Cinema Papers November 1986

The Australian magazine o f film and television

Novemberf1986 Issue 60 / $4.50* I

WHAT’S HAPPENING TO OUR TELEVISION? A Sp ecial Report

FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI & PLACIDO DOMINGO

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EDITORIAL

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NEWS ROUND-UP: An update on films in the Philippines, the con­ tinuing saga of the National Film Theatre, an air-date for the AFI Awards, an obituary of Mark Josem and the usual ‘News in Brief’ listings...................................................... 4

COVER STORY Box of tricks: Liz Fell lifts the lid on deregulated broadcasting, cross-media ownership and other disturbing trends in the world of Australian television..................... 14

FEATURES

PROFILES: Two very different directors — Nadia Tass of Malcolm and Oliver Stone of Salvador — and man-from-the-lab Peter Willard............... 11

ON LOCATION: Going bush with The Light Horsemen...............................36

B IG S C R E E N , L I T T L E SCREEN: Reviews of Aliens, Always, Desert Hearts, Evening Dress, The Fringe Dwellers, The Great Bookie Robbery, The Holy Innocents, My Brother Tom, My Life Without Steve, Otello, Pop Movie, 2 Friends and Whose Baby? plus all the latest releases...............................39

All singing: Franco Zeffirelli and Plácido Domingo talk about operas, cameras and Otello........................................................................................................................ 19 On our selections: A birthday look at how the National Film & Sound Archive is storing Australia’s past............................................................................. .................. 24

CINEMA BOOKSHELF: Ninety years of British cinema, a critical look at some recent soundtrack albums, and Barry Salt on theory and technology.......................................56 OVERSEAS

REPORTS: The latest film and TV news, by our regular correspondents from around the world.....................................59 FILM

FESTIVITIES: Reports from Montreal, Venice and San Sebastian................................................ 65 TECHNICALITIES: In Part Three of his report on ‘Movies and Micro­ chips', Fred Plarden looks at some more production and related uses for your P C ............................................. 69

PRODUCTION: a run -down on what’s being made this spring and summer, plus the regular, exhaustive Cinema Papers Produc­ tion Survey.............................................. 72 CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 1

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Real men don’t watch UHF Editor: Nick Roddick. Publisher: Patricia Amad. Assistant editor: Kathy Bail. Art director: Debra Symons. Editorial assistant/subscriptions: Luke Nestorowicz. Proofreader: Arthur Salton.

Consulting editors: Fred Harden, Brian McFarlane.

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Signed articles represent the views of their author, and not necessarily those of the editor. While every care is taken with manuscripts and materials supplied to the magazine, neither the editor nor the pub­ lishers can accept liability for any loss or damage which may arise. This magazine may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the express permission of the copyright owner. Cinema Papers is published every two months by MTV Publishing Limited, 644 Victoria Street, North Melbourne, Victoria, Australia 3051. Telephone: (03) 329 5983. Telex: AA30625 Reference ME 230. © Copyright MTV Publishing Limited, No 60, November 1986.

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Cinema Papers is published with financial assistance from the AUSTRALIAN FILM COMMISSION and FILM VICTORIA

Short-term gains are irresistible to governments. Not only do they look good on the balance sheet but, by the time their harmful, long-term effects have begun to register, they’re no longer an issue. Anyway, the other lot is usually in power by then and can, if necessary, be blamed. All in all, it’s pretty much of a no-lose situation.

There are two basic forms of short-term hatchet jobs. The first is privatization, which means flogging things off to the private sector and letting it make the cuts. That is the option hanging over Film Australia.

The other is the euphemistically-named ‘rationalization’. The merger of the SBS with the ABC comes under that heading, and it has all the worst features of a short-term gain: it is ill-conceived, inadequately thought-out, will save very little money and will be almost impossible to reverse.

Not that it comes as much of a surprise. The decision to shift the SBS onto UHF was clearly the beginning of a marginalization process. The FCC in the United States used the same trick to marginalize its own Public Broadcasting Service. With crowded airwaves — read: not enough political clout — as the pretext, SBS is already in a cultural ghetto, and the message is clear: multi-cultural broadcasting is a hangover from the Whitlam era. It is a nice but rather silly idea we can do without in these tough, pragmatic days of economic realism. The implication of the recent government report on the ownership and control of commercial television is just the same.

Market forces will take care of our television needs. Real men don’t watch UHF. Let no one be fooled by the idea of the SBS as an independent fiefdom within the ABC. The enthusiasm and commitment that make it unique could not survive being swallowed up by a burgeoning bureaucracy, even if the ABC were not to put the financial squeeze on its new lodger once we’d all got used to SBS being just another word for afternoon programming.

The SBS’s real strengths lie in two main areas: multi-cultural broadcasting and news coverage. Its cultural programmes are unique in their range and, above all, their cohesion. This is especially true in the area of cinema — one in which the ABC quite manifestly doesn’t have a policy, and in which the commercial networks think only in terms of blockbusters (for the ratings periods) and schedule-fillers (for the rest of the year).

But the absorption of the exemplary SBS World News into the muddled morass of the ABC would be the greatest loss of all. Free from the complacency of the Corporation and the news-as-commodity approach of the commercial channels, World News manages time and again to give a broad and balanced view of the world scene, despite being dependent on the same international news agencies and the same satellite feeds.

As TV news becomes more and more a matter of personality — economic policy equals ‘Keating’, the US equals ‘Reagan’ — and glorified gossip, the SBS World News is unique and wonderful: one of the glories of Australian broadcasting. In other words, it’s too good to be true. After all, how could it survive a political climate in which a government spokesman, can say, apropos of the equally ‘silly’ question of uranium exports to France, that “ principles have a limited utility value” ?

If principles are to be measured against their ‘utility’ (which can be roughly translated as (a) generating profit, and (b) not causing political embarrassment), then the SBS is doomed. By any other standard, it ought to be a national treasure.

Nick Roddick CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 3

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Foreign classics or films in context?

People Power loses some of its bloom Filipino film industry discontent at recent government moves

New moves in the National Film Theatre debate

It is beginning to look as though the honeymoon situation which briefly existed between President Aquino’s administration and the Philippines film industry — or at any rate the pro­ gressive wing of it — may now be over. Two things seem to have brought disillusion to a head: the rejection of a set of carefully formu­ lated proposals for a Film Commis­ sion; and the appointment of the 5 2 -y e a r-o ld , J e s u it-e d u c a te d Manuel L. Morato as Chairman of the country’s film censorship body, the Movie and Television Review and Classification Board.

It was, of course, clear from the early days of the ‘revolution’ that there were not going to be radical changes in the film world: on 25 March, a month after Marcos’s d e p a rtu re , P re s id e n t A q u in o announced that the old film laws were still operative, including — and especially — those relating to censorship. At the time, it looked as if this might be an interim measure, designed to stem the flood of sex films and pirated videocassettes which the uncertain month since Aquino’s dissolution of the Batasang Pambansa (legislative assembly) had brought.

Now, however, it looks as though the desire for continuity may go a little deeper. Nor are the problems of the film industry as marginal as they might seem to an outsider. The cinema is a phenomenally popular pastime in the Philippines: estimates put attendances at around 1.6 million a day. Film is also one of the country’s most highly-taxed indus­ tries, making it an important source of government revenue. Thus, as critic Nicanor G. Tiongson points out, “ the problems of the film industry are the problems of many Filipino industries: the dominance of foreign films, the authoritarianism of the past governm ent, the suppression of people’s rights.

Clearly, the film industry is a micro­

4 — N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

cosm of the bigger reality that is our nation.’’

In an effort to sort out some of the basic problems, a group headed by Lino Brocka, Jose F. Lacaba and Agustin V. Sotto submitted a fifteenpage document to the Task Force on cinema. Their proposals hinged on the setting up of a Film Commis­ sion to oversee revision of the rules and structures governing film censorship, video regulation, pro­ duction incentives (under Marcos, a Film Ratings Board doled out tax rebates to certain ‘rated’ films) and other areas of film culture, such as the Philippines Film Archive and the Alternative Cinema agency.

The proposals were very much in keeping with the spirit of the times: they would have resulted in a system of self-regulation by the Filipino film industry, re n d e rin g it la rge ly independent of the government.

This was, says the document, because “ experience has shown that state control and censorship are inimical to the growth and develop­ ment ofthe cinema, not only as an art, but also as a business venture” . The proposals, however, seem to have fallen on studiously deaf ears.

In this context, the naming of the new chief censor is bound to be seen as significant, since the MTRCB is effectively the film industry’s main regulatory body.

And the appointment of Morato — an arch-conservative in moral matters and, as a member of Opus Dei, very much in sympathy with the notions of Catholic pragmatism that underpin the Aquino administration — is not one designed to reassure the industry.

On first showings, it looks as though Morato’s criteria are not going to be all that different from those of the universally detested Maria Kalaw-Katigbak, head of the MTRCB’s predecessor, the Board of Review for Motion Pictures and Tele­ vision. Among Morato’s first deci­

The Filipino movie, Sensual. ‘Bold’ film s have not been the new censor’s only target. sions was an order for two cuts to be made in the music? video for the enormously successful popular song, ‘Handog ng Pilipino sa M undo’, which celebrated the February revolution.

The cuts that were ordered were of scenes showing the US flag being burned, and portraits of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos being repeat­ edly slapped by demonstrators after being removed from Malancanang.

The cuts were ordered, says Morato, because he wished to “ avoid divisiveness” .

In a series of interviews published in the Manila press after his appoint­ ment, Morato repeatedly stated that he saw his role as being a “ guardian of the p e o p le ’ s m orals and decency” . And indeed, one of his first moves as censor was against a Quiapo cinema which had followed the previously standard (if illegal) practice of reinserting scenes cut from a ‘bold’ (i.e. soft-core porn) film.

But a number of people, notably the influential Concerned Artists of the Philippines, who were very active in the public demonstrations of January and February, are wor­ ried, both at the exclusion of film in­ dustry people from Morato’s MTRCB (which seems, says Tiongson, to be made up of “ people with no exper­ tise in film” ), and at indications of what the CAP call “ a Marcosian tendency to alter and distort history in order to make it more palatable to the ruling elite” . “ We have in the main been sup­ portive of the Aquino government’s progressive initiatives,” declared the CAP recently. “ But we are genuinely dismayed by the efforts of certain quarters to abridge and suppress the freedom of expression which concerned artists fought and were imprisoned for during the dark days of the Marcos dictatorship.”

With the news, announced else­ where on these pages, that the AFI Awards are back in business, there are signs that some of the more immediate problems plaguing the Institute may be beginning to clear.

One ghost, however, refuses to be laid: that of the National Film Theatre of Australia.

The NFTA was an ‘enthusiast’ body which flourished during the seventies, but which ran into finan­ cial difficulties at the end of the decade and was handed over, kick­ ing and screaming, into AFI steward­ ship by the Australian Film Commis­ sion in 1979. A version of the full story, narrated from an obviously partial viewpoint by Barrie Pattison, co-ordinator of the Council for the Establishment of a National Film Theatre, can be found in May’s Age Monthly Review.

At the time of the takeover, a specific provision was made in the AFI’s budget for NFTA activities. But the AFI’s first season of operation was abandoned in favour of a ‘National Screening Circuit’. By 1982, this had dwindled to three one-week seasons, and the special budget provision had disappeared.

In the years since, Pattison has kept alive the notion of a National Film Theatre with all the obsessive passion of a thwarted film buff, partly by writing to papers and magazines (including this one), partly b y 5 organizing NFTA-style events. The most recent of these — in Brisbane in August — saw around 100 people attend a weekend of screenings at the Queensland Institute of Techno­ logy, which boasted “ thirteen films from five countries spanning 60 years of international filmmaking” .

The formula more or less sums up the Council’s crusade: to restore to Australian film enthusiasts the chance to see, projected on the right equipment, in the right ratio and at the right speed (with, if necessary, the appropriate musical accompani­ ment), the best of world cinema.

Pattison cites the Cinémathèque Française (whose 50th birthday was celebrated in the July issue of Cinema Papers), the London National Film Theatre and the Museum of Modern Art in New York as role models. And he finds “ a shocking lack of historical perspec­ tive” in the current AFI screening programmes which, he says, tend to be restricted to “ film noir, women in film and about three other topics” .

He also points out that they are restricted to the Chauvel cinema in Paddington.

Clearly, there is a political under­ tone to the "argument, polarized around the nôîtons of, on the one hand, foreign classics and, on the ►

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Foreign classics or film in context? co n t’d other, contextualized programmes.

Pattison believes that he has demon­ strated that there is an audience for his kind of programme; that much of the AFI’s current programming (par­ ticularly in Hobart) consists of no more than films that are already available through commercial distri­ butors; and, above all, that "the cause of serious film appreciation has apparently been lost” .

