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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.”
Tickets 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 Unclassified film. Annual IFI Membership is just €40.00 / €25.00 from www.ifi.ie. Discounted film bundles are also available.
The IFI is supported by the Arts Council of Ireland.
FILM TRAILERS:
Walkabout
Wake In Fright
The Last Wave
The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
Mad Max
My Brilliant Career
Breaker Morant
Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior
The Year My Voice Broke
My Survival as an Aboriginal
Bedevil
Bad Boy Bubby
Radiance
SATURDAY, JULY 5TH
WALKABOUT
Nicolas Roeg (100 mins, UK-Australia-USA, 1971, Digital)
SUNDAY, JULY 6TH
WAKE IN FRIGHT
Ted Kotcheff (109 mins, Australia, 1971, Digital)
WEDNESDAY, JULY 9TH
THE LAST WAVE
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
MAD MAX
George Miller (93 mins, Australia, 1979, Digital)
THURSDAY, JULY 17TH
MY BRILLIANT CAREER
Gillian Armstrong (100 mins, Australia, 1979, Digital)
SATURDAY, JULY 19TH
BREAKER MORANT
Bruce Beresford (107 mins, Australia, 1980, Digital)
SUNDAY, JULY 20TH
MAD MAX 2: THE ROAD WARRIOR
George Miller (96 mins, Australia, 1981, Digital)
WEDNESDAY, JULY 23RD
THE YEAR MY VOICE BROKE
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
BAD BOY BUBBY
Rolf de Heer (14 mins, Australia-Italy, 1993, Digital)
TUESDAY, JULY 29TH
RADIANCE
Rachel Perkins (83 mins, Australia, 1998, Digital)
NICOLAS ROEG
SATURDAY 5TH (16.00)
FILM INFO: 100 mins, UK-Australia-USA, 1971, Digital IFCO: 12A
Despite its British director, here making his solo debut in the role, and lead performers, Walkabout is considered one of the first films of the Australian New Wave and introduced the country’s beauty to the wider world. Following a traumatic event, a girl (Jenny Agutter) and her brother (Roeg’s son Lucien) are left alone in the Outback. Ill-equipped to deal with its hardships, they are rescued by an Aboriginal boy (David Gulpilil). Despite the lack of fluency in a common language, the two boys bond, though the girl remains aloof, rebuffing equally the overtures at friendship and romance made to her. Roeg’s film is a children’s adventure film with deeply adult themes of innocence and experience, and of cultures clashing.
TED KOTCHEFF
SUNDAY 6TH (16.00)
FILM INFO: 109 mins, Australia, 1971, Digital
What Nick Cave calls “the best and most terrifying film about Australia in existence” languished in obscurity following its premiere at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival (where both it and Walkabout screened in competition) before being restored and presented again at Cannes in 2009 by Martin Scorsese as “a deeply – and I mean deeply – unsettling and disturbing movie”. Arrogant schoolteacher John Grant (Gary Bond) has been forced to take a position in a remote township. Returning to Sydney for Christmas, he must overnight in a mining town known as ‘the Yabba’. The bonhomie of the locals, particularly the eccentric ‘Doc’ Tydon (Donald Pleasance), has the effect of brutalising Grant, stripping away his urbane façade and revealing a drunken, self-destructive thug.
Contains scenes of animal cruelty that some viewers may find upsetting.
PETER WEIR
WEDNESDAY 9TH (18.30)
FILM INFO: 106 mins, Australia, 1977, Digital
Perhaps the Australian director who would go on to have the most successful American career with films such as Dead Poets Society (1989) and The Truman Show (1998), Peter Weir’s early works at home, such as The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) and the recently rereleased Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975), fit more easily in the cult film category. The Last Wave, whose influence can be seen in the likes of Jeff Nichols’s Take Shelter (2011), takes place in an Australia beset by unusual weather. 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.
