The East Anglian Film Archive, the first Regional Film Archive in England, was established in 1976 as an educational resource for the future by its visionary first Director, David Cleveland, who ran it until his retirement in 2004.

Since 1984 the Archive has been owned and operated by the University of East Anglia, Norwich (UEA), as a not for profit research and public access resource. In 2003 the Archive moved to the new £7.5m Archive Centre at County Hall, Norwich, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund, Norfolk County Council and UEA. The Archive Centre is also the home of the Norfolk Record Office, the first major archive in England to be awarded ‘Designation’ status by the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council in 2005.

The collection comprises about 12,000 hours of film and up to 30,000 hours of videotape. The content mainly relates to the East of England region (Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and Suffolk). It also includes collections of national and international scope.  All of the material is intended to be for educational and cultural use.