"Something that worked,” says Pattison, "was dismantled by the bureaucrats and replaced by some­ thing that doesn’t.” The AFI’s Executive Director, Vicki Molloy, obviously disagrees. She points out, on the one hand, the debts which the AFI inherited with the NFTA and, on the other, the "building” audi­ ence for the screenings at the Chauvel. " I ’d say that audiences have doubled over the past twelve months,” she says.

She also points out the costs of m ounting the kind of "fu lly imported” seasons that Pattison is after: last year's Chinese and Swiss seasons required subsidies of $30,000 and $50,000 respectively. It is, in effect, a question of choice: the AFI cannot afford to mount both the sorts of screenings to which Molloy is com m itted, and continuous ‘archival’ programmes. Given these constraints, it is clear that the Insti­ tute has made its choice, and is determined to continue to present “ rarely seen and unusual films” .

The other target of Pattison’s ire, the AFC, which forced through the merger in the first place, takes a more philosophical approach. A reborn NFTA would, says Cultural A ctivities spokesperson Cathy

NFTA organizers outside the QIT Union during the August event.

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Robinson, be “ a really fabulous idea” . But it is, again, a question of priorities. It would take over half the Cultural Activities budget to fund an NFTA and, with the AFC’s brief of supporting Australian film culture, such an allocation would be highly problematic. Says Robinson: "It would take at least the current level of subsidy we provide for the AFI — upwards of $900,000.”

These mathematics have not been lost on Pattison. Following up last winter’s campaign — the Age Monthly Review article, the Brisbane screenings, a swingeing reply to a letter to the Review from Molloy, in which he accused the AFI of “ stand­ ing with their thumbs in the dyke to prevent the country being flooded with diverse and otherwise inaccess­ ible film” — he is now taking his crusadejo Canberra.

Having obtained no joy out of Minister for the Arts Barry Cohen, he is concentrating his attentions on Senator Stan Collard, the opposition spokesman, and is calling for the AFI to be removed from the area entirely. His aim is nothing less than “ the immediate restoration of a National Film Theatre, screening pri­ marily ‘archival’ material in capitals, importing inaccessible film and TV, restoring correct projection systems, finding suitable copies and adding suitable documentation and related activities.”

The sense of outrage at the 1979 takeover and the continued differ­ ences of opinion on what sort of screenings ought to be provided make it clear that the issue of the NFTA is not likely to go away. And, assuming that you, our readers, con­ stitute a reasonable cross-section of Australia’s ‘serious’ filmgoing public, it would be interesting to know what you think about it. Write in and tell us: we’ll publish representative letters and a summary of the response in the next issue.

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Back on the air again AFI Awards return to the ABC under independent producer Richard Sattler

After the dire predictions of disaster in September’s Cinema Papers — a report privately described by Austra­ lian Film Institute Director Vicki Molloy as "a terrible beat-up” — it is with some relief that we are able to announce that the 1986 AFI Awards will indeed be broadcast on national television.

Negotiations between the AFI and the Australian Broadcasting Cor­ poratio n te rm in a te d with the announcement, in early September, that a "new-look awards concept” would be broadcast from the Regent Hotel ballroom in Sydney on the night of Friday 31 October, with several awards being presented from "some of Australia’s best-loved film locations” .

The programme will be handled by independent producer Richard Sattler, in what is claimed to be the first time a producer has sold a fully independent live production of this nature to the ABC. Sattler, whose credits include Nine’s The Mike Walsh Show, Ten’s 21st Birthday Special and their April 1986 26-hour Telethon, was associate producer of last year’s AFI Awards, which were telecast on the Ten Network on 14 September. The director will be Brian Phillis, also a Mike Walsh Show alumnus.

Looking back to an older AFI Awards formula, the 1986 ceremony will take place in the context of an industry dinner for 600 people, rather than as part of a theatre-style spectacular of the kind mounted last . year.

By the time most of our readers get their copies of Cinema Papers, the A w a rd s w ill have been announced and the suspense will be over. But, for the record, we are publishing the nominations anyway.

As predicted in our last issue, Nadia Tass’s Malcolm has emerged as the clear favourite, with eight nomina­ tions, including Best Film, Best

Taking o ff with the nominations: Colin Friels (nominated fo r Best Actor), Lindy Davies (Best Support­ ing Actress) and John Hargreaves (Best Supporting Actor) in Malcolm (Best Film, Director, Editing, Sound and Original Screenplay).

Director, Best Actor and Best Sup­ porting Actor. More surprising, per­ haps, are the seven nominations garnered by this year’s Cannes c o m p e titio n film , The Fringe Dwellers.

Other leading contenders are The More Things Change (six nomina­ tions), and Short Changed, Playing Beatie Bow and For Love Alone, with five nominations apiece. As for the non-feature, telefeature and mini­ series categories, where the awards are being selected by a panel of experts, these will simply have their winners announced on the night.

The 1986 feature film nominations are as follows: Best Film: The Fringe Dwellers (pro­ duced by Sue Milliken), Malcolm (produced by Nadia Tass and David Parker), The More Things Change (produced by Jill Robb) and Short C hanged (produced by Ross Matthews).

Best Director: Bruce Beresford {The Fringe Dwellers), Paul Cox {Cactus), George Ogilvie {Short Changed) and Nadia Tass {Malcolm).

Best Actor: Reb Brown {Death of a Soldier), Colin Friels {Malcolm), Robert Menzies {Cactus) and Barry Otto (The More Things Change).

Best Actress: Helen Buday (For Love Alone), Judy Davis (Kangaroo), Judy Morris (The More Things Change) and Justine Saunders (The Fringe Dwellers): Best Supporting Actor: Maurie Fields (Death of a Soldier), John Har­ greaves (Malcolm), Mark Little (Short C h a n g e d ) and Jo h n W alton (Kangaroo).

Filmways chief Mark Josem dies

Best Supporting Actress:

Kylie Belling {The Fringe Dwellers), Lindy Davies {Malcolm), Victoria Longley {The More Things Change) and Kerry Walker {Twelfth Night).

Russell Boyd {Burke & Wills), Jeff Darling {Young Einstein), Peter James {The Right-hland Man) and Don McAlpine {The Fringe Dwellers).

George Liddle (Burke & Wills), George Liddle {Playing Beatie Bow), Terry Ryan {Kangaroo) and Jennie Tate {For Love Alone).

Richard Francis-Bruce {Short Changed), Andrew Prowse (.Playing Beatie Bow), Ken Sallows {Malcolm) and Tim Wellburn {The Fringe Dwellers).

Peter Best {The More Things Change), William Motzing and Martin Armiger (Young Einstein), Peter Sculthorpe {Burke & Wills) and Nathan Waks {For Love Alone).

Neil Angwin {The Right-Eland Man), Larry Eastwood {Dead-End DriveIn), George Liddle {Playing Beatie Bow) and John Stoddart {For Love Alone).

Syd Butterworth, Phil Heywood, Ron Purvis and Lee Smith {Burke & Wills), Roger Savage, Craig Carter, Dean Gawen and Paul Clark {Malcolm), Rob Cutcher, Frank Lipson, Glenn Newman and James Currie (Playing Beatie Bow) and Roger Savage, Bruce Lamshed, Steve Burgess, Geoff Grist, Annie Breskin and Peter Fenton (Young Einstein).

Best Cinematography:

Best Costume Design:

Best Editing:

Best Music Score:

Best Production Design:

Best Sound:

Best Original Screenplay:

Robert Merritt (Short Changed), David Parker {Malcolm), Yahoo Serious and David Roach (Young Einstein) and Moya Wood (The More Things Change).

Bruce Beresford and Rhoisin Beresford {The Fringe Dwellers), Peter Gawler {Playing Beatle Bow), Evan Jones {Kangaroo) and Stephen Wallace {For Love Alone).

Surprise omissions from the nominations are Bill Bennett’s lowbudget Backlash, which was well received in 'Un Certain Regard’ at Cannes this year, and Scott Murray’s Devil in the Flesh, which was widely tipped for (at least) a Best Cinematography nomination for Andrew De Groot. Otherwise, the nominations are spread fairly evenly across the field, with over half the eligible films picking up one or more of the 56 available nominations.

Apart from Backlash and Devil In the Flesh, the other films to come ' away entirely empty-handed are: Around the World in 80 Ways, Aus■tralian Dream, Departure, Going Sane, I Own the Racecourse, The Still Point, The Surfer, Wills and Burke: The Untold Story and Windrider. ' Once again, the New South Wales-Victoria axis has all but swept the board, with South Australia’s Playing Beatie Bow the only nominee from outside those two states. Q ueensland {Australian Dream and The Surfer), Tasmania (.Departure) and Western Australia (Windrider) miss out completely.

Best Adapted Screenplay:

Mark Josem, one of Australia's most re sp e cte d film bu yers, d ied suddenly on 8 August at the age of 71. He was joint managing director of Filmways Australasian Distributors, the firm he founded with Robert Ward.

Josem suffered a heart attack on board a plane on his way to attend the 1986 Motion Picture Exhibitors’ Association convention in Surfers Paradise.

Born in Poland, Josem emigrated to Australia 40 years ago, and estab­ lished a large home-building com­ pany, Bildex, in 1956, which was a major contributor to the reduction of the Melbourne housing shortage in the late fifties. In the fifties and sixties, Bildex erected just short of a thousand homes, and also built the fourteen-storey Queenslodge Motel overlooking Melbourne's Albert Park lake.

But it is for his colourful involve­ ment in the Australian film industry that Josem will be remembered here and abroad. It was an involvement spanning more than 25 years, and he was one of the first entrepreneurs to build a drive-in cinema in Aus­ tralia, with the opening of the Sand­ ringham Drive-In in 1962. This quickly developed into an inde­ pendent chain of six drive-ins.

Seventeen years ago, Josem teamed up with Robert Ward and, together, they built up the Dendy cinema chain and the Filmways distribution company.

Josem was a man of extraordinary energy, with broad experience in all

facets of the film industry. One of his m ajor achievem ents was the successful challenge he mounted to the distribution monopoly long held here by the foreign majors.

It is perhaps fitting that he should have been on an aeroplane at the time of his death, since he regularly travelled to all parts of the world in search of film product. He was renowned for his aggressive film­ buying policy, backing his judge­ ment with on-the-spot cash deposits for films he believed in. This resulted in handsome dividends for Filmways and their customers, with films like My Fair Lady, Wild Geese, The Black Stallion and La Traviata.

More recently, Josem had also been active in film production, through his involvement in movies like Goodbye, Norma Jean, The Naked Country and Kangaroo.

Josem is survived by his wife, Danka, and their two children.

Daughter Ruth Miller, wife of Pulitzer Prize-winner and actor Jason Miller, is currently enjoying a successful career in the USA, producing and directing film and live theatre pro­ ductions. Son Julian Josem, a com­ puter specialist, is now looking after the family’s business interests.

The Filmways group of companies will continue to operate, though there may be some restructuring as a result of Josem’s death. His unique presence, though, will be missed at the international film markets he invariably attended, especially Cannes, where he cele­ brated his 70th birthday in 1985.

The Board of M TV Publishing Limited, as Publisher of C IN E M A PAPERS and the 1986 C IN E M A PAPERS A U S T R A L A S IA N PR ODUCTION YEARBOOK, wish to make known that M TV Publishing Limited is not currently associated with the production of a 1987 trade directory and is not associated with any activities concerned with the compilation of any such publication.

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber —

7

■ Australian Teachers of Media (ATOM) have a unique philosophy when it comes to giving awards: they have two panels, one com­ posed of media education and film industry representatives, another of children under thirteen years of age.

The end result is an indication of quality product for children and young adults. Short educational films and videos (under 60 minutes) are eligible to enter the awards, and the closing date is 31 October 1986.

Forms are available from ATOM, PO Box 222, Carlton South, 3053.

Briefly. . .

■ PBL Productions is packing its bags and moving to New York. The main production office will now be in New York, with subsidiary offices in Los Angeles and Sydney. Intending to make the US their production base, they have already signed Gloria Steinem, editor of Ms maga­ zine, to host a daily network tele­ vision show.

Managing Director Jane Deknatel will be executive producer of the series and is "delighted” about the new programme. Not so enthusi­ astic, however, are her statements about the position of the Australian film industry. She is leaving in a blaze of criticism about the tax and union conditions in this country.

She said changes to the 10BA tax incentive scheme and the increasing difficulty of meeting presale condi­ tions had precipitated the transfer.

"While it is necessary to build up a n o n -s u b s id iz e d film in d u s try , perhaps the cross-over period could have been longer,” she said.

PBL Chairman Lynton Taylor also referred to disputes with the Austra­ lian Taxation Office, who have dis­ allowed tax deductibility to PBL’s parent company, Kerry Packer’s Consolidated Press Holdings group, for investment in 10BA product.

CPH have appealed twice against this ruling.

PBL has also blamed the restric­ tions imposed by industry unions on foreign talent. Taylor said that they are "too great to allow Australian companies to produce film and tele­ vision here for the international market” . They will continue to pro­ duce locally as the opportunities arise and Deknatel is ready to allay union fears. “ The issue needs to be dealt with sensitively,” she said. “ The fact is the Americans won't buy product that doesn't have recognizable faces — and they are 78% of the Englishspeaking market. So Australian actors need more exposure. It would encourage increased employment opportunities.”

