QUALITY
AUSTRALIANA
Australian Film in Focus
For the benefit of international visitors to this web site, I have created a list of some of the more interesting films which have come out of Australia over the past thirty years, all of which have either been set in Australia and/or created by Australian directors during that period.
These films broadly reflect the positioning of Australian film somewhere between the traditional melodrama and the art film, and also reflect the kind of inventiveness that often goes hand in hand with the kind of low budget filmmaking processes through which most Australian films are made.
The films on this list include period dramas (Picnic At Hanging Rock, Strikebound, Oscar and Lucinda and The Tracker), some beautifully brooding coming of age films (Flirting, The Year My Voice Broke, and the incredibly underrated Fistful of Flies), dirty realist fare (Dogs in Space, Praise, Head On and He Died With A Felafel In His Hand), forays into the sometimes bizarre world of Australian domestic life (Sweetie, Bliss and Love Serenade) and edgy, ethnographic dramas (Ghosts of the Civil Dead, Bad Boy Bubby, Life, Romper Stomper, Metal Skin, Everynight Everynight and Australian Rules).
I note that my list is by no means exhaustive, and that if you are interested in learning more about Australian film, I would recommend looking at Tom O'Regan's excellent book on the topic, Australian National Cinema, Routledge, London, 1996. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the films that I have recommended.
Vanessa Long
Walkabout (1971)
dir. Nicholas Roeg
The Cars that Ate Paris (1974) dir. Peter Weir
Picnic At Hanging Rock (1975) dir. Peter Weir
Strikebound (1984) dir. Richard Lowenstein
Bliss (1985) dir. Ray Lawrence
Dogs in Space (1986) dir. Richard Lowenstein
The Year My Voice Broke (1987) dir. John Duigan
High Tide (1988) dir. Gillian Armstrong
Ghosts of the Civil Dead (1988) dir. John Hillcoat
Sweetie (1989) dir. Jane Campion
Night Cries: a Rural Tragedy (1989) dir. Tracey Moffatt
Dead Calm (1989) dir. Phillip Noyce
An Angel At My Table (1990) dir. Jane Campion
Flirting (1991) dir. John Duigan
Romper Stomper (1992) dir. Geoffrey Wright
Bad Boy Bubby (1993) dir. Rolf de Heer
Bedevil (1993) dir. Tracey Moffatt
Passionless Moments (1993) dir. Jane Campion
The Nostradamus Kid (1993) dir. Bob Ellis
Everynight, Everynight (1994) dir. Alkinos Tsilimidos
Traps (1994) dir. Pauline Chan
Metal Skin (1994) dir. Geoffrey Wright
Angel Baby (1995) dir. Michael Rymer
Romeo and Juliet (1996) dir. Baz Luhrmann
A Fistful of Flies (1996) dir. Monica Pellizzari
Love Serenade (1996) dir. Shirley Barrett
Life (1996) dir. Lawrence Johnston
Kiss or Kill (1997) dir. Bill Bennett
The Well (1997) dir. Samantha Lang
Oscar and Lucinda (1997) dir. Gillian Armstrong
Praise (1998) dir. John Curran
Head On (1998) dir. Ana Kokkinos
Radiance (1998) dir. Rachel Perkins
Dark City (1998) dir. Alex Proyas
Lantana (2001) dir. Ray Lawrence
He Died With A Felafel In His Hand (2001) dir. Richard Lowenstein
The Bank (2001) dir. Robert Connolly
The Hard Word (2002) dir. Scott Roberts
The Tracker (2002) dir. Rolf de Heer
Australian Rules (2002) dir. Paul Goldman
If you would like to suggest any additions to this list, or discuss any of the films on it, you are welcome to do so on the film-optimist discussion list.
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