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AH Whitehouse, 1856-1929
In 1895 entrepreneur and producer Alfred Henry Whitehouse did it first; he exhibited motion pictures in New Zealand.
Although only one person could watch at a time, his Edison kinetoscope was a smash and toured nationally. Whitehouse then visited Thomas Edison in the United States and returned with a new projecting kinematograph. Around the late 1890s he again he toured successfully and, to counter growing competition, he imported a camera so he could make his own moving pictures.
With help from photographer WH Bartlett, Whitehouse filmed the opening of the Auckland Exhibition on 1 December 1898, this was the first New Zealand film screened to the public.
Whitehouse produced up to 10 films and in 1900 he sought, but did not receive, Government support to take them to screen at the Paris Exhibition. He went anyway.
The only known surviving Whitehouse film is The Departure of the Second Contingent for the Boer War. Filmed in January 1900, the remaining fragment is New Zealand’s earliest surviving moving image.
Whitehouse retired as a traveling cinema operator once permanent picture theatres were becoming established.
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