R e je c tin g a rg u m e n ts a b o u t foreign cultural domination, she claimed: “ I don’t know how the Aus­ tralian character could possibly be subsumed. It is so strong!”

She identified co-productions as an important area of development and will be continuing to seek poten­ tial TV co-productions with overseas networks and production houses, some of which will be filmed in Australia.

■ Watch out David Attenborough!

Perth-based Film Centre Australia has been awarded the 'Meilleurs Images’ prize at the International Festival of Nature Film Makers in Saint Malo, France. The honours went to Peter Du Cane and David Moore for ‘The Reptiles), an episode from the thirteen-part Fauna wildlife series. Filming took place in every state of Australia over a period of two years and the series has now been sold to television networks in fifteen countries.

■ Another documentary series, Out of the Fiery Furnace, directed by C h ris to p h e r M cC u llo u g h , has cracked the international market. It is being screened across the US by the Public Broadcasting Service.

The seven-hour series on the story of metals and mankind was shown on the ABC in 1984.

■ Debates will be rekindled at the next Australian Screen Studies Association conference, to be held in Sydney from 3-6 December at the NSW Institute of Technology. The topic areas are ‘Film Theory Re­ assessed’, ‘Documentary — Theory and Practice’ and the ‘State of Tele­ vision Studies’. Papers are wel­ come. For further details, contact Adrienne McKibbins, PO Box 673, Crow s Nest, 2065. Ph: (02) 929 9205.

■ The 9th International Women’s Film Festival will take place at the Maison des Arts in Créteil, France from 28 March to 5 April, 1987. A retrospective of the work of French women directors from the last ten years is planned, and entries are invited for the three competitive sec­ tions: features, documentaries and shorts.

8 — N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

I ■ For those involved in this year’s Australian Video Festival, here’s one to add to the circuit. The 7th National Festival of Independent Video in Bracknell, UK, has become a popu­ lar event. Everything from pop promos to agit-prop and cabaret will be showing there from 21-23 November.

■ It’s official! The correct title is the Australian Film, Television and R a d io S c h o o l (A F T R S ). To emphasize the addition, the Radio

Contributors

Training Unit runs a 20-week com­ mercial radio course, advanced seminars for radio professionals, and special training programmes for ethnic and Aboriginal broadcasters.

■ Three documentaries, a feature, a telemovie and a miniseries have received support from the AFC Special Production Fund. Distribu­ tion guarantees went to George Gittoes’s Where She Dares and John Darling’s Bali Triptypch (as well as a non-deductible investment).

Another non-deductible investment was made in Henry Crawford's Always Afternoon. The AFC invested in an episode of Michael Le Moignan and Larry Lucas’s Black Futures series, ‘Getting Better’, and production and marketing loans were approved for Sandra Levy’s High Tide and Rebel PenfoldR u ssell’ s U n finish ed Business respectively.

Gideon Bachmann is a writer and broadcaster on film.

John Baxter is a film reviewer for The Australian and author of numerous books on the cinema.

Susan Bridekirk is a freelance journa- : list based in Melbourne.

Pat H. Broeske writes regularly about film for the Los Angeles Times, and is Hollywood correspondent for the Wa s h i n g t o n Post an d o th e r publications.

Raffaele Caputo is a freelance write on film.

■

Lorenzo Codelli is a freelance journa­ list based in Trieste, a contributor Postif and Italian correspondent International Film Guide.

Mary Colbert is a Sydney-based film researcher, writer and lecturer.

Tony Drouyn is a freelance writer film who also plays and teac classical guitar.

■ Peter Page has been appointed as the AFI’s National Distribution Manager. Based at the Sydney office, he will be co-ordinating the new distribution service announced by the AFC in June, after long dis­ cussions as to who should fill the gap left by the Sydney Filmmakers' Co-op. It should be underway in January 1987 and will operate from both the Melbourne and Sydney offices.

■ Don Sipes, former Lorimar chief, will be handling distribution further afield for the Australian company, Independent Distributors. Group Managing Director Gene Scott said Sipes would head their US office in Los Angeles. He will be seeking co­ production deals and organizing production and distribution for the Independent Group.

■ Teen movies are the go, accord­ ing to recent statistics released by Val Morgan & Co. Cinema is most popular with the fourteen-seventeenyear-old age group, who see films an average of ten times a year. And they remember it! Tests have proven that of all the media, cinema has the highest rate of recall — 78%.

■ In a major move into the US market, Hoyts Corporation US Holdings Inc., a subsidiary of the Australian company, has acquired the Cinema Centers Corporation (CCC) chain. Based in Boston, CCC currently operates 111 screens throughout the north-eastern states and plan to add a further 127 screens over the next two years.

■ The Mitsubishi Corporation has teamed up with the Australian film and television distributor, All Media Enterprises. It represents a diversifi­ cation of the Corporation’s interests and possibly a swing back to more fo re ig n p ro g ra m m in g on the theatrical circuit and on Japanese television.

Tony Cavanaugh is a freelan editor.

Ray Edmondson is Deputy Dire< the National Film & Sound Archi\ Debi Enker is editor of Video !

Liz Fell is a freelance journalist special­ izing in media and communications technology.

Nigel Floyd is a freelance writer on film.

Michael Freedman is a freelance film writer and editor of Australian Horti­ culture.

Fred Harden is a film and television producer.

■

Paul Harris is co-host of Film Buff[s Forecast on 3RRR and a regular contri­ butor to The Age. John Hopewell is a freelance writer on film and author of a forthcoming book on Spanish cinema.

Y

Damien Kingsbury is a journalist with Radio Australia. He reported from El Salvador and Nicaragua for several publications in 1981 and 1983.

Paul Kalina is a journalist at Video Week.

Dorre Koeser is a freelance writer and assistant film editor currently living in New Orleans. .

Mike Nicolaidi is a freelance writer and contributor to Variety.

Norbert Noyaux works as an inter­ preter for the French Commercial ance Office in Melbourne and is a freelance .I writer on film. jy is a freelance w Fiona O’Grady writer on film.

Dieter Osswald is a journalist and contributor to Filmecho Georgina Pope and Naoko Veda work at the Tokyo-based company, Goanna Films.

William D. Routt._ _ academic.

- - T

Jim Schembri is a journalist at The Age. .

Mark Spratt is a freelance writer on film.

R.J. Thompson teaches c studies at La Trobe University.

Edouard Waintrop is film critic 1 French national daily Liberation.

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Cinema in the round

by Kathy Bail Speaking after a screening of her film in Japan, Nadia Tass was asked: “ Tell us how you managed to capture the Japanese spirit in Malcolm” . Expecting the audience to focus on the workings of the gadgets in the film, she was com­ pletely taken aback. Later, though, she recognized that, behind the con­ servative, very shy Japanese character, there is a sense of fantasy, invention and a bubbling humour — the sort of qualities that typify the very likeable central character of the film.

For a director whose aim is to communicate across the lines of cul­ tural difference, the trip was a small triumph. It also confirmed for Tass that not only was cinema the most effective way of “ reaching the populus” , but that comedy was the genre in which to do it.

Born in a small Macedonian village where theatre was the popu­ lar and dynamic art form, Tass began acting in Russian and classical Greek plays. When she arrived in Australia, she continued her involvement in drama, studying at the Victorian College of the Arts and acting and directing with various theatre companies.

Her work brought together the values of two cultures — the Slavic and the Australian — and, more broadly, became a means of explor­ ing notions of cultural identity.

Resisting the image of Australian society as the “ melting pot” , she argues for a celebration of differ­ ence, while emphasizing “ the human qualities we share” .

For example, Malcolm is set in an old, Anglo-Saxon suburb where there are also different migrant com­ munities and blocks of Flousing Commission flats. And, in the film, Tass foregrounds the values of the Macedonian woman. “ That is the way I grew up," she comments, “ and it is so rich!"

Although she hasn’t abandoned the theatre entirely, she feels that it is not the medium in which she can best raise social questions. “ It is too elitist. I can’t be bothered with boring tea parties! The theatre-going crowd will see a play whether it is good or bad. I want to communicate with people who are used to being entertained by the box."

After six months of negotiating deals for Malcolm in Europe and America (Malcolm opened success­ fully in New York on 17 July), she is seduced by the possibilities of cinema, particularly its accessibility.

‘Entertainment’ is a word that she mentions over and over again, and it determines her attitude toward the role of the director. “ If I become indulgent in my filmmaking, I’d be left sitting alone in my loungeroom.

What I can do, however, is entertain people and, through that, I can present my opinion. Besides, what I really enjoy doing is comedy. It’s fun. I don’t want to be morbid.’’

According to Tass, the basis of

“W hat I really enjoy doing is comedy. It’s fun. I don’t want to be m orbid” good comedy is the presentation of fully-rounded characters. "People obviously identify with elements of Malcolm’s character — his vulnera­ bility, for example. If you then place that sort of character in a situation which becomes unpredictable, you 'create' humour. In slapstick, there is always a winner and a loser, a boss and a servant, but I try to reverse the roles and shift the character’s status.’’ And of course the other ingredient is that comedy must ‘travel’, not be dependent on specific Australian stereotypes.

Tass moved into the film industry very smartly. On a trip up the coast to visit her husband, David Parker, a top Australian stills photographer who was then working on Coolangatta Gold, she met Colin Friels and

the three of them started tossing around ideas for a feature. The result was Malcolm, the script for which was actually written in the middle of the desert where Parker was taking stills for Burke & Wills. It was here, too, that he devised many of the concepts for the crazy gadgets that feature in the film. Many long­ distance phone calls later, they started shooting in Melbourne.

Parker has now completed the script for their second feature, Rikki and Pete, in which Colin Friels will play the role of Pete. It is about a brother and sister who leave a com­ fortable life in Melbourne for an adventure in the mining town of Mt. Isa. “ They are from a wealthy family and are both extremely intelligent, but they are game enough to resist

society’s demands," says Tass.

As co-producers, Tass and Parker keep a tight reign on the financial side of their productions. Like Malcolm, Rikki and Pete is a lowbudget film, and a long pre-produc­ tion period is scheduled to ensure that everything is ready when the cameras roll in January.

At this stage, they are still tidying up the finance, and Tass is resolute about maintaining artistic control of the script. “ Not only are the budgets of Australian films becoming topheavy, but we are losing sight of the quality of the projects," she says. “ I think you should be accountable as a filmmaker, but at the moment it is so heavily weighted on the finance side — the money people come first."

Speaking of money, Tass has already had offers from American investors for Rikki and Pete. But there were a couple of problems: the Americans wanted to make the two central characters lovers rather than brother and sister, and they wanted to turn Tass into the new woman director who has battled the chau­ vinism of the film industry. She, I think, is one step ahead of them.

CINEMA PAPERS Novem ber — 11

Salvador, reviewed in Cinema Papers 59 (September 1986), is about the odyssey of a man and his com­ panion into the hell of El Salvador during what could be described as the zenith of its violence. It is based on the diary of journalist Richard Boyle (played in the film by James Woods), who co-wrote the script, and it is ostensibly about him and the ‘true facts' of the period, 1980-82.

The film’s director, Oliver Stone, is, like Boyle, adept at portraying life on the brink. But Stone, best known for having written Midnight Express, tends to apportion most of the credit — and the blame — for the new movie to Richard Boyle. It is, he says, events as they occurred, but seen through Boyle’s eyes.

According to Stone, Boyle visited El Salvador seven times, establish­ ing a relationship with a woman called Maria, her brother, Carlos, who was killed by the right-wing death squads, her two children and her mother. Boyle also apparently knew Ambassador White, various leading US m ilitary and CIA figures, and the Christian lay worker who was raped and murdered with three nuns in 1980. Boyle and White were there when the bodies were dug up, and Stone includes the scene in the movie.

A weirder twist is the inclusion of Jim Belushi as the down-and-out disc jockey, Dr Rock, who goes along to El Salvador for the ride.

"Rock was a friend of Boyle’s," says Stone, "and I’d known him for years.

They were both broke: no wives, no money, going into the sunset. Rock complained all the time. He was a real pain in the ass on the road, which was kind of funny.”

There is in the film, says Stone, "that raucous balance, like Gabriel Garcia Marquez, y’know, between tragedy and comedy, between horrifying visuals and offbeat humour. Which is the way it is. I mean, guys into genuinely heavy situations — not soldiers, but journa­ lists — tend to be very profane and irreverent." Stone also wanted something “ against the conven­ tional grain of those types of movies where the journalist has to be pious and saintly and dignified. A lot of these war junkies are really fuckedup people."

While Rock is the foil — the excuse for verbal exchanges on the situation as it is happening — Boyle is the anti-hero, the “ weasel” , as Stone puts it. "O n top of everything, he sued me. He’s a rat, you know, but I kind of like rats." Boyle had wanted to play himself in Salvador, but was pushed out by James W oods when m oney became available.

