Rod Wallace Memorial Annual Lecture

This annual event commemorates the pioneering achievement of Roderick Wallace AM who, over many years, laid the foundations that would enable the eventual creation of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA). Each year a noted academic or public figure speaks on an aspect of the preservation and accessibility of Australia's audiovisual heritage. The inaugural lecturer in 2022 was Kim Williams AM, followed by Professor Jenny Hocking AM in 2023. This year, the speaker is award-winning international film critic, broadcaster, author, thinker and self-described 'stirrer' Professor Deb Verhoeven on the topic 'Archival Appetites: In Search Of A National Cinema.' She asks: "what are we looking for when we build an archive? What famishments fuel an archival appetite? She explores the way "search" has shaped the NFSA, revealing a foundational appetite at the heart of Australia's national cinema: a sense of human yearning, an acknowledgement of something that is missing or lost."