Melbournians can celebrate Australia Day 2007 with the Melbourne premiere screening of the National Film and Sound Archive's (NFSA) digitally restored cinematic classic, The Story of the Kelly Gang.

The Story of the Kelly Gang premiered in Melbourne on Boxing Day 1906 and instantly created a sensation that lasted for years, however, soon after much of the film disappeared, leaving only a few fragments. The surviving footage has been painstakingly restored by the NFSA to a condition as close as possible to the original, using state-of-the-art technologies for moving image both here in Australia and in specialist labs in The Netherlands. The digitally restored version of the silent film classic premiered at the NFSA, Canberra, in November 2006.

On Australia Day The Story of the Kelly Gang featuring live musical accompaniment by Mauro Colombis will screen in Federation Square at 3:30pm and 4:30pm. The screenings will be complemented by a panel discussion exploring the legend of Ned Kelly and how the Irish Catholic working-class criminal became a part of Australian folklore.

Read Graham Shirley and Sally Jackson's article on the restoration of The Story of the Kelly Gang in AFC News.