Money, it seems, haunts both Stone and Boyle, with the latter "always borrowing fifty bucks", and the former considering directing a movie on the Mexican revolution in Argentina because of unpaid debts on Salvador in Mexico. His exist­ ence, like Boyle's, is precarious.

The journalist, according to Stone, "is still a heavy hitter of the bottle, a

Dogs o f war: John Savage as Cassady (left) and James Woods as Boyle in Salvador.

12 — N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

One mans war

by Damien Kingsbury

O

l iv e r

S

t o n e

,

writer and director “O n top of everything, Boyle sued me. H e’s a rat, you know, but I kind of like rats”

heavy bitter of drugs. He still does acid. He doesn’t have a place to stay any more: he lives out of crates and moves around.” So, while Woods may have portrayed Boyle as being a little better than he is — "all actors want to be liked, you know!” — the movie is fairly accurate in that respect.

One aspect of the movie that does not ring true is that of journalists run­ ning around during a battle: the few that ever see fighting invariably look for cover; if not, they get killed. But Boyle, says Stone, once claimed to ¡have run — as he does in the film — from one shooting side to the other, shouting: "Periodista! Periodista!" ("Journalist! Journalist!’’) with News­ week photographer John Hoagland, waving a white handkerchief.

Stone is sceptical. Hoagland was killed in battle in El Salvador in 1983; and the photographer, Cassady, played in the film by John Savage is, according to the publicity material, supposed to be Hoagland. But Stone concedes that their deaths were very different, and that Cassady’s death was, in fact, closer to that of Frenchman Olivier Le Beau, who was killed, like Cassady, in the crossfire at Santa Ana. But it was, to all intents and pur­ poses, a symbolic war corres­ p o n d e n t’s death. Surprisingly, although Cassady dies filming his own death in the film, Stone says he has never seen The Battle of Chile, in which an Argentinian cameraman filmed himself being shot, as did Australian Neil Davis in Bangkok last year. "Oh, wow! I never saw that,” he says. "If I'd known, I would have shot it that way.”

Salvador has been compared with Under Fire, the 1983 film about Nicaragua, though much to Stone's dismay: Under Fire, according to him, was about three people and their "fucked-up love affair” , show­ ing little of Nicaragua at war with itself. And he regards Sydney Schanberg, hero of The Killing Fields, as a wimp, although he does not mind comparisons, few as they are, being drawn between that movie and his.

Stone himself deeply dislikes Rambo-style war movies, or those where the hero kills the enemy (no blood) and wins the girl. To Stone, war — and he was wounded twice in Vietnam — is ugly, dirty and has loose edges. The enemy also shoots back. " It’s bloody,” he saysy "and it’s hard. In Salvador, nothing is resolved, no one is redeemed and Boyle loses the girl."

Stone’s real hate, though, is "neat, pre-packaged violence” . He regards fake violence as obscene, encouraging people to believe that it is OK. And there will be no neat, pre­ packaged violence in his next movie, The Platoon, based on the Vietnam war.

But, for a man who admits to being fascinated by the experience of war, Stone does not want to be stereotyped as a maker of movies about its horrors. “ Each movie is an evolution and I’ve learned a lot,” he says. "I can see-myself doing child­ ren’s movies. I’d like to do a dog picture. I’d like to do a love story. I'm not just obsessed with war.. One grows in life, you know.”

Due Process

by Mary Colbert

'E & T É R W I L L A R D Thirteen years ago, Peter Willard joined Atlab, filling In time working in the film library to earn enough money for a few months’ surfing.

Now, at 31, he is still there, as Sales Manager. He hasn’t abandoned his love of surfing. But that has had to be relegated to a leisure activity around his home at North Avoca.

He did manage to leave, once, for three months, before being tempted back with an offer he couidn't refuse. Willard’s dynamic manner indicates that it wasn’t a case of being ‘institutionalized’. “ I guess the lab just got the better of me. I got hooked, so there was no time to con­ sider other possibilities,” he says.

He believes it takes about ten years to become fully versed in all aspects of lab procedure, so he has obviously served out a full term by now. Trying to recall a turning-point in those early days — the reason he didn’t take off — he pinpoints the offer of an internal apprenticeship to train to fill any department as required. ‘‘This provided me with a very sound overview,” he says, “ and a smorgasbord from which to select further interests, which have been colour grading and production liaison. I chose the first because It offered opportunities for creativity, the latter because I’ve always found dealing with people a challenge.”

Sandwiched In between were a couple of years as Production Manager — “ This must add up to 50 years,” he groans in mock horror — responsible for daily organization of the lab, channelling work, juggling priorities and answering complaints.

By then, Willard knew the product from every angle.

"A t that time,” he says, “ much of the work was going to the opposi­ tion, Colorfilm, "particularly because of the drawcard of Bill Gooley, a

man so highly respected in the industry that, to be in the running, we had to create our own counter­ part. I guess I was it\ And I must con­ fess that, when I decided to leave, briefly, my greatest tribute came in Bill’s parting words: Thank good­ ness you're going, because you gave me a hell of a time!' ” The tempting offer to return was into the area of sales. There followed a grooming period: sales repre­ sentative for several months, an educational trip to the US (which confirmed that labs here aren’t less advanced, only smaller), a company reshuffle and, finally, the position of Sales Manager.

"Our aim is to give clients what they want, the first time,” explains Willard. "A tlab’s problem over the last few years was that its approach was too low-key, too mellow. My short-term strategy is to give us a higher profile. Longer-term, it is to take us to the top spot.” But this, he admits, will take time. “ For instance, lab processing is determined, to a large extent, by investment loyalties and commit­ ments. But I’m not prepared to sit back and be diffid en t about approaching a client because of his previous patterns of association.

Competition’s quite healthy. The industry revolves around word-ofmouth and, once the word gets round that our attitude is more gungho .. .! “ First, there’s a need to clear up som e m is c o n c e p tio n s — fo r instance, that we are part of Channel 7 and associated with Fairfax, and therefore have plenty of work and wealth. Originally, it’s true, we were set up to process film for ATN7’s production. But technology has altered the Industry so much that, now, 98% of our work comes from outside. I suppose being a long way

of Atlab

“ I gu ess the lab just got the better of me.

I got hooked, so there w as no time to consider other possibilities” out and on ATN’s territory tended to perpetuate that image.”

To counteract this (and facilitate access), Atlab is scheduled to open a new office on Pacific Highway in Crow's Nest in November, with links to the lab through three couriers, who will be on the road from 6 am until 10 pm. As another part of his strategy, Willard stresses the import­ ance of adapting to changes in the industry. Shooting may still be on film, but a lot of the rest goes on tape; electronic news-gathering has altered the nature of news produc­ tion; video has eroded the process­ ing and multiple copying of commer­ cials; some traditional clients, such as Fiji, Papua New Guinea and other south-east Asian countries are put­ ting in their own labs. Even the decrease in cigarette commercials, which used to be a prime client, with 500-copy orders, has made a differ­ ence. “ At the same time,” says Willard, “ the production of features and miniseries has increased and, with the glossier quality, so has the amount

of footage per commercial. Com­ mercials’ rushes bring you to break­ even point, providing the bread and butter. And a commercials’ account, If serviced properly, will stay with you longer. Features are the cream, and require more involvement, nur­ turing and time. At the moment, we handle about ten a year, and natur­ ally I would like to see an increase in the number we process. But I don’t want to be perceived as pushing those at the expense of other work. I see our role as balancing all three areas: features, documentaries and commercials. “ Ideally,” he says, “ I want all our production people to feel they are a part of, an extension of, the film crew, not just a voice on the end of a telephone. After all, they contribute to the final product. I still get a buzz out of seeing my own name on the credits for ‘Lab liaison’: it makes all those late nights worth it.”

He would also like film crews to reciprocate, though, inspecting the lab facilities and making It a two-way process. That would, he reckons, achieve better unde rsta nd ing , especially as both work under tremendous pressure at times. He would also like to see more industry forums, as a meeting ground for film­ makers.

Behind his apparently endless work energy, Willard admits to liking parties and the odd drink. He also hates wearing ties. But there’s nothing casual about his approach to the job. In the past, Atlab has been associated with some fine films: Breaker Morant, Careful, He Might Hear You, Rebel, Silver City and The Wild Duck among them.

With Willard at the sales helm, how­ ever, you get the impression that the Atlab appetite is increasing and that, in future, the company may be after a larger slice of the cake.

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 13

.

14 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; Novem ber CINEMA PAPERS

Earlier this year, Alan Bond set off in search of an overseas production base. In a spectacular deal (see Sheila Johnston’s UK column in Cinema Papers 58, July 1986), he bought the Screen Entertainment divi­ sion of Britain’s Thorn EMI, then sold it to the US Cannon Group in less than a week.

This brought Bond a profit of $100 million, secured him a seat on the Cannon board and allowed him to return home with the Australian rights to a library of 2,000 films.

Last year, another millionaire retailer from the west, Kevin Parry, also broadened his base, acquiring part-ownership o f the 7 Keys production house, and is now moving his television interests north from

Newcastle to Rockhampton and Papua New Guinea. There are also reports that he is buying a share in some US TV stations.

Contrary to broadcasting myth, most regional monopolists are not povertystricken companies struggling to survive: it is just that, in the past, they have failed to plough their profits back into the produc­ tion of Australian programmes, preferring to rely on the networks. This will probably remain the situation for the next decade, since funds will have to go into broadcast­ ing hardware. And the government’s current deregulatory stance indicates no move to introduce local programmecontent regulation.

But there is another, hidden agenda to this and other network expansions — one which clearly points to Labor politicians putting their trust in the metropolitan network owners. A private newsletter circu­ lated to select members of the television industry several months ago argued that the Hawke strategists didn’t care if the net­ working of Sydney and Melbourne view­ points into the regions spelled the end of local programmes, especially news and current affairs.

There was, said the newsletter, no value to the Labor government in preserving these sorts of programmes, particularly in marginal Country Party electorates. Local CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 15

news programmes can highlight issues which produce political discomfort, even a backlash, for politicians and bureaucrats in Canberra, especially if the angry farming lobby gets a chance to air its views. Net­ working of metropolitan news and current affairs is thus far more palatable to a Labor Party which believes in tuning in to metro­ politan Australia, and in representing the ‘lowest common denominator’. Exposure of more parochial and more conservative leanings on regional television screens is not, it is argued, really in the party’s interests. In the current climate, therefore, there is a definite political rationale behind the power of the networks.

FUTURE POLICY DIRECTIONS The latest policy report from the Depart­ ment of Communications, Ownership and Control o f Commercial Television: Future Policy Directions, confirms this view, adopting a narrow framework of rules, deregulation policies, administrative arrangements and perceived political exigencies to address the crucial questions of ownership and control. What is more, the Department’s think-tank, the Forward Development Unit, has produced four different policy reports in its ‘Future Direc­ tion’ series in just over a year. And each report establishes the terms of debate from what is clearly an industry perspective — industry, of course, being equated with ‘owners’.

One difficulty with addressing this per­ spective is that the Departmental reports exclude any consideration of the political pressures which form the background to policy deliberations. Even more significant — if less surprising — is the omission of any discussion of the way in which the ‘machinery of representation’ (to borrow a phrase from Stuart Hall) works from the position of the public or, more precisely, the position of the Australian viewer.

Since 1983, the Labor government has developed a number of policy objectives for planning and extending commercial TV, one of which specifies the need for ‘diversity of choice’. But what does this actually imply in the context of Australia’s highly concentrated media-ownership structure, dominated as it is by four big multi-media corporations (John Fairfax, Herald and Weekly Times, News Corp. and Consolidated Press), all of whom own major commercial network television stations?

In the latest report, diversity of choice is defined as meaning “ public access to a diversity of viewpoints’’. The rhetoric is impressive, but the reality is somewhat different. Think for a moment of seeing a ‘live’ shot of Hawke talking to the Business Council on the Nine Network, a close-up of Hawke walking up the steps of Parliament House on Ten, and a ‘dramatic’ clip of Hawke talking to schoolchildren on Seven.

Does this coverage provide access to ‘diversity’?

On all three networks there is, as things now stand j' an endless repetition of news and views emanating from powerful people in metropolitan Australia and overseas.

Our windows on foreign policy often come courtesy of the US networks, complete with Defence Department film. And, in the broader cultural context, we have to read our differing needs into the glamorous lives 16 — N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

of people in distant Dallas, with the occa­ sional opportunity to glimpse an Australian landscape and hear an Australian accent.

The narrow range of cultural product, with its predictable inclusion of certain views and its exclusion of others, is partly why network stations are so similar. And, under the present forms of monopolistic competi­ tion, what we are going to see is more of the same.

