The cinema of Australia had its beginnings with the 1906 production of The Story of the Kelly Gang, arguably the world's first feature film. Since then, Australian crews have produced many films, a number of which have received international recognition. Many actors and filmmakers with international reputations started their careers in Australian films, and many of these have established lucrative careers in larger film-producing centres such as the United States.
Rabbit-Proof Fence is a 2002 Australian drama film directed and produced by Phillip Noyce based on the 1996 book Follow the Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara. It is loosely based on a true story concerning the author's mother Molly Craig, as well as two other Aboriginal girls, Daisy Kadibil and Gracie, who escape from the Moore River Native Settlement, north of Perth, Western Australia, to return to their Aboriginal families, after being placed there in 1931. The film follows the Aboriginal girls as they walk for nine weeks along 1,500 miles (2,400 km) of the Australian rabbit-proof fence to return to their community at Jigalong, while being pursued by white law enforcement authorities and an Aboriginal tracker. The film illustrates the official child removal policy that existed in Australia between approximately 1905 and 1967. Its victims now are called the "Stolen Generations".
The Yellow House at 57–59 Macleay Street, Potts Point, was an artists' collective that existed from 1970 through to the beginning of 1973 in Sydney, Australia. The collective was established by artist Martin Sharp on his return from London at the beginning of 1970. Initially operated as a space for the exhibition of his work, Sharp and filmmaker Albie Thoms expanded the facility in 1971 to incorporate input from a variety of artists and performers. They modelled it on Vincent van Gogh's Yellow House at Arles and the Dutch artist's partially realised dream of establishing an artists' community there. The British Arts Lab movement of the late 1960s was also an influence on Sharp, who was resident in London between 1966-9.
Bryan Neathway Brown AM is an Australian actor. He has performed in over eighty film and television projects since the late 1970s, both in his native Australia and abroad. Notable films include Breaker Morant (1980), Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984), F/X (1986), Tai-Pan (1986), Cocktail (1988), Gorillas in the Mist (1988), F/X2 (1991), Along Came Polly (2004), Australia (2008), Kill Me Three Times (2014) and Gods of Egypt (2016). He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award and an Emmy Award for his performance in the television miniseries The Thorn Birds (1983).
Phillip Noyce is an Australian filmmaker. Since 1977, he has directed over 19 feature films in various genres, including historical drama ; thrillers ; and action films. He has also directed the Jack Ryan adaptations Patriot Games (1992) and Clear and Present Danger (1994) and the 2014 adaptation of Lois Lowry's The Giver.
Jan Chapman is an Australian film producer. Films produced by Chapman include The Last Days of Chez Nous (1992), The Piano (1993), Love Serenade (1996), Holy Smoke! (1999), and Lantana (2001). While studying English and Fine Arts at Sydney University in the late 1960s Chapman began working on small, independent films, as part of the nascent Sydney Filmmakers Co-op, which included her first husband, film director Phillip Noyce. After the Film Co-op moved into its premises in Darlinghurst, she was involved for a time with the Sydney Women's Film Group while working in the Education department of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Subsequently as a producer at the ABC she was responsible for a number of TV series including Sweet and Sour, and with Sandra Levy produced the much acclaimed Come In Spinner.
London Video Arts (LVA) was founded for the promotion, distribution and exhibition of video art.
The Australian Film Commission (AFC) was an Australian government agency was founded in 1975 with a mandate to promote the creation and distribution of films in Australia as well as to preserve the country's film history. It also had a production arm responsible for production and commissioning of films for the government. It was superseded by Screen Australia from 1 July 2008.
Filmnews was a monthly newspaper that covered independent film production, distribution and exhibition in Australia and the federal and state government policies and practices that supported them. Produced in Sydney, it was distributed around Australia, containing news, reviews, interviews, articles and some gossip on the local film community. It ran from February 1975, from government startup grants over 1973–74, to 1995.
David Perry was a pioneering Australian experimental and underground filmmaker, video artist, and a founding member of Ubu Films (1965). He also practised as a photographer, poster artist and painter.
Screen Australia is the Australian Federal Government's key funding body for the Australian screen production industry, created under the Screen Australia Act 2008. From 1 July 2008 Screen Australia took over the functions of its predecessor agencies the Australian Film Commission (AFC), the Film Finance Corporation Australia (FFC) and Film Australia Limited.
Ubu Films was an experimental film-making collective based in Sydney that operated from 1965 to around 1970. It was formed by Albie Thoms, David Perry, Aggy Read and John Clark at Sydney University in 1965. Group associates included Matt Carroll, Peter Weir, Phillip Noyce and Bruce Beresford.
Backroads is a 1977 Australian film directed by Phillip Noyce. Two strangers – one white (Jack), one Aboriginal (Gary) – steal a car in western New South Wales and drive around the coast. The original characters came from a story by Adelaide writer John Emery, with whom Noyce had worked on a short film. Australian reviews of the film were mixed, and it opened commercially in only one cinema.
Heatwave is a 1982 Australian film directed by Phillip Noyce based on the murder of Juanita Nielsen. It was the second of two films inspired by the story that came out at that time, the first being The Killing of Angel Street (1981).
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.
Albie Thoms was an Australian film director, writer, and producer. He was born in Sydney, Australia. He was nominated for at the 1979 AFI Awards for Best Original Screenplay for Palm Beach. He is best known for his work with Ubu Films, the Sydney Filmmakers’ Co-operative, and the Yellow House. He made a number of short films.
The Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Cooperative was founded in 1987 in the Sydney suburb of Redfern, New South Wales. Among the legacies of the cooperative are the Deadly Awards for achievement in the Indigenous Australian community, which have occurred annually from 1995 to the present. The 20th anniversary of the cooperative was celebrated in 2007 with an exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW.
The Australian Directors' Guild (ADG) is an industry guild representing the interests of film, television, commercials and digital media directors, including documentary makers and animators, throughout Australia. With its headquarters in Sydney, the ADG has branches in New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia. As of 2022 the president of ADG is Rowan Woods.
Jeni Thornley is an Australian feminist documentary filmmaker, writer, film valuer and research associate at University of Technology, Sydney. Since leaving her job as Manager of the Women's Film Fund at the Australian Film Commission in 1986, Thornley has worked as an independent writer, director and producer at Anandi Films. She has fulfilled teaching roles at UTS and the Australian School for Film and Television. Thornley is currently an Honorary Research Associate in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at UTS. She is also a consultant film valuer for the Cultural Gifts Program, Dept of Communications and the Arts.
The Sydney Women's Film Group (SWFG) was a collective group of women members of the Sydney Filmmakers' Cooperative (SFMC) whose interest was in distributing and exhibiting films by, for and about women. From the beginning a group with feminist intentions and outlook, it was contemporaneous with, and part of, the Women's Liberation Movement in Sydney in the 1970s. In 1978 Feminist Film Workers, a smaller closed group of SWFG members was formed in response to "the growing apolitical and amorphous quality of the SWFG", continuing distribution and exhibition work and making more explicit the group's feminist intentions and outlook.
