The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum is home to one of the largest collections of material relating to the moving image in Britain. 

Museum celebrates 20th Anniversary with endowment

The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, the UK’s foremost museum of moving image history, has benefited from a further donation of £180,000 from one of its founders.

The collection was gifted to the University of Exeter 20 years ago, and this further donation will support the Museum’s long term development.

The donation will establish an endowment fund to support the museum across a range of curation and research activities. These will include PhD studentships, acquisitions, exhibitions, conservation and filmmaking.

The fund will help to enhance the strengths of the founding collection and to promote and improve the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum as a visitor attraction and develop its national and international status.

Dr Phil Wickham, Curator of the Bill Douglas Cinema Museum, said: “We are immensely grateful for this donation. The fund will allow the museum to grow and develop into the future so that even more people can experience the wonderful artefacts and learn about moving image.”

Dr Shaun Curtis, Director of Global Advancement, said: “The Arts and Culture theme is central to the aims of our Making the Exceptional Happen Campaign. This latest act of generosity will secure access to the Museum for future generations of scholars and visitors.”

The Bill Douglas Cinema Museum possesses 80,000 artefacts and attracts visitors from the local, national and international community. Around 2,000 Exeter students use the collection in their studies each year.

Date: 23 October 2017