THREE NETWORKS The changes that are going to be made to the ownership and control rules are designed to maintain the existing structure, and to provide all Australian viewers with a ‘choice’ of metropolitan network pro­ grammes. The new system will eventually allow all three networks to reach into 98% of Australian homes. National advertisers will then select from three similar sets of images and viewpoints, packaged in similar styles and formats, narratives and plots.

Most television programmes will be scripted, staged, filmed and produced in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra (and, of course, Los Angeles), not in places like Broken Hill, Bunbury or Wollongong.

There may even be a fourth network in the future, though the government has not officially spelled out this agenda. The reason for this is that another network depends, in part, on the success of a new US network (for example, Murdoch’s Fox network), or a new ‘player’ with overseas programme access securing a bigger audi­ ence/advertiser reach in Australia. Such a player will probably be an entrepreneur like Robert Holmes a Court, Alan Bond or Kevin Parry.

For the network solution to work successfully and ‘equally’, the government must deliver three ‘slave’ stations in regional areas. With this structure in place, it will only be a short hop and a jump to extend the US. networks via satellite across the Pacific, thus converting Australian network stations into multi-national slaves.

There is, of course, an element of economic as well as political inevitability to national networking. The government needs commercial television up on the satellites if Aussat is going to pay back its $500-million debt. And the Big Four metro­ politan network owners command the major audience/advertising share, have the revenue to acquire the ‘best’ Australian and American programmes, and possess the capital resources to access satellites as a means of distribution. In addition, all three networks have established or acquired interests in their own film and TV produc­ tion facilities. “ The commercial television structure as it has been allowed to grow,’’ says a 1984 Broadcasting Tribunal report, “ is domin­ ated by the six Sydney and Melbourne stations, which are owned by four news­

paper groups, cover 42% of the popula­ tion, gross 54.7% of the revenue, spend 61.8% of the total programme expenditure, and supply 50.8% of programming throughout Australia.” (The remainder of regional programmes includes a small pro­ portion of local news and sport, plus packages of US and UK serials and old movies.)

The Tribunal goes on to suggest that the government restructure the industry so as to break the stranglehold o f the Sydney/Melbourne stations. But the state — or, more precisely, the government — is not about to intervene and break up the monopolies of the Big Four multi-media corporations, so it has decided to re­ structure differently, without upsetting the network stations. The plan is to build up the audience/advertising reach of smaller metropolitan and regional owners, while providing the networks with two extra customers to purchase satellite-delivered programmes. Department of Communica­ tions bureaucrats have coined the term ‘equalization’ for this policy of metro­ politan expansion into regional areas.

The equalization exercise has not, how­ ever, proved as easy as the government would have liked. Metropolitan owners like Holmes a Court and Bond are now on-side, but there remains the delicate problem of restructuring the regional monopolists who still operate in one-station markets.

Precisely how this will occur is still under discussion, though it provides an important policy context for the Control and Owner­ ship report. Currently, the government is offering a number of financial carrots to encourage the new structure. Regional

9

m

owners, for example, must fork out a couple of million dollars to create two extra distribution outlets (stations) for the three network suppliers. So, in return, the government has promised all sorts of subsidies and tax concessions on the purchase of broadcasting hardware; like transmitters.

More important for thé wealthier regional components and West Australian entrepreneurs like Holmes a Court and Bond is the government’s offer to allow small TV companies to get bigger by acquiring extra stations and extending their audience share. Hence, the old ‘twostation’ ownership limit must be changed.

Thus, in addition to the major acquisitions referred to at the start of this article, all sorts of companies have been buying up stations, shares and related product: the Linter textile group, the Westfield property

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development group and the Grundy’s TV production company. In the Golden West, the Bendat family has acquired three stations in anticipation of the rule change.

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The political, economic and ideological agenda of networking and equalization is the chief context for the Department of Communications’ new report, and explains why Labor politicians and their friends in the network stations have defined the policy objective of diversity of choice for regional Australia in such a narrow way. In essence, the report is an attempt to clean up and rationalize some of the problems in implementing the network expansion and the regional restructure.

,

As the report says: “ In 1986, there are inLitasing piessiiies toi removal ol aitiliual when people believed television posed a i^ohsfraints on entry- into the industry . . . threat to social and- political life. The At the birth of television m 1956, access-to* 'regulation 'often related to questions of ^bfoadedsting' ' (and communications) was “ political piclerment” | | bureaueratie wav îregâfded'.as' a privilege — a form of patron­ of saying political favours)’, and the debate age exercised by governments. It is- now was "generally dominatedhyemotion rather claimed hs a matter* of right.” than reason.

Over t|te ’years, politicians from the ■¿Ai-hrief*fljdok at?/;broadcasting histdfy Liberal/Country and Labor parties h'avë explainsbbw the new rule .changes are not;, fiddled and tamperedis-with the legislation to to^%ithe.-words p|aheireport’Siau’thorsv-“a ■ deal dut political.favours, so there is pahacea for the ills afflicting ^commercial :ho thing runustial about politicians and television’ an'd-pah do no more Chan place’ mediaproprietprs getting together to set the a few band-aids on the system. The founda|~ agenda. ' The mstory of Australian-broad‘lions were laid inhl953, when R.G. Menzies casting is littered- with examples: special buckled1under to the demands of the;news- ;iiewsp>dper trains for Fairfax in thé paper and ra'dib proprietors and gave away eighteen-eighties'; a prohibition on the ABC the .public, airwaves, rather* than following establishing a- news service in the thirties the UK model offranchizing companies-to .because the" newspaper proprietors feared reduce programmes. thé-, compétition: The most recent'lav our ’ This system' is; enshrined jn a complex Was $hej 1981 ‘Murdoch amendments’, .piece’ ofYlegisl'ation administered bv the which removed the ‘public interest’ require­ Broadcasting' Tribunal, which has estab­ ment so Mr Murdoch could expand his TV lished content regulations and ownership interests from Sydney into Melbourne, and ‘tests’ over the years. It has proved a changed the ownership criterion liom bonanza for the legal profession, a head­ residency tpvçitizènship because fylurdoch ache for the Tribunal, a goldmine for the ehbse to jiyein America. mhlti-media: companies and most regional' Ndw?it?is thè Labor government’s turn to irn^nopblisrs> and is now a. nuisance for a ^fiddle, -with thè ownership rules. The old. government intent on deregulation. The pritìèjpliè Of local ownership has eroded, the television owners maintain that their previously sacred rule prohibiting foiuen ; .M|epcesrand the market in ideas are like anv ownership is under tttreatVand the Big F o lli .other piece of private propertv and anv corpotations have rnqre powèr to wield, jj|ther market economy. They want the right partly Because th'ere .is no restriction | | | jto buy, sell and invest in this market with­ boning” newspapers and radio and teleout government interference (sueh as a limit vision stations m maiopolitan cenTre's^ and *»;|®^ning two- stations, oi counting a the^-have national reach. f‘direct interest’ as 5% of shares). That the stock ’ »exchange endorses this view is indicated by the f ut that trade in media shares is one of the most prolitabL (and unproductive) growth areas in this countiv The report’s authois a^ept this industrv The Labor Party has already decided to l^ixpeaive and treat television ownership remove the limit on owning two telev ision as a business oppoituniiv loi those who ean licences, so it is now a question of tinkering attoid the price of the shates In line with with the rules. Should there be local or both Prime Minister Hawke and President foreign or cross-media ownership? What Reagan’s beliel that less business regulation shoùld: ownership involve?.flow should means more economic growth, the TV co.htroFor influence be ihterprëted? industrv must therelort. be lret ot lestnc Th|; thorny arpa-of foreign ownership is tions The authois bonow iiom the US to leftf-unresolved in?the report': it is clear that characterize this as a tiee maiket appioach ■its authors await decisions from the Federal Court and1 the jBfqadcasting Tribunal, on ;W|ie|herL*as,. a fordignpr, Mr Rupert MurbJqehjand1his Mews Corporation are m a CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — W ‘

Aii stage: W m m S m ^ m m S S m S ss^ B m m S ^ i really could did the and In of foreign cinema and television operations — the T film librarvw ^ ^ ^ r o ^ ^ m ^ P ^ a ^ ^ l the Sky Channel network across Hnope And he; is tising*.

The autho^ ^ ^ g h ^ ^ ^ ^ y ^ ^ Srg l M | “ foreign owr a ^ i ^ ^ i ^ ^ ^ M i ^ W I inhibit the grammes and viewpoints” But, no doubt in anticipatiofflH B M ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ m w w ^ response to the Muidoch dilemma, thev tail to ask the revers^^^& ii^w ^ E ^ ffl^ ^ ^ ^ g removal of fo r e ® ownership restrictions would actually encourage the transmission of foreign programmes Unless national governments lake a stand, the economic and ideological pressures exerted companies-to creat^ ^ ^ W ^ w l ^ i ^ l global advertising arlH ^ f P B W m ^ M i^ l products for multi-national audiences seem almost irresistible. A s « ^ ^ m Mm ^ ^ W p the powerful l e g i s l a « | ^ ^ f f l ^ ^ ^ ^ certainly think there is a dangoi with .foreign ownership, That is why Murdoch had to become an American citizen to acquire his new l \ network. But, if h i s t o i ^ n K H i ^ ^ K lessons, it is that the Australian government of the day is more likely-to buckle'/t-o corporate pressure, and the ntw Report could well be seen as an i n J ^ ^ ^ ^ f H H staff at the ABC characterize as a “ pre­ emptive buckle” .

On the question of local|p r^ r#^ m |s|' the authors adopt an approach which mirrors the foreign ownership argument, i.e. that local ownership does not ensure local programmes. Since most stations are now owned by people who are situated in Sydney, Melbourne, Perth or theyrcUnitied' States, this is basically a truism. It is some­ thing which has to do with the marketplace, and the government is evidently not going to disturb the operations of that market­ place.

The lack of any limit on cross-media ownership (TV, radio, newspapers), especi­ ally in metropolitan areas, does get a mention in the report, though newspapers appear to have been added as an after­ thought, following a resolution at -th e^ ’|gjj ALP conference in Hobart: one major con­ sultant to the report, Coopers & Lybrand, 18 — N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

provided homes on the uoss-ownciship ol television and radio onlv which show that nuirlv halt the television owners hold the report's authors come up with on this question is tanlv cxtraoidinaiv ‘ Mthough there is substantial cross media ownership in metropolitan areas rhev sav this is to some extent mitigated bv the lame number ol radio and television stations and news papers ” Writing a report from Canberra can create problems m local knowledge ol other between reading Murdoch and lairtax ncwspapeis in the moimnc and iltunoon

and responds to an owner’s corporate interests and duetd ihiounh manageis editors and the tvpcs ot piogramines ottered Yet, m a rather cavalier fashion, the / r epbr-1 ’ star

thou Jit to be related to ownership and was idevant seems to have been conveni­ ently

US regulations): Australian programme

Packer iadio and T \ lrom midnight till extensive use ot the news agenda provided bv \ \P which is loinrlv owned ln the lim es mumviiaie The media powei ot the Bu lour media conglomerates is evidenced bv the pooi. emasculated \B<_ hiring the services ot top Fan tax touinalisis Lven \BC iadio news Sunda\ T \ piogiamnie So much loi diveisitv fiom the \BC Indeed, Mi Packei should not get lost in this equation cspcci allv now he is usiiu the same pusonalities

lie mav, like Fan lax and Heiakl and Wceklv Times, secure a national netwoik

lishino Club Supeistation and the Skv Channel These plans wcie latiticd bv the

tioncd whethei this tvpe ol subsetiptton-1 \ encouiagement

ot

Australian

creative

lepiesentina Mistiahan vanetv artists and

WHO OWNS THE AIRWAVES? But does it mallei that those who control little lelationship with the mass ot the tele­ vision audience, and none at all with the tegional one1 Does it make anv difference

displaced by TV in pubs and clubs. ' jj 1 : The \ustiahaii pioduction lndusirv.

Australian TV content quotas, and film and I \ tax concessions were all cieated afteKan enormous struggle on the part of pro­ ducers, actors, writers and even local to the new ‘quasi-broadcasting’ area of As usual

\ustralian

planneis

have

the largest capital lesouices* Does it make a difference it diveisitied eonglomeiates with mieicsts in media and bicwenes oi

cferegulatory) body, the Federal Communi­ cations Commission, to illustrate the problem ot ensuimg equitv loi both broad­ casting and quasi-broadcasting cdh^mim'i^j cations seivices Iiiev pose the questuM 'and;services?