FRED SCHEPISI
SATURDAY 12TH (16.00)
FILM INFO: 108 mins, Australia, 1978, Digital IFCO: 18
Yet another Australian director who would go on to Hollywood success with films including, appropriately enough, Meryl Streep-starrer A Cry In The Dark (1988), Fred Schepisi’s The Chant Of Jimmie Blacksmith is based on the true story of Jimmy Governor, an Indigenous Australian who murdered a number of white people in 1900. Jimmie (Tommy Lewis), born of an Aboriginal mother and white father, is determined to better his lowly situation, but faces systemic racism and humiliation at every turn, often denied even basic civility. His white wife cuckolds him, employers cheat him, and ultimately, Jimmie explodes, declaring war on his oppressors. The film marked an important chapter in Australian film for its representation of Indigenous Australians and their abominable treatment.
GEORGE MILLER
SUNDAY 13TH (16.00)
FILM INFO: 93 mins, Australia, 1979, Digital IFCO: 18
The first entry in what would become a globally successful franchise famed for its astonishing action set-pieces is a more downbeat and less spectacular film than the explosive sequels that were to follow. In his breakthrough, and arguably most iconic role, Mel Gibson is Max Rockatansky, a member of one of Australia’s last law enforcement agencies in a dystopian future ravaged by economic and ecological disaster. Growing frustrated at the crumbling legal system’s inability to stop a marauding motorbike gang from terrorising the area, Max decides to leave the force and live a peaceful, isolated existence with his wife and child in the countryside. However, when the gang ensures that this will never happen, Max sets out for bloody revenge.
GILLIAN ARMSTRONG
THURSDAY 17TH (18.30)
FILM INFO: 100 mins, Australia, 1979, Digital IFCO: G
It was nearly half a century prior to the emergence of My Brilliant Career since Australian cinema had had a feature directed by a woman. Featuring Judy Davis and Sam Neill, both in the early stages of what would become their own illustrious careers, it 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. Armstrong’s feminist film remains beautiful and vibrant.
BRUCE BERESFORD
SATURDAY 19TH (16.00)
FILM INFO: 107 mins, Australia, 1980, Digital IFCO: 15A
A key figure in the movement with films such as Puberty Blues (1981), before leaving for Hollywood success with films such as Driving Miss Daisy (1989), director Bruce Beresford here tackles one of the British military’s first prosecutions of its own men for war crimes. During the Boer War, Lieutenants Morant (Edward Woodward), Handcock (Bryan Brown, who would also go on to become a familiar face in American films), and Witton (Lewis Fitz-Gerald) stand accused of the murder of enemy prisoners and a civilian. As they are clearly shown to be guilty, Beresford’s film has space to explore issues around the dehumanising nature of war, in actions undertaken through one’s own initiative and in those one is ordered to complete.
SUNDAY 20TH (16.00)
FILM INFO: 96 mins, Australia, 1981, Digital IFCO: 18
The first live-action sequel in Australian cinema was new and original in other ways too. Leaning into the more understated action elements and post-apocalyptic aesthetic of the original, the astonishing direction of George Miller, who had in some ways been unhappy with Max’s previous iteration, created a new model for action films. Max (Mel Gibson), haunted by the death of his family, lives a life of mere survival, driving aimlessly around the Outback, his dog his only company, the search for food and more gasoline his only purpose. Finding a group of settlers with their own working oil refinery, he is drawn into a conflict between them and a group of marauders under the dominion of the fearsome Lord Humungus.
JOHN DUIGAN
WEDNESDAY 23RD (18.30)
FILM INFO: 103 mins, Australia, 1987, Digital IFCO: 16
Featuring breakout performances from Noah Taylor and Ben Mendelsohn, The Year My Voice Broke is an autobiographical coming-of-age story from director John Duigan (whose future American career would include 1997’s superb Lawn Dogs). Set in rural Australia in the early ‘60s, it follows Danny (Taylor), a typically shy and awkward 15-year-old, as he deals with his developing feelings for lifelong friend Freya (Loene Carmen), an adopted girl whose parentage is the source of much local speculation. She in turn is attracted to local tough guy Trevor (Mendelsohn). The first in what was intended to be a trilogy, the film was followed by 1991’s Flirting, which starred future Hollywood stars Nicole Kidman, Thandiwe Newton, and Naomi Watts alongside the returning Taylor.
Presented by the National Film and Sound Archive’s digital restoration program – NFSA Restores – reviving Australia’s cinema icons.
