ACMI’s best year yet
The Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI) has recorded its highest ever visitation attracting more than 1.156 million visitors in the last financial year.
The milestone caps off a busy year for ACMI that included its tenth birthday celebrations, and a bumper calendar of exhibitions, film screenings, festivals, talks and live events and education programs.
ACMI Director & CEO Tony Sweeney said that the achievement affirms ACMI’s place as a major cultural asset for Australia and its place on the international stage.
“Over our first ten years, we’ve established a strong reputation as a leading international cultural institution through our dynamic, innovative program of permanent and temporary exhibitions, film screenings, live events, creative workshops and educational opportunities.”
“ACMI is now the highest attended moving image cultural centre in the world. This is an outstanding achievement for a centre so young and something of which are immensely proud.”
Tony said that while the visitation record is cause for celebration, numbers only tell part of the success story.
“We are enormously proud of our contribution to Melbourne’s reputation as Australia’s arts and culture capital. We have pioneered a unique role in commissioning and presenting contemporary moving image art and influential popular culture through illuminating exhibitions, film screenings, live events and creative programs. These constantly draw new audiences on top of our well-established visitor base, demonstrating the power of creative brilliance, innovation and artistic achievement in the moving image to inspire, engage, provoke and entertain.”
The highest attended day at ACMI was the inaugural White Night festival on Saturday 23 February, for which ACMI programmed a dynamic mix of screenings and the hugely popular Classic Screen Tests interactive event, drawing 27,144 revellers through the doors.
The announcement of record annual attendances coincides with the Hollywood Costume exhibition welcoming its 100,000th visitor on Friday 5 July, a figure which now sits at 110,000 attendances. Bringing together the most iconic costumes from a century of filmmaking, from the Golden Age to today, Hollywood Costume is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see the original clothes worn by over 100 of the most unforgettable and beloved characters in films. The acclaimed exhibition, direct from the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, demonstrates the central role costume design plays in cinema storytelling and is on at ACMI until Sunday 18 August. For more information please visit acmi.net.au