The National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) offers 16mm film for loan to film societies, educational and community organisations through the Screening Loans Collection Also known as the Non-Theatrical Lending Collection (NTLC).
The majority of titles in the NTLC have been pre-licensed for non-commercial and educational screenings. This means that film societies do not need to contact anyone else in order to get screening permission.
The NTLC contains nearly 10,000 16mm films which include Australian and international features, shorts, animations, documentaries, television shows, experimental, educational and training films. Registered borrowers may book directly online.
Current Fees are $60 for a 16mm feature film and $40 for a 16mm short film.
Check out the Non-Theatrical Lending Collection webpage here
Browse the Non-Theatrical Lending Collection
You will also be able to access the new catalogue by selecting “Search the NFSA Non-Theatrical Lending Collection” on the Non-Theatrical webpage here: https://www.nfsa.gov.au/non-theatrical-screenings
If you have any questions or issues about navigation, you can contact them at nontheatric @nfsa.gov.au or you can phone the Screening Loans Collection on (02) 62482217
The NTLC does not just provide films for registered film societies. If the screenings are free to attend and indoors, then they qualify to use this collection.
The staff at the NFSA are very helpful and If requested titles in the collection need to be licensed from other distributors, due to lapsed licenses or screenings being “theatrical” in nature, they are happy to provide contact details for rights holders and even lend media when the rights holders cannot provide copies from the collection once rights are cleared.
Conditions on use of the NTLC
A film society or film club wishing to borrow NFSA items for screening must submit a completed screening loans registration form.
No charge may be made for admission to any screening at which an NFSA film loaned under a non-theatrical licence, is screened. This extends to any charge that could be construed as a charge for admission such as a donation or a compulsory charge for supper.
Any publicity for a film society, where NFSA films are screened, should promote the program as a whole, rather than individual titles, and emphasise that admission to screenings is “by membership” and invite people to join the society. To encourage new members you can also use the phrase “new members and guests welcome”.
In any advertising, screening notes or printed matter connected with the showing of films from the NFSA, due acknowledgment should be given to the NFSA as the source of each film or video.
You will need to satisfy the NFSA that you are using an experienced projectionist with equipment that is serviced regularly. This means that you will need to detail the experience of the projectionist and give details about the make, model etc of the equipment being used. This is usually a fairly simple process and most applications are approved within a couple of days.
Australian Film Societies Federation 
For the sake of completeness, it might be worth mentioning briefly that, other than from NTLC, NFSA does have lending in 35mm and 16mm of a large number of Australian and some non-Australian short and feature films. Probably these days in dvd also — I have not checked that. Admittedly this service is hard to understand on NFSA website, and is misleadingly entitled Theatrical, but for some purposes there is interesting, sometimes fabulous, material in there. A well established film society itself, or group it is advising, might well have the resources to use that ‘main’ collection. It seems to me that some groups might well aspire to draw on that ‘other’ service.