Bob Connolly is an Australian film director, cinematographer and author. He is best known for his documentaries produced over the past 30 years, including The Highlands Trilogy and Rats in the Ranks . [1] More recent films include Facing the Music (2001) and Mrs Carey's Concert (2011). His films have won an Academy Award nomination, AFI Awards, and Grand Prix at the Cinéma du Réel Festival. [2]
Connolly was educated at Sydney's Saint Ignatius' College, Riverview and attended Sydney University. [3] He trained as a journalist at the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), where he worked for almost a decade as a foreign correspondent, current affairs reporter and documentary filmmaker. While at the ABC he made over 30 documentaries and met his future wife Robin Anderson, then a research assistant. The couple had two daughters together.
In 1980 he left the ABC to work independently with Robin Anderson. Their first film together was River Journey (1980), [4] Shot on 35mm film during an arduous 2 week rafting trip down Tasmania's Franklin River, the film played a major role in the river's subsequent preservation. The river journey also resulted in a book done by Connolly and Anderson,The Fight for the Franklin. [5] For the next twelve years Connolly and Anderson directed their focus on the Highlands of Papua New Guinea. The couple developed an acclaimed professional partnership which included the award-winning Highlands trilogy of documentaries about Papua New Guinea, which saw First Contact receive an Academy Award Nomination. [2] In 1986 following training in 16mm cinematography and sound recording at the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS), they returned to the Highlands to make Joe Leahy's Neighbours (1989) followed by Black Harvest (1992). The three PNG films are still widely distributed around the world as The Highlands Trilogy and have together won more than 30 national and international awards.
In 1996, Rats in the Ranks followed treachery in the inner workings of Sydney inner city Leichhardt Council. [1]
Connolly and Anderson were awarded the Byron Kennedy Award by the Australian Film Institute in 1992. In 2001, they were awarded the Brisbane Film Festival's Chauvel Award.
2001 saw the release of Facing the Music , Connolly and Anderson's last film. [2] The film won the 2001 AFI Award for Best Documentary and was voted most popular film at the Sydney and Brisbane Film Festivals.
Anderson died in 2002, and Connolly initially intended to end his film making career, however 2011 saw the release of Mrs Carey's Concert . [6] After opening in 70 cinemas in Australia the film became one of the most successful Australian theatrical documentaries of all time. It also won the 2011 AACTA Award for Best Feature Length Documentary and Best Direction in a Documentary.
Connolly's 2005 book Making Black Harvest won the Walkley Book Award for Best Non Fiction. [7] Previous books by Connolly were The Fight for the Franklin (1982) and First Contact, which he co-wrote with Anderson (1987) [2]
Major works by Bob Connolly include: [2] [8]
First Contact is a 1983 Australian documentary film by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson which recounts the incursion of gold-prospecting Australians into the unexplored interior highlands of New Guinea in 1930, then inhabited by a prosperous native population numbering in the region of one million. It is based on the book of the same name by the same authors. Inhabitants of the region and surviving members of the Leahy brothers' gold prospecting party recount their astonishment at this unforeseen meeting. The film includes both moving and still pictures taken by Michael Leahy, leader of the party, and contemporary footage of the island's terrain.
Colin Friels is a Scottish-born Australian actor of theatre, TV, film and presenter.
Melpa is a Papuan language spoken by about 130,000 people predominantly in Mount Hagen and the surrounding district of Western Highlands Province, Papua New Guinea.
Michael Dattilo Rubbo is an Australian documentarian/filmmaker.
Facing the Music (2001) is an Australian documentary film directed by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson about the wish of some staff members to keep the University of Sydney Department of Music alive in the face of budget overspending.
Jenny Brockie is an Australian journalist and documentary-maker, she has previously hosted the SBS program, Insight.
Roger Scholes was an Australian independent film and television maker from 1983 on. He worked as a producer, director, writer, script editor, cinematographer, and editor in drama and documentary projects for cinema and television.
Warwick Thornton is an Australian film director, screenwriter, and cinematographer. His debut feature film Samson and Delilah won the Caméra d'Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival and the award for Best Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. He also won the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Film in 2017 for Sweet Country.
Frontyard Films is an Australian film production company that makes documentary films, owned by Australian documentary filmmakers Amanda King and Fabio Cavadini. Their films include An Evergreen Island, Starting from Zero and A Thousand Different Angles.
Rats in the Ranks is an Australian documentary film released in 1996.
Martha Ansara is a documentary filmmaker whose films on social issues have won international prizes and been screened in Australia, the UK, Europe and North America. Ansara was one of the first women in Australia to work as a cinematographer, is a full member of the Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS) and was inducted into the ACS Hall of Fame in 2015. Martha is a Life Member of the Australian Directors Guild and a founding member of Ozdox, the Australian Documentary Forum. She has also worked as a film lecturer and film writer and has been active in the trade union, women's and peace movements.
Craig Graham is an Australian producer of television shows such as "The Embassy", 2014 Channel 9. "Air Rescue", 2013 Channel 7. "Hatch, Match and Dispatch", 2016 ABC. "Moment of Truth", 2016 ABC iView. "Maurice's Big Adventure", 2016 ABC Kids. "The Justine Clarke Show", 2017 ABC Kids. RPA,Once Upon a Time in Cabramatta, The Great Outdoors, Border Security, Zumbo, and Contract Killers.
Shark Island Productions is a documentary film production company based in Sydney, Australia, established in 2001 by Ian Darling. creates extensive education, outreach and community engagement campaigns with its films. It is the production arm of Shark Island Institute.
Blackfella Films is an Australian documentary and narrative film production company is Sydney, founded in 1992 by Rachel Perkins. The company produces distinctive Australian short and feature-length content for film and television with a particular focus on Aboriginal Australian stories. Its productions have included the documentary series First Australians, the documentary The Tall Man, the television film Mabo, and the TV series Redfern Now.
Robin Anderson was an Australian award-winning documentary filmmaker.
Black Harvest is a 1992 Australian-Papua New Guinea documentary directed by Australians Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson. It is the third film in 'The Highlands Trilogy', concluding the series which includes the 1983 film First Contact and the 1989 film Joe Leahy's Neighbours.
Anna Broinowski is a Walkley Award-winning documentary filmmaker and author.
The Walkley Book Award is an Australian award presented annually by the Walkley Foundation for excellence in long-form journalism and nonfiction, with subjects ranging from biography to true crime to investigative journalism and reporting.
Darren Dale is an Indigenous Australian film and television producer. Since joining Blackfella Films as a producer in 2001, he is as of 2021 co-director of the company, along with founder Rachel Perkins. Dale is known for co-producing many films and television series with Miranda Dear since 2010, with their most recent collaboration being the second season of Total Control.
Joe Leahy's Neighbours is a 1989 Australian documentary film, created by Robin Anderson and Bob Connolly, looking at Papua New Guinean business man Joe Leahy and relationship to those around him. It is is some ways a sequel to First Contact.
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