DOUBLE BILL: MY SURVIVAL AS AN ABORIGINAL / BEDEVIL ESSIE COFFEY / TRACEY MOFFAT
SATURDAY 26TH (16.40)
FILM INFO: 49 mins, Australia, 1979, Digital / 90 mins, Australia, 1993, Digital
While there remains some debate about the first film directed by an Aboriginal man, it is accepted that these are the first documentary and fiction films helmed by Indigenous Australian women. Essie Coffey’s documentary 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 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.
My Survival as an Aboriginal is presented by the National Film and Sound Archive’s digital restoration program – NFSA Restores – reviving Australia’s cinema icons.
ROLF DE HEER
SUNDAY 27TH (17.15)
FILM INFO: 114 mins, Australia-Italy, 1993, Digital
Bubby (Nicholas Hope) is a 35-year-old man who has no worldly experience, having been confined to his house his entire life (à la Yorgos Lanthimos’s Dogtooth) by his alternately violent and incestuously tender mother, who has conditioned him to believe that not only is the air outside toxic, but that Jesus is waiting there to punish him should he leave. The sudden reappearance of his father leads to an escalation in Bubby’s mistreatment, leading to their murder and Bubby’s escape, and a series of adventures and misadventures in a world completely new to him. Using a variety of innovative techniques to present Bubby’s unique view of the world, Bad Boy Bubby is a truly unique, and ultimately even hopeful film.
Contains scenes of simulated animal cruelty that some viewers may find upsetting.
RACHEL PERKINS
TUESDAY 29TH (18.30)
FILM INFO: 83 mins, Australia, 1998, Digital
The incremental change in opportunities for women and Indigenous Australian filmmakers continues to this day, helped by the emergence of internationally acclaimed directors such as Warwick Thornton (Samson And Delilah, 2009). In this earlier example, Aboriginal director Rachel Perkins’s emotionally powerful debut, three Aboriginal sisters gather 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. Radiance features outstanding performances from its three leads, and superb cinematography from Thornton.
NOW BOOKING
Book now for cinema screenings via http://www.ifi.ie/australian-dreams/ or via IFI Box Office in-person or over the phone via 01 679 3477.
The IFI season pricing scheme is as follows:
*Season membership fee of €5.00 is applicable to all bundles for Non-Members.
This season is available for 25 & Under cardholder pricing. Sign-up is free for the 25 & Under card for those aged 16-25. See https://ifi.ie/25under for full details.
About the IFI
The Irish Film Institute (IFI) is Ireland’s national cultural institution for film. It provides audiences throughout Ireland with access to the finest independent, Irish and international cinema, including online via its streaming platform IFI@Home; it preserves and promotes Ireland’s moving image heritage through the IFI Irish Film Archive, and provides opportunities for audiences of all ages and backgrounds to learn and critically engage with film. As the only cinema with a 70mm projector, the IFI is the home of film in Ireland with a commitment to analogue exhibition.
The IFI would like to thank Dr Enda Murray for his assistance in compiling this season. Dr Murray is based in Sydney and is the director of the Irish Film Festival Australia.
Season notes by Kevin Coyne.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander audiences are advised that this season may contain the names, images and voices of people who have died.
The IFI acknowledges the support of our primary funder the Arts Council.
IFI Principal Funder
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.
For further media information please contact:
Sinead O’Doherty (Macdonald), O’Doherty Communications
+353 86 259 1070
sinead@odohertycommunications.com
28 YEARS LATER 20:30
APOCALYPSE NOW: FINAL CUT 14.00
ARCHIVE AT LUNCHTIME: AGAINST THE ODDS (DOUBLE BILL) 13:10
ARMAND 13:30, 20:40
AUSTRALIAN DREAMS: THE CHANT OF JIMMIE BLACKSMITH 16.00
BEAT THE LOTTO 11:10
HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER’S APOCALYPSE 4K RE-RELEASE 11:40
HOT MILK 11:20
NINE QUEENS 25TH ANNIVERSARY 18:00
RAN (40TH ANNIVERSARY) 14:30
THE BALLAD OF WALLIS ISLAND 20:50
THE PHOENICIAN SCHEME 18:20
The IFI is supported by The Arts Council
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