London’s Museum of the Moving Image closed on 31 August 1999 and since then our cinema archive has been sold off, put in storage or forgotten
Any present-day visitor to the BFI Southbank in
London, who’s killing time in the Mediatheque, browsing the bookshop or lounging on the sofas in the bar, smug about their choice of location for a date, might be very surprised to know that, 20 years ago, they were more likely to have found themselves flying over London, attending a magic lantern show, participating in a
Hollywood shoot or experiencing life inside a Dalek.
That section of the current complex was constructed to house Momi, the much-loved Museum of the Moving Image, which opened in 1988 and was closed “temporarily” on 31 August 1999, never to be seen again. During those 11 years, it offered visitors an opportunity to learn about and experience the development of the moving image in a way that had never existed before – and hasn’t since.