• , / v * “Is it possible to devise .an ownership and The answei ot eouise, is that it iR>es \ control policy flexible enough to cope with matter who owns our commercial television new technologies1 To this thev should 'Staiidns^% Y^tr-

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leteience ol oiienng a ‘diveisity of view-

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ACCORDING TO PLÁCIDO DOMINGO (WHO SHOULD KNOW), THERE IS AN OLD SPANISH PROVERB: NEVER TWO WITHOUT THREE. FRANCO ZEFFIRELLI’S FILM OF VERDI’S OTELLO (IN WHICH DOMINGO PLAYS THE TITLE ROLE) IS THE THIRD MAJOR OPERA MOVIE OF THE PAST THREE YEARS, FOLLOWING IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF ZEFFIRELLI’S OWN LA TRAVIATA AND FRANCESCO ROSI’S CARMEN. DOMINGO WAS IN AT T. THREE — AS ALFREDO IN LA TRAVIATA, AS DON JOSE IN CARMEN. TO COMPLETE THE PICTURE, OTELLO IS THE THIRD OF ZEFFIRELLI’S ‘SHAKESPEARE’ FILMS — ANOTHER OF THE FORMS HE HAS TRANSFERRED FROM STAGE TO SCREEN — AFTER THE TAMING OF THE SHREW IN 1966 AND ROMEO AND JULIET IN 1967. FOR THIS TRIPLE ALLIANCE OF CLASSIC DRAMA, ROMANTIC OPERA AND CINEMA D’AUTEUR, DEBORAH BEER TOOK THE PICTURES, AND GIDEON BACHMANN TALKED TO THE DIRECTOR AND THE STAR.

CINEMA PAPERS Novem ber — 19

ON SET WITH

What is special about Otello? What makes it different from all your other work?

4

m very lazy. Before deciding to do any­ thing, especially a movie, I have to find out, to be sure, that it’s the right thing for ^ me — that, in this moment of my life, of my career, this is the project I must do.

Why is that?

Because, otherwise, I don’t get involved. If I’m not fully convinced that the film I’m making is the right film for me, I don’t come up with anything. Actually, I don’t even do it! With all the films I’ve done before, I’ve always found out first that they were right for me at that moment. They may not have been right for the audience . . . although, so far, it’s proved that they were right for the audience, too!

before, I had had a tremendous success with Romeo and Juliet at the Old Vic, but Othello did not work because I had nothing to do with the problem of age and so on.

Now, I understand things better.

Do you think that, in old age, we become more vulnerable?

Yes, you become more vulnerable when you try to do things that belong to youth. If you try to compete with youth, to redis­ cover the passions of youth, then you are in trouble. You have to live and love as an adult.

So Otello is old age without maturity?

No, this is maturity without youth. His involvement is so complete, so young and so total that he cannot control it, he cannot find the right balance.

Why Otello at this point o f your life?

Well, first of all, Otello is a tragedy of maturity: it isn’t Romeo and Juliet. When I did Romeo and Juliet, I was much younger and I believed in juvenile love. Now, I’m much more inclined to analyse the tragedy that love can bring to people’s lives when they’re no longer young and they don’t believe in pure love. Later in life, love becomes something much more complex, not just “ I love you” , “ You love me” , “ Let’s love . . .” In maturity, love has to be the total involvement of a person, of a personality. That’s the tragedy of Otello, because she is young and she loves in a young way. He loves in a mature way.

That’s why he’s so vulnerable: because he cannot believe his luck! And it’s enough that a monster like Iago inject a little bit of doubt and suspicion in his mind for the whole illusion to break up. He’s a mature man who has been beaten by life, and he cannot believe his luck.

Are you saying that because you yourself are o f a certain age?

Well, let’s put it this way: because I am of a certain age, I can understand the problems of people of that certain age! I was not ready for Otello when I did Romeo and Juliet. In fact, one of the few flops in my career was in Stratford-upon-Avon, at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, in 1961, when I did Othello with John Gielgud. The year

20 — Novem ber CINEMA PAPERS

But does this story have a meaning fo r now, in terms o f how we mature in the industrial age?

You know, man can progress, can go to the moon, go to Jupiter — he can do anything in terms of technological progress, scien­ tific progress, whatever you want. But man remains exactly what he has been for ten thousand years. We laugh and cry for the same reasons that the ancient Egyptians loved and laughed and cried. Man has not changed: he has not had the opportunity of changing. And the texture of human beings has not changed, cannot change: it would take thousands and thousands and thou­ sands of years before something resulted.

We are still primitive. We still cry if our lover leaves us, we still laugh at the same old jokes. And we still hope in terms of the eternal conflict between good and evil. This is the essence of man. So, whatever pro­ gress you see around us doesn’t mean any­ thing to us as human beings. We are as capable of jealousy, hatred, hope and despair as, 500 years ago, was Otello.

But the problem is, it’s a very special relationship between Desdemona and Otello. It’s not a common relationship: you start with something very special — a dark, black man with a young, white, Venetian girl of noble origins. So, right at the start, there is a strange situation, and you have to find the right balance. Any crisis that happens in a situation as special as that is bound to be a total disaster. ►

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber â&#x20AC;&#x201D; 21

ON SET WITH (§ m m < §

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P lactiia Hanttngo: REFLECTIONS IN A L IT T L E EYE

How important is singing fo r you?

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Singing is, for me, almost my whole life, part of my being — something which I don’t think I can, for the moment, live or function without. Of course, there will come a day when I won’t be able to sing, just like you get used to walking slower when you get older, to running less. So, one day I won’t be able to sing, and I will accept it. But, for the moment, it is part of my life, and very much so.

When you say ‘a part o f my life’, does that mean that other things are more important?

What I do with that voice, that’s a different thing. Most of my life, I have been singing for what I consider is a very good cause: to make the public happy, to make them attend a performance in peace, to really intensify their feelings. But I think there is a lot more you can do with a voice, with a career, with your entire life. You can also use it to help people. And then, the bring­ ing of peace and happiness — simply bring­ ing that to people — is not enough today. I think I have realized that. You can bring almost everything to people: you can bring not only casual happiness, you know, but real happiness. You can help them to rebuild their lives, to rebuild their emotions. I am trying to do as much as I can, for the moment specifically for Mexico after the earthquake, but later on for other places.

s s

Do you feel that Otello has a bearing, in a direct way, on that?

Well, I think that this is a film that is going to appeal to the public in general, not only to music lovers. It has all the essence of a film, combined with the best you can get in opera, because Otello is one of the most popular and best Verdi operas, and it also has Shakespeare. Franco is a wizard at combining these three things. I believe that, if people go to any kind of show, they are there with just one thing in mind: to partici­ pate, to live that story for those moments.

So, naturally, the time that the perform­ ance lasts, they don’t have any other ideas in mind: they are just enjoying it. And, if they are happy with what they have seen, then they leave the movie house or the theatre with something that lasts longer in their souls. And that could be a help, also:

22 — N ovem ber CINEMA

PAPERS

at least, we get a lot of letters expressing that feeling.

Do you feel that the fact that a lot o f people come to see a film — more than would normally go to the theatre or opera — is an important reason fo r transferring opera to film?

Definitely. I believe there is a new public, a fresh, young public, because of the opera movies that we have done. There is the public that cannot afford to go to the theatre, but there is another kind of public: the public that, for one reason or another, has not been interested in opera. It is easier for them, one afternoon or evening, with­ out having to get pressed up, without having to make preparations, just to walk to the corner and go and see a film. Maybe that moment opens a new experience for them.

You don’t feel that there is a major differ­ ence in the way the work is presented?

The stage has the excitement of the moment of truth and all the risks of performing.

The theatre will live forever because the public will still want to have that feeling: they want to see this live danger-moment.

On the other hand, with all the work on a film, it is a will, a testimony that we leave of our profession, of our careers for the future, you know: for people to see more or less the way we were on the stage.

The two worlds are diametrically opposed. On the stage, you are living the life of this character very intensely for three hours, three hours and a half, and then it is finished. In the movie, you are also living intensely, but you are dealing with days and days and months and months of work.

Here, everything is elaborated little by little, little by little, and only later on we see the results: it’s in the hands of the director and the editor. It’s very curious, the camera, but it sees everything. You cannot lie to the camera: it sees a movement that is false, it sees your eyes, it sees inside your soul. In the theatre, it is only at that moment that the emotions are living, and you are able to have this magic communion for a minute or two minutes: you will live it and it will live always in your mind. But that’s it: you cannot repeat it. In the movie, when you have something, then it’s the truth.

Does that mean that you can lie in the opera house?

It’s not exactly that you can lie, but the emotions have to be absolutely truthful and small for the camera. For me, it is easier to be truthful on the stage, because it is my territory: I have been there all my life. For the camera, everything has to be minimized. And maybe your feelings are not that easy to express if you are used to doing it in a bigger way for two, four, five, maybe twenty-five thousand people in Verona. I think both are true, but it’s more difficult to be truthful for the little eye — the eye of the camera.

What about your relationship to yourself while you are performing, when there is nobody present except this blase film crew who’ve seen it all ~20,000 times?

Well, you just have to have the feeling that it is the first time. Every time you repeat a scene, you just cannot afford to say: Oh, no, I’ve done this three or four times already. Now I can take it easy!

Working with Zeffirelli on an opera on stage and on an opera on film must be very different.

My connection with Franco has been great, both in the cinema and in the theatre. We understand each other perfectly. But he is the magician, the only one that could really make both things go together. You were asking me before: what do you consider yourself in this, a singer or an actor? I think basically you can talk about interpretation, which takes everything together: singing, acting, feeling, everything. We are trying to live this character in a very real, very Shakespearean way. As they say, there is never two without three: Franco has made two great films from Shakespeare, The Taming o f the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet. I believe Otello is the third.

More Shakespeare than Verdi?

I tell you one thing: when you’ve heard Verdi, then you hear only Shakespeare, you wonder, Where is Verdi? The music has made the drama so strong. For me, Shake­ speare is in Verdi. But, when I see simply Shakespeare, I miss Verdi._

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UNIT No.: 4205 STUNTS, SPECIAL EFFECTS AND SAFETY 8 December-12 December Course Co-ordinator: Sue Wild Places Avail. 4 - Cost $240.00

UNIT No.: 4206 FINANCING THE DOCUMENTARY 12 November-26 November ('/2 day/week) Course Co-ordinator: Sue Wild Places Avail. 4 - Cost $90.00

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UNIT No.: 4401 THE ACTOR/DIRECTOR RELATIONSHIP 13 October-12 December Course Co-ordinator: Ross McGregor Places Avail. 4 - Cost $900.00 UNIT No.: 4801 BASIC TELEVISION DIRECTION TECHNIQUES 17 November-12 December Course Co-ordinator: Bill Fitzwater Limited places avail - Cost $800.

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Left, NFSA headquarters at Acton, ACT. Above, Longford’s The Woman Suffers (1918), a major fin d o f The Last Film Search and the Archive’s next restoration project. Right, Marie La Varre and Rawden Blandford in Franklyn Barrett’s The Breaking of the Drought (1920).

Over the years, Cinema Papers has been host to quite a few articles arguing the need for a National Film Archive. Now, of course, there is one, and it’s already two years old. But is it doing what it set out to do? Ray Edmondson, Deputy Director of the Archive, reckons — with some reservations — that it is.

Anniversaries are arbitrary but important — a reminder of the passage of time, a reason to put things in perspective and a time to ask questions. This is, moreover, as true of countries and institutions as it is of individuals.

By comparison with the country, approaching its Bicentennial, Australia’s National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) is but a stripling: on 3 October, it cele­ brated the second anniversary of the spec­ tacular opening of its Canberra head­ quarters by Bob Hawke, a mere seven months after the announcement by Arts, Heritage and Environment Minister Barry Cohen that the new institution had been created.

It is an institution of great expectations.

Both Ministers reflected widely-held senti­ ments in their speeches, setting forth a proud vision of the Archive’s purpose and future stature. It was, above all, a declara­ tion of the social and historical importance of the screen and sound media to Austra­ lians, and of the necessity for a distinct institution to embody that heritage and provide for its preservation and permanent accessibility.

The creation of the NFSA (which initially involved the separation of its components from the National Library of Australia) was the outcome of a historical process which has been partly documented in Cinema Papers and elsewhere — a remark­ able story, eloquent with the concern and affection Australians bear for their screen and sound heritage, and consistent with the fact this country was one of the first formally to provide for the preservation of that heritage, by establishing the National Historical Film and Speaking Record Library (attached to the then Common­ wealth National Library) 50 years ago.

When it first came into being, the NFSA inherited not only collections, but also responsibilities and problems. These in­ cluded a vast backlog of cataloguing, the organization of collections and preserva­ tion work, which were the legacy of decades of minimal staffing and funding. There was also a rapidly rising level of demand for access to the collections, which had long since become impossible to meet. So, there were unrealistic expectations that the new institution was going to change all this in short order. These turned, inevitably, to disillusionment when it became apparent that the turnaround was going to take time, despite a prompt injection by the govern­ ment of additional staff and funds.

The Archive had an identity, but its physical, philosophical and administrative framework had to be established. Premises ►

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 25

Y M P D / T O m W SÒ

had to be found, collections and people moved, facilities and equipment built up.

Above all, long-delayed policy questions had to be addressed, so that the Archive could develop on a solid footing.

