(email: journal@museumsassociation.org)

The Museum of the Moving Image (MOMI) in London, which has been closed since 1999, will not reopen. The British Film Institute (BFI), which ran the museum and still owns its collections, told Museums Journal: 'MOMI in its old format and as a paying visitor attraction will not be repeated.'

The £14m museum, situated on the South Bank, opened in 1988 to trace the development of moving images, cinema and television. At the time of its closure 11 years later, the BFI said that the museum was to be refurbished and its collections, many of them loans, were being brought up to date. The original plan was that the museum would reopen at some point in the future as 'a bigger and better MOMI.'

In 1999, the BFI announced plans for a new £33m Film Centre, including the brand-new MOMI, adding that MOMI would remain closed until the centre was built. It was then some staff at the old MOMI suspected the museum would never reopen. To date it is unclear in what form, when or where the Film Centre will stand. The original date for the start of building works was 2002 The new date for the Film Centre opening is 2007.

Anthony Smith, a former director of the BFI, said: 'I think not reopening the museum is an appalling and unacceptable decision. It's a great betrayal. It sends a negative message to the people who support the arts. London requires and has proved that it could support a connected exhibition on the story of the moving image. The board of trustees should examine their consciences very clearly about this.' Smith was director of the BFI from 1978-1988 and secured the £14m that built MOMI from entirely private sources, including J Paul Getty Jr.

The BFI is widely known to be experiencing its own organisational problems. It is currently seeking a new chairperson of its board and will soon advertise for a new director after Jon Teckman resigned after only three years in post. An insider said: 'There has been constant reorganisation over the last five years. There have been a lot of changes of leadership. Barely six months have gone by without a change of deputy or director.'

Teckman's predecessor, John Woodward, was brought in by the DCMS in to reconstruct the BFI but left in less than two years to form the Film Council.

The BFI said that the MOMI collection is currently in store and being looked after by Matt Smith, the museum development manager, who was unable to comment. The BFI also said that the collections would be used in 'changing displays', probably within the new film centre, so that access to the material would be improved.

A touring exhibition of the MOMI collection called Moving Pictures made no reference to the old museum. The exhibition, curated to bridge the gap between the museum's closure and its reopening, has been placed on hold after its first recipient, the Sheffield Galleries and Museums Trust, said in May that it was 'disappointed with the product.' Sheffield is currently in talks with the BFI about the £60,000 it was asked to pay for the exhibition.

Felicity Heywood

There seems to have been a lot of 'politics' going on in the BFI for some years, and the NFT is not what it used to be. The bookshop has closed, along with the MOMI shop, of course. There have been changes in programming policy, which I do not think are for the better. Everything seems to have gone very quiet on the new Film Centre front. The existing NFT jas just been closed for a week or so for some refurbishment work, I don't know what this involved. Several years ago the bar and resturant were closed for ages, to be re-opened as the 'Film Cafe'. Another change which I don't think was for the better.

I wonder if in a year or two we will be told that the new Film Centre is too expensive to build, and the NFT will quietly close? Maybe a video games arcade on the site would bring in more money.