Konrad Dimpel Home Movie Collection (1954 - current)
Home movie collection
Series synopsis:
Konrad Dimpel’s 42 home movies capture family and work life in Canberra and its surrounds from the mid 1950s up to the present day.
Curator’s Notes:
The home movies in the Konrad Dimpel collection are both black-and-white and colour, and have been filmed on both domestic film and video formats. The images in these home movies are of interest for the details of domestic interiors, the record of public sites of recreation at a particular time in history, and their contribution to a recorded history of Canberra. In addition, Dimpel has recorded his family’s history over that time, providing a record of the growth of his children and their life in Australia.
Dimpel migrated to Australia in 1954 from Germany as one of the many ‘Jennings Germans’ who came out to work for the building company AV Jennings. The ‘Jennings Germans’ worked on a number of buildings in and around Canberra in the 1950s and 1960s.
Dimpel is an avid videographer and began depositing his home movies with the National Film and Sound Archive in 2000. He clearly values both the medium of the moving image and the written word as culturally important forms of remembrance and reflection, along with collecting institutions that preserve these artefacts. In 2005, Dimpel deposited a memoir in German called As I Remembered Things: My Life Since 1927 and its Roots in the Past with the National Library of Australia. He has continued to make amateur videos and home movies including a moving personal reflection on the impact of the 2003 Canberra bushfires, Burned Out Fields Along My Walking Ways.
Home movies often capture personal perspectives of history and public events. This makes them valuable as both a form of witness to living history as well as a contribution to public memory.
Titles in this collection
Dimpel, Konrad: Burned Out Fields Around My Walking Ways: Home Movie (2003)
This home movie – filmed, edited and narrated by Canberra resident Konrad Dimpel – documents the bushfires that swept through the ACT in January 2003 and their destructive aftermath. It contains footage of the family’s 30-year relationship with the area, ...
Dimpel, Konrad: Canberra and Snowy Mountains: home movie (c1954)
This mute, colour home movie made by Canberra resident Konrad Dimpel shows various scenes in and around Canberra and includes a woodchopping competition at a local country show.
Dimpel, Konrad: German Christmas celebrations, Lutheran Sunday School picnic: home movie (c1966)
A silent, black and white home movie containing scenes from a Lutheran Sunday School picnic, filmed by Canberra resident and amateur filmmaker Konrad Dimpel.
Dimpel, Konrad: Jennings Germans: home movie (c1960)
This silent, colour home movie footage from 1960 shows bricklayers lay the foundations of a house while others carry out masonry work on a rough stone wall. Alongside them, a toddler in a pink dress explores part of a work ...
Dimpel, Konrad: Manuka Swimming Pool: home movie (1961)
Canberra resident and home movie enthusiast, Konrad Dimpel captures his young family on an outing to the Manuka Swimming Pool in 1961.
Dimpel, Konrad: On the Voyage to Germany: home movie (c1966)
In 1966, Konrad Dimpel and his young family left Fremantle port for Germany on the passenger ship Achille Lauro. Dimpel filmed this silent home movie of the voyage from Australia to Germany, along the way capturing the on board activities ...
Dimpel, Konrad: Red Hill: home movie (1964)
This silent colour home movie, captured by Konrad Dimpel, shows his children quietly entertaining themselves over Christmas in 1964. The Dimpel children – Annemaria, Andrew and Harold – play with the gifts they have received for Christmas. While Annemaria plays ...