The NFSA was, from the outset, a going concern, rather than a new body starting from scratch, which might have had the leisure to take a more studied approach to such matters. To tackle policy, legislative, administrative and forward-planning issues, the government set up an NFSA Advisory Committee, twelve-strong and chaired by producer Joan Long. The Com­ mittee was aware that its report would not only stand as the NFSA’s foundation docu­ ment, but that it would also have to be a credible document, which would be analyzed locally and internationally.

What emerged was a colourful, illus­ trated book, Time in Our Hands (available from the NFSA, GPO Box 2002, Canberra 2601, $10 plus $1.50 p&p), which was launched by Barry Cohen last November to an excellent public response, and which has since had wide international circulation. Its recommendations are far-reaching, and are presently being considered by the govern­ ment (although any definitive response may not occur until the current review of museums and collecting institutions is com­ pleted).

Providentially, premises for the NFSA were quickly found, through the good offices of Barry Cohen, his colleague, Neil Blewett, and the Prime Minister. The old Australian Institute of Anatomy, superbly located between the centre of Canberra and the university, was to be vacated, and the building became the Archive’s head­ quarters^. An architectural gem on the National Estate register, it included a theatre, library, exhibition halls, storage and office space — and land for expansion.

It is visually impressive (especially since re­ furbishment has restored its interior to its original glory) and rapidly gave the Archive its own physical identity.

One of the first areas to receive attention was the storage of collections. There was particular need for a consolidated facility that was adequate for the special require­ ments of films, videotapes and sound carriers. Lacking this in the past, collec­ tions had become increasingly scattered (as they still are) over several locations in Can­ berra and Sydney. And, in some cases, the storage conditions were seriously deficient.

The government’s decision promptly to remove NFSA materials from the National Library was soon underlined by the aftermath of the Library fire.

The Archive’s collections contain more Left, a poster fo r Ken G. H all’s emotionally dynamic The Silence of Dean Maitland (1934).

Top left, the NFSA report, Time in Our Hands.

Above, the modified fam ily o f Steele R udd’s stories in Dad and Dave Come to Town (1938), the third in the series.

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than a million items, dnd the solution to their storage involved three buildings.

Access copies would be located near client services in the headquarters. Preservation and backlogged materials would be housed in a new facility in the Canberra suburb of Mitchell, adapted to provide the necessary range of temperature and humidity con­ trols. The nitrate film vault at Mitchell, taken over from the Library, would be extended and upgraded to house all the in­ flam m ables. The N ational Capital Development Commission and the Depart­ ment of Housing and Construction will complete their work in 1987, making it possible for the first time to house the whole national collection in an appropriate environment.

Technical facilities were also an urgent concern. In 1984, the NFSA’s professional video facility comprised one secondhand quad playback machine which, in the absence of the space or staff to operate it, had never been installed. Now, it possesses a newly commissioned, compact and versa­ tile video laboratory, which can deal with 2 ", 1" and the smaller video formats and which will, shortly, be able to handle filmto-video transfers. Next year will see a start made on new audio dubbing suites and a unique film rejuvenation laboratory. These are dramatic advances, even if they are simply the fundamental tools necessary for a media archive to operate effectively, and to maintain reasonable preservation and access standards.

The traditionally Canberra-centred operations of the NFSA have been supple­ mented by regional offices in Melbourne and Sydney. The presence is, as yet, minimal. But it’s there, and paying divi­ dends in making acquisitions easier and providing some alternative to the tradi­ tional trek to Canberra for Archive clients.

In time, the regional offices will hold their own ready-access collections, and be on­ line to the central databases being built in Canberra.

So far, so good. Shouldn’t all this pro­ gress result in dramatic improvements in activities and services? The answer is a qualified yes — yes, that is, in proportion to the degree of growth, and not necessarily immediately. Such a guarded answer needs to be understood against the complex dilemma spelt out in Time in Our Hands: building the preservation and acquisition programmes to an acceptable volume, and getting even half the total collection cata­ logued and readily accessible, will take years of work and require dramatically in­ creased resources. And it is a progressive task: specialized expertise and facilities

have to be grown — they can’t be created overnight, no matter how much money is made available.

What is more, the NFS A has, like every­ one else, to live within the realities of tough times and government spending restraints.

So, the Archive has to seek the best value for money from the best management of its work. For instance, the nitrate-copying pro­ gramme won’t, in future, be measured simply by aggregate footage, but by what is copied when, and how well. The Archive has gained agreement for a special team, engaged under the CEP programme, to supplement its preservation staff and spend nine months age-testing the nitrate collec­ tion, to determine the life expectancy of every reel. Then a computer system, rather than educated guesswork, can determine the copying priorities. The film rejuvena­ tion laboratory will significantly improve the quality of the copies.

Along with the lifting of access restric­ tions and an improvement in services, has come the introduction of service fees.

While this is consistent with overseas practice, it is new here, and the principle of free public access to the national heritage has had to be carefully weighed against the reality of providing an expensive and labour-intensive service. In a marketplace unused to the notion, it raises dilemmas: should everyone pay the same, or should there be different fees according to a per­ ceived ability to pay? As it is, a standard fee for all users has been set, but the Archive may vary this according to consistent procedures. For instance, some clients may be able to negotiate a ‘quid pro quo’, in the form of research information or collection materials.

The Archive has been able to negotiate deposit and donation agreements with the Australian Film Commission, and with industry associations such as the Video Industry Distribution Association and the Australian Record Industry Association.

These have begun to mitigate the tradi­ tional hit-and-miss approach of past acquisition practice. Most o f the major and independent film distributors now give the Archive advance warning of intended deletions, so that overseas and Australian producers can be given the option of trans­ ferring prints sought by the NFSA. With the introduction of public exhibi­ tions, a schools education programme and its use by outside bodies, the NFSA building is now part of the Canberra tourist circuit and can receive hundreds of visitors in a single day. Publications and other items are on sale in the Archive shop, and the NFSA will be developing its marketing

capacity, as well as seeking more corporate sponsorship.

Does that mean that it’s “ selling off the farm” — as one journalist put it — or com­ promising its integrity? By definition, as a public institution subject to legal con­ straints, it can’t do the former. Nor can it afford to sell its most precious asset — its integrity — to the highest bidder. But neither need be for sale: the Archive has a sponsorship policy and guidelines against which it judges proposals, and against which the net benefit to Archive and sponsor are assessed. Some proposals have been turned down, others sought and accepted.

For myself, I find something intrinsically healthy about seeking the sponsorship dollar: it’s hard work, and perceptions about the value of money are solidly anchored in reality. Perhaps the best current example of a sponsored project is the ‘Last Film Search’. Without the con­ siderable financial input of Kodak, the Utah Foundation and others, it would never have happened, and our film history would be immeasurably poorer.

To sum up, one event in particular influ­ ences my personal framework for judging the progress of the NFSA over the last couple of years. In April, it hosted the 42nd annual congress of the Fédération Inter­ nationale des Archives du Film (FIAF). It did so very successfully, with an excellent overseas attendance. But the congress differed from its 41 predecessors in two significant ways. It was the first ever held in the southern hemisphere. And it was the first ever hosted by such a young organiza­ tion. That the delegates came so far — indeed, that the congress was held here at all — was a compliment to the NFSA and to Australia. It was evident that the dele­ gates were impressed as much by their Aus­ tralian colleagues, whom most now met for the first time, as by the progress made by the NFSA in so short a time. And we gradu­ ally realized that, in some respects, the Aus­ tralians now had more to teach than to learn. It was a far cry from the time, not so long ago, when those few Australians who could contrive to visit a European or American archive felt rather like observers from the proverbial banana republic. ★

Above, Jack O ’Mahoney with Veda Ann Borg in the American /Australian co-production, The Kangaroo Kid (1950). Right, the McDonagh sisters’ first film, Those Who Love (1926). A three-minute segment was recently acquired by the Archive from a private collection. Below, The Last Film Search on the road in Queensland.

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 2 7

B IL L

More duck fo r your buck: director Bill Bennett.

2 8 â&#x20AC;&#x201D; N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

RISKY BUSINESS

HAROLD ASHFIELD

The very independent Australian filmmaker Bill Bennett has nearly completed his third feature, Dear Cardholder, while his second, Backlash, has just been released.

K a th y B a il talked to him about risks, responsibility and the fine art of shooting without a script.

Rough justice: David Argue as Trevor Darling in Backlash.

One line has been repeated in each of Bill Bennett’s feature films. A character says: “ You have to do this — they’re the rules” , and another retorts: “ I don’t care” . The stories Bennett tells are about bucking the system and the strategies used to do so are not so far removed from his own paths of action. His way is the adventurous one: low budgets; small, committed crews; occa­ sional improvization; and tight reigns on the filmmaking process: Bennett is pro­ ducer, director, writer.

His favourite accessory is a Ronald Reagan pendant: he likes to confront people, he says with a larrikin grin. And, in his first two features, A Street to Die (1985) and Backlash (1986), he has done exactly that. A Street to Die recently took out the Crystal Globe (Best Feature Film) and the Critics’ Prize at the Karlovy Vary Festival in Czechoslovakia. Backlash was selected for the ‘Un Certain Regard’ section at the Cannes Film Festival this year and also screened at Montreal. Surprisingly, though, the films have not received the same level of recognition in Australia. While Chris Hay­ wood was awarded Best Actor for his lead role in A Street to Die at the 1985 AFI Awards, the omission of Backlash from this year’s nominations has led some to question the awards system.

A Street to Die is a dramatization of the tragic life of Colin Simpson (Chris Hay­ wood), the first Vietnam veteran to win compensation for injuries caused through exposure to the deadly chemical, Agent Orange. Using conventional narrative, Bennett produces a powerful exposé, affirming his belief in film as a social medium.

In Backlash, he embraces another con­ temporary concern, questioning the legal system and how it positions, in particular, Aboriginal people. Two police constables (David Argue and Gia Carides) escort an Aboriginal girl (Lydia Miller), who has been charged with murder, to her home town. En route, they become stranded on a deserted sheep station, where different rules come into play. “ These films are really made out of a lot of anger,” says Bennett, “ but that anger is tempered through humour. It is no mistake that I cast Chris Haywood and David Argue to play the leads, because they bring a levity to what are ostensibly heavy subjects.”

Similarly with Bennett’s third feature, Dear Cardholder, now in post-production.

Robin Ramsay is Hec Harris, a taxation clerk who loses his job and gets caught in an A fter Hours-tyyt scenario when he is forced to apply for more and more credit cards to pay his debts. Bennett’s wife, Jennifer Cluff, plays the tough-minded character, Aggie, a rebel poultry-farmer whom Hec meets at the tax department, where she lets loose cages of chickens to pay her taxes in kind. The film is about ‘small people’ who have been stamped on by bureaucracies, and it follows the (often very funny) ways the two characters and Hec’s precocious daughter, Jo (Marion Chirgwin), team up and take on the system.

The fiery independence expressed in the film is characteristic of Bennett, the pro­ ducer, who has raised the finance for his features by himself and without the assist­ ance of government film bodies. His method, he admits, is one of carpet­ bagging. For A Street to Die, he flew to Mackay, looked through the phone-book and phoned every accountant and solicitor in the area, informing them that he was

seeking investment for a film. He then con­ tinued to hand out brochures in small towns from Mackay to Port Douglas.

Bennett claims that the combined budget of his three features is less than $1 million, and he feels that, if good quality films can be made on low budgets, then tax incentives are not, by and large, necessary. “ I just see a lot of people getting very fat on 10BA and still not making good films. It is very damaging to the industry,” he says.

“One of the advantages of raising money the way I do is that I personally know just about every investor, which gives you a very, very strong sense of responsibility.

This is where the marketing and distribu­ tion come into it, too: if you know what the investment means then, for me, it is im­ possible just to walk away once the film is finished. These people put money into my film because they trusted me, and the point is that a lot of them reinvest. That makes me feel that I’m doing something right!”

At 32, Bennett’s story is that of the selfmade man. He has incredible drive and a quiet assurance about going it alone. And, while filmmaking so often seems to be about compromise, he is continually mark­ ing the point at which you cannot give in, a quality evident in his sensitivity to the craft of communicating.

A Street to Die, for example, maintains a very consistent shooting style, built up by a series of one-shot scenes. What was important, Bennett explains, was that “ the scenes had a natural rhythm, a pace. I didn’t want to contrive that in editing. It meant, though, that the decisions made on location were the ones that you were locked into. There was no recourse later on if those decisions were incorrect. “ In Street, I didn’t want the camera to impose. I wanted it to step back and be an onlooker. I didn’t want the camera to be milking sympathy from the events, because I felt that they were strong enough and that, if the camera was ‘objective’, the audience would then step into the frame and, I guess, sympathize.”

“ Acting was a very mysterious process to me” Bennett will, however, be able to play on the emotionalism inherent in more subjec­ tive camera work in a scene in Dear Card­ holder where the 60 Minutes crew arrives to cover a violent confrontation at Aggie’s farm. There is a further element of irony here because of Bennett’s own career as a television reporter.

