two distinct purposes; ‘first as a form of record and second as a form of art’. This fascinating 3 minute film, shot in 1948, was made as a trailer for the 10th Amateur film festival held at the Cosmo Cinema, now known […]

Lost Glasgow: The Changing Face of Charing Cross
Earlier this year plans were unveiled to cover a stretch of the M8 motorway at Glasgow’s Charing Cross – to ‘heal the wound’ (as the Herald calls it) opened up in the city as the road was constructed in the 1960s. The National Library of Scotland’s Moving Image Archive (housed here at Kelvin Hall) holds more than […]