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 an 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 live in the face of budget overspending.
Jenny Brockie is an Australian journalist and documentary-maker, she has previously hosted the SBS program, Insight.
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.
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Blackfella Films is an Australian documentary and narrative film production company headquartered in Sydney, founded in 1992 by Rachel Perkins. The company produces Australian short and feature-length content for film and television with a particular focus on Indigenous Australian stories. Its productions have included the documentary series First Australians and The Australian Wars, the documentary film The Tall Man, the television film Mabo, and the drama series Redfern Now and Total Control.
Robin Anderson was an Australian award-winning documentary filmmaker.
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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.
Robin Hughes is an Australian filmmaker, producer and writer. She was Pro-Chancellor of the Australian National University from 2014 until 2017.
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.
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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 some ways a sequel to First Contact.