ILLUMINATE ANZAC DAY WITH AUCKLAND MUSEUM

April 22, 23 & 24
7:30 pm - 10:00 pm

Auckland Museum has secured the rights to project the only known film of the Gallipoli campaign onto the outside of its grand entrance. Heroes of Gallipoli will be shown for the three nights leading up to the ANZAC day commemorations.

Visitors are invited to watch the 20 minute film, which will play on continuous loop from 7.30pm to 10.00pm, from the steps of the cenotaph and then come inside the Museum to sign a digital book of remembrance, look up relatives war records on the Museums Cenotaph database and enjoy some light refreshments from the café.

Heroes of Gallipoli includes scenes of British, New Zealand and Australian troops. It was shot by Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, a famous English war correspondent. Oscar winning film director, Peter Jackson’s outstanding restoration has just been listed with the UNESCO’s Memory of the World programme.

View this rarely seen film taken at ANZAC Cove and Suvla Bay in 1915.
Film accession number : F08484 . Title : [Extracts from A H Noad film: Anzac 1915; British troops on beach, possibly Suvla]

This footage is believed to have been shot by Mr. Ellis Ashmead-Bartlett, the English journalist who gave Australia its first description of the ANZAC troops at Gallipoli. His colourful and stirring accounts of Australian soldiers’ bravery, particularly of their landing at ANZAC Cove, helped give rise to the legend of Anzac. Bartlett filmed live action in and around Anzac Cove from July to September 1915, and the resulting footage, screened in 1916 under the title With the Dardanelles Expedition : Heroes of Gallipoli, was an instant success with audiences in England and Australia. A print of this film was acquired by the Australian War Memorial in 1919. However the “new” footage shown here was not a part of the film as it currently stands. It was discovered as an unidentified film segment within a compilation of footage related to World War 1 , sold to the Memorial in 1938. The seller of the footage was unable to shed light on its origins.
We can only guess why the footage was removed from the Dardanelles film. Although it cannot be authenticated to an absolute certainty, the most probable origin of the footage is that Bartlett shot it, because he was the only person known to have operated a moving film camera at Gallipoli. However we can be grateful that by whatever means, this film was preserved to add to our precious sum of knowledge of this iconic campaign.

Heroes of Gallipoli - Courtesty of the Australian War Memorial Museum. http://www.awm.gov.au/commemoration/anzac/anzac_film.asp

Bookman Beattie's Source:

www.aucklandmuseum.com