The IFI are promising a sizzling summer (we are very cool and will not mention shrimps or barbies) next month with a proramme of classic Australian cinema. From the grizzled Ozploitation action of Mad Max, to early films from masters like Peter Weir, Gillian Armstrong and Nicolas Roeg, and trailblazing Indigenous entries into the Australian canon, the ‘Australian Dreams‘ season will show the very best of Antipodean cinema this July.
From July 5 to 29, the Irish Film Institute (IFI), Dublin brings Australia to their screens, for a unique lineup of films charting cinema’s exploration of Australian identity and cultural representation at the close of the 20th century.
Despite the Australian film industry’s pioneering work in the early days of cinema, including The Story Of The Kelly Gang (1906), acknowledged by UNESCO as the world’s first full-length narrative feature film, it soon began a long period in the doldrums.
It wasn’t until the 1970s that the industry was revitalised by government support that allowed low budget filmmaking to flourish. These budgets lent themselves to genre filmmaking in particular, and this new wave of filmmakers focused on Australian stories and culture to create the ‘Ozploitation’ style. Over the’70s and ‘80s, films as diverse as Picnic At Hanging Rock (Peter Weir, 1975, recently screened at the IFI), Mad Max (George Miller, 1979), and Crocodile Dundee (Peter Faiman, 1986) drew international attention and facilitated a trade in talent between this now burgeoning industry and that of Hollywood, who utilised the unique perspectives of Australian filmmakers and the country’s stunning terrain.
Over the years, the body of work has been added to by an increasing number of women and particularly Indigenous Australian filmmakers, whose work frequently explores the dispossession of their people and their status and continuing struggles in contemporary Australian society. The selection of films in this season gives a brief overview of thirty years of vibrant and idiosyncratic filmmaking of which critic Roger Ebert said, “You can search in vain through the national cinema for characters who are ordinary or even boring; everyone is more colourful than life.”
12 feature films spanning from the early 70s to the late 90s form the selection for Australian Dreams. Legendary director Nicolas Roeg helped form part of the Australian New Wave with Walkabout a coming of age story that introduced the country’s beauty to the wider world, as his film opens the proceedings on July 5th. The first two films in George Miller’s Mad Max series are also set to screen, the beginning of an action icon and Australia’s first blockbuster sequel.
Perhaps Australia’s most successful director internationally, with films like Dead Poet’s Society and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World, viewers can see early work by Peter Weir during the season in his film The Last Wave. Public defender David Burton (Richard Chamberlain) is appointed to the case of four Aboriginal men accused of murder. He begins to have strange, apocalyptic dreams whose potency leads him further into Aboriginal myth and legend. Gillian Armstrong’s feminist period piece My Beautiful Career is also a highlight, featuring earlt turns from generational stars Judy Davis and Sam Neill. The film is the story of Sybylla (Davis), a headstrong woman in late-nineteenth-century rural Australia who dreams of becoming a writer. Her frustrated parents send her to her grandmother’s, where she is distracted by Frank (Robert Grubb) and Harry (Neill). Her inclination towards Harry angers the jealous Frank, who tries to break the couple up. Her hopes are further derailed when forced to take a position as a governess.
The season deepens its feminist insight by screening a number of films from Aboroginal women filmmakers, including two widely accepted as the first documentary and fiction films helmed by Indigenous Australian women. Essie Coffey’s documentary My Survival As An Aboriginal takes the issue of the Indigenous people’s land rights as a starting point from which to explore issues of colonisation and the threats to Aboriginal culture. Tracey Moffat’s sole feature Bedevil meanwhile is an anthology of ghost stories she heard and feared as a child from her Indigenous and Irish families. Featuring a child haunted by an American GI, invisible trains, and dancing spirits, Moffat infuses these stories with a surreal beauty in a film that blends their origins in a way that confronts and challenges racial stereotypes.
The festival closes out in July with Rachel Perkins’ Radiance. Her emotional debut promises three strong performances as it tells the story of Aboriginal sisters gathering for the funeral of their mother. Mae (Trisha Morton-Thomas), the eldest, had cared for her while middle sister Cressy (Rachel Maza), a successful opera singer, and youngest child Nona (Deborah Mailman) made their own ways in life. With each having different fathers, their complicated relationships to their mother and each other are confronted, with old bitternesses and resentments finally receiving airings.
You can check out the trailer for the IFI’s Australian Dreams season below.
Tickets are now available at http://www.ifi.ie/australian-dreams/ or call the IFI Box Office on 01 679 3477, or in person at the IFI, Eustace Street, Dublin 2.
Non-members will be charged a fee of €1.50 per film. Annual IFI Membership is just €40.00 / €25.00 from www.ifi.ie. Discounted film bundles are also available, and you can see more info on them here.
Check out the full selection of films here:
SATURDAY, JULY 5TH
Nicolas Roeg (100 mins, UK-Australia-USA, 1971, Digital)
SUNDAY, JULY 6TH
Ted Kotcheff (109 mins, Australia, 1971, Digital)
WEDNESDAY, JULY 9TH
Peter Weir (106 mins, Australia, 1977, Digital)
SATURDAY, JULY 12TH
THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH
Fred Schepisi (108 mins, Australia, 1978, Digital)
SUNDAY, JULY 13TH
George Miller (93 mins, Australia, 1979, Digital)
THURSDAY, JULY 17TH
Gillian Armstrong (100 mins, Australia, 1979, Digital)
SATURDAY, JULY 19TH
Bruce Beresford (107 mins, Australia, 1980, Digital)
SUNDAY, JULY 20TH
George Miller (96 mins, Australia, 1981, Digital)
WEDNESDAY, JULY 23RD
John Duigan (103 mins, Australia, 1987, Digital)
SATURDAY, JULY 26TH
DOUBLE BILL: MY SURVIVAL AS AN ABORIGINAL / BEDEVIL
Essie Coffey (49 mins, Australia, 1979, Digital ) / Tracey Moffat (90 mins, Australia, 1993, Digital)
SUNDAY, JULY 27TH
Rolf de Heer (14 mins, Australia-Italy, 1993, Digital)
TUESDAY, JULY 29TH
Rachel Perkins (83 mins, Australia, 1998, Digital)
The IFI is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.
For support in the presentation of My Survival as an Aboriginal, The Year My Voice Broke, and Radiance, the IFI would like to thank National Film and Sound Archive’s digital restoration program – NFSA Restores – reviving Australia’s cinema icons.