The collection

Selected films

Contact and access

• The Archive
• Access
• Projects
• Partnerships
• Publications

About the Archive

The Yorkshire Film Archive began in 1988 as a small community history initiative. Since then the Archive has developed into the professionally recognised public access film archive for the region of Yorkshire. It exists to locate, preserve, promote and show film and video made in, or about the region. The Yorkshire Film Archive is an independent registered charity, with a Board of Trustees representing the educational, curatorial, media, community, corporate, legal and financial sectors. The Archives purpose built premises form part of the new Public Access Learning centre at York St John University College which opened in September 2003.

Film Search Yorkshire

During the interim period until the new building was ready and the main collections were in storage, the Yorkshire Film Archive ran a two year film collecting and preservation project called ‘Film Search Yorkshire’, supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. The project ran between 2002 and 2004.
‘Film Search Yorkshire’ was designed to highlight the need to safeguard valuable historic records of daily life in the region and operated in partnership with Yorkshire Television. During its first six months, ‘Film Search Yorkshire’ unearthed numerous collections of film – a collection showing the steel industry made by a master cutler in Sheffield in the 1930’s, the fishing industry in the 1950’s, growing up in Hull in the 1960’s and the work of the Joseph Rowntree School in New Earswick, York, to name but a few. The project also ran a programme of screenings in venues across the region.