After throwing in a medical degree, he started working as a cadet journalist at the ABC. Keen to make a film about the swimmer, Steve Holland, he convinced the news editor to let him do it. “ That was my first experience, really,” Bennett jokes. “ And I was hooked from that time on!”

Reports for This Day Tonight, A Big Country and Willesee followed. In 1979, he was awarded a Logie for a report on an illegal street march in Brisbane and the treatment of the demonstrators by the Queensland police. Another acclaimed story was a 30-minute documentary on the search for a rogue crocodile in the Northern Territory.

Ultimately, though, he found the experi­ ence of television journalism frustrating. “ I tried to do stories that were going to do ► CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 29

BILL

some good,” he says, “ and often that was in conflict with what the programme required. The producers wanted light enter­ tainment, and what the stories were saying was incidental to that. Basically, I got out of it because I thought it was a lie.”

It was during this period that Bennett had a near-fatal car crash. After three months in hospital with a broken back, he began working as an independent producer/director. He made a dramatized documentary called Cattle King (1983), which was backed by Dick Smith, and another about a 66-year-old sailor whose boat was caught in a cyclone during a single-handed yacht race from New Zealand to Australia. The film, Ship­ wrecked, won the GUO Award for Best Documentary at the 1984 Sydney Film Festival.

Some of the techniques Bennett developed while making documentaries he has brought to his feature productions, par­ ticularly the flexibility of working with small crews and, rather unusually, small cameras. Each of his features has been shot on Super-16 and finished on 35mm. “ There are real advantages in using a small earnerq,” he says. “You can' work quickly and there is also a psychological aspect: people are less inhibited and more likely to Live action: Robin Ramsay (Hec Harris) and Jennifer Cluff (Aggie) on the set o f Dear Cardholder.

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formal rehearsal of dialogue. The casting was thus crucial — but in Argue, Carides and Miller, he found actors who seemed to delight in the freedom this approach offered. Some critics have noted that it is, in fact, in the scenes involving actors other than the principals that the film fails. But, generally, the performances of the leads are dynamic, creating an edginess and suspense in the desolate outback setting.

A lth ough there has been som e improvization in Dear Cardholder, Bennett is working with a finished script. One senses, however that under his direction there will always be openings where some­ thing strange might bubble up. On the set, a live chicken found its way onto the mantlepiece in Aggie’s loungeroom, and sat happily in amongst the ribbons and trophies, much to the art director’s delight. “ The script is changing a little,” says Bennett. “ If things don’t work as we’re shooting, or in rehearsal prior to that, I’ll rewrite them. But there’s not going to be that much improvization. This is a very different film to Backlash — I guess I’m just exploring different styles.”

Bennett wrote the first outline for Card­ holder four years ago. But, for him, the writing of the screenplay is the end of a long process of preparation. “ I work out roughly what the story is about,” he says; “ I decide on the characters and then I diagrammatically sketch the film. I get a long piece of paper and mark what happens at various points. Once I’ve got that structure, I do a 40-45 page treatment — a scene-by­ scene breakdown. It doesn’t have dialogue, only indirect speech. That is the key working document, and I’ll revise it over and over again until I’m happy with what the characters are doing in action rather than through dialogue. The actual writing of the screenplay is normally quite fast.” take risks. The transfer is almost indistin­ guishable, although at times I really miss that pristine crispness — the quality of definition — that only a 35mm camera can get. But, for the sort of work I’m doing at the moment, it is absolutely ideal.”

In documentary making, Bennett was frustrated by the lack of ‘control’ over characters and events. There were three actors in Cattle King and, he says, it was difficult getting ‘performances’ out of the other participants. He was writing several scripts for features, but admits to having had a fear of actors and acting techniques. “ It was a very mysterious process to me,” he says. “ Two years ago, I did acting classes with Brian Syron and studied different techniques and approaches. I came to realize that acting is, in many ways, a scientific process, a technical process, just like changing a lens or using a different microphone. I found that it helped my writing enormously, because the detail the actor requires is often the detail that makes a scene really live, giving a basis for the whole film.”

Paradoxically, it is in his approach to acting that Bennett has taken the most risks. With Backlash, he wanted to make a film that worked principally on dramatic structure and used totally improvized dialogue. It was new territory for him — and for Australian cinema.

Working from-a 27-page scene break­ down, he began shooting without any

“ You can get away with murder, technically, if w h at’s happening in the scene is true” The period Bennett spent studying acting was crucial, he believes, in learning how to formulate characters. Like an actor, he works through the character’s background, amassing details about their life, 95% of which may never appear in the script. Even for small parts, he gives the actors a life outside the screen life. Having written the material himself, he also feels more able to engage the actors and establish their trust.

He certainly agrees that it is vital to give actors flexibility — to allow them to strike a truth, a point he continually emphasizes: “ There are too many films where the pre­ dominance of effort is spent on making the frame technically perfect at the expense of what’s in it. It is the actor that gives a film soul, not the fact that it’s beautifully backlit, or that it’s got Dolby stereo, or that there is exact continuity from one shot to the next. If the actor has struck that truth, then the scene lives. I mean, you can get away with murder, technically, if what’s happening in the scene is true.”

Music is a crucial ingredient in the con­ struction of a character and a way, for Bennett, of uncovering this element of truth: in Dear Cardholder, Hec is ‘jazz’ and

Taking on the system: Jennifer Cluff and Chris Haywood as Lorraine and Colin Turner in A Street to Die.

Aggie is ‘Wagner’. “ When I’m writing a script,” he says, “ I hear the music. I have to, because it dictates so much.” Com­ posers Michael Atkinson and Michael Spicer have worked with Bennett on each of his films.

Bennett’s films have been met with hesitancy by Australian distributors: too commercial for arthouses and too arty for the commercial cinemas, it would appear.

Backlash is now, however, being released at the Dendy in Sydney in early November and has been offered a release in North America through Samuel Goldwyn. A Street to Die, after a limited theatrical release last year, was screened on Network Ten in March, and has actually done well in Eastern Europe — perhaps, Bennett sug­ gests, because it is viewed as an antiAmerican film.

Indeed, it is the possibility of overseas distribution that makes Bennett all the more determined. “After going to the festivals at Cannes and Montreal this year,” he says, “ I realized that you can make a film that may not work in Australia and yet works in other territories. This isn’t the only repository!”

With a review in Post if and generally good reactions from the French press, Backlash was also picked up at Cannes by AAA Classics. Bennett says, though, that he was surprised the film was accepted by the French because it is “very Australian: we made no allowances to internationalize the dialogue. There are an enormous number of colloquialisms. The humour is often very understated. It is not a physical humour — which tends to translate across boundaries: it is a verbalized humour. So I was surprised when they laughed in all the right places.”

But how is Bennett situated in terms of what is happening here? A little guarded in what he says about the Australian film industry, he acknowledges there should be more dialogue, a healthier criticism, less of the ‘tall poppy’ syndrome (“ It is totally counter-productive. It is as though film­ makers are competing with each other and we’re not: there’s room for twenty hit films in Australia a year!” ).

Perhaps it is his journalistic background, but Bennett generally works on three or four different projects at once; now, how­ ever, he is telling the stories he wants to tell.

At present, two features, Jilted and The Light, are at different stages of scripting: very few directors in Australia can organize such a quick turnaround period. He brings to each project a responsibility to com­ municate, prompting many to view his films as very political, although he would prefer to say that they are films that “ care” . Certainly they are about spon­ taneity, passion and, most importantly in the Australian context, risk — which is 1 something to celebrate, not deny. ★ CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 31

JOYCE AGEE

Dreaming dollars: Robin Ramsay as Hec Harris, on location fo r Dear Cardholder.

A decade ago, the profile of Dutch cinema was so low it was hard not to miss it.

But now, in the eighties, Holland’s film industry is beginning to make its mark. Nick Roddick looks at what has been going on, and at some of the themes and topics that continue to obsess Dutch filmmakers.

Keep watching the skies: Lex Schoorel in Fons Rademakers’s masterly The Spitting Image.

Heroine in disguise: Renee Soutendijk (right) with hair dyed black and Loes Luca in The Girl with the Red Hair.

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THE TIDE Right behind remarks about windmills and purple prose extolling the tulip fields in bloom, there is one cliche about Holland that few foreign writers (and even less Dutch ones) seem able to resist. “ God made the world,” it goes, “ but the Dutch made the Netherlands.”

With films, the Dutch have been less lucky: it wasn’t God (and it certainly wasn’t the Dutch) who made cinema: it was Holly­ wood. And Dutch filmmakers — writers, producers, directors, actors, technicians — have been plagued by the fact since the birth of the movies: no cultural dyke has ever been developed strong enough to resist the surge of transatlantic product. Of the 297 new films released in Holland in 1985, 192 (65%) were American. Only sixteen were Dutch, with the home team edged into fourth place, not only by the USA, but by West Germany (28 films) and France (25 films) as well.

The temptation for ambitious film­ makers to emigrate has, therefore, proved almost irresistible, with overseas careers offering more scope and more challenge.

Sometimes, the emigration has been ideo­ logical, as with the great documentary film­ maker, Joris Ivens, who made only one film in his native Holland after 1930, the rest being made in China, the Soviet Union, East Germany, Cuba, the United States and even Australia (Indonesia Calling, 1946).

Mainly, though, the attraction has been facilities and finance. Successful Dutch actors like Rutger Hauer, star of Blade Runner and The Hitcher, have gone to Hollywood; or, like Jeroen Krabbe, star of the Dutch film, De vierde man (The Fourth Man, 1983), to England, where Krabbe will be the villain in the upcoming Bond movie, The Living Daylights.

Behind-the-camera people have gone over, too, like Menno Meijes, who scripted Spielberg’s The Color Purple', director Paul Verhoeven (of whom more below), who is now directing a sci fi movie in the USA; and DOP Jan de Bont, whose camera work on Jewel o f the Nile was one of the best things about it. “ I want to make films like David Lean makes them,” Verhoeven told me in 1983, just after he had made The Fourth Man: “ big and interesting and really for a big audience. But nobody in Holland is interested in that kind of stuff or has the money to do it.” Verhoeven then,

Dutch cinema in the eighties

of course, went on to make Flesh + Blood for Orion, which David Lean wouldn’t have touched with a bargepole. It was cer­ tainly big, arguably interesting, but it didn’t get much of an audience.

Notwithstanding the exodus, however, the past five years have seen something of a boom in Dutch cinema, both on the home front (where, from 1980 to 1984, Dutch films were cornering a larger share of the market) and in terms of international awareness, thanks to the increasingly high profile of the recently formed Holland Film Promotions, and not a little to the efforts of the Dutch Film Days and (especially) the Dutch Film Market, which had their sixth outing late this September in Utrecht.

But this boom has not been cheap. Given the obvious obstacles to a flourishing feature-film industry in Holland — the dominance of Hollywood; a maximum potential Dutch-speaking audience of around 20 million (in Holland and in the Flemish-speaking area of Belgium); a geo­ graphical location which enables Dutch televiewers to eavesdrop on programmes from France, Germany, Belgium and the UK — filmmaking in Holland has, for the past 30 years, been heavily subsidized by the government.

Although the Production Fund system was an unmitigated blessing when it was introduced in 1956, it has grown more problematic over the years. The fact that grants did not have to be paid back encour­ aged filmmakers to ignore the need for an audience; and, in the past couple of years, production costs have increased out of all proportion to the available state funds.

This is now forcing most Dutch filmmakers to make the kind of choice that is becoming increasingly inevitable in Australia: between low-budget art movies with a long ‘shelf life’, and big-budget epics with a high level of risk but the chance of high profits.

Sigma Films’ Matthijs van Heijningen has worked in both areas, producing Marleen Gorris’s two films, De Stillte rond Christine M (A Question o f Silence, 1982) and Gebroken Spiegels (Broken Mirrors, 1984), as well as commercial properties like De Lift (The Lift, 1983), the 2-millionguilder ($950,000 at the time) Van de Koele Meeren des Doods (The Cool Lakes o f Death, 1983) and the recent mega-guilder gamble, Op Hoop van Segen (The Good

Hope, 1986), budgeted at Dfl 5 million ($3.9 million, at current prices), which has not paid off. Van Heijningen is now backing off from big-budget pictures. “ I don’t think that Dutch filmmakers should try to produce international films,” he was quoted as saying recently, in a refrain that will ring familiar downunder. “ We should stick to our own heritage and make Dutch films that people abroad also want to see.”

D IS T IN C T IV E V O IC E S The best films of the eighties have fitted that bill. Amid all the films about urban alienation (Holland is, after all, a very urbanized country), the TV-style social realism and the self-conscious experimenta­ tion which makes up the bulk of respectable Dutch cinema (the unrespectable side has a scatological jokiness which is more or less unexportable), a few films have really stood out over the past three or four years.

Eric de Kuyper’s Casta Diva (1982) and Naughty Boys (1984) were essentially gay cult films. But his 1984 movie, A Strange Love Affair (made in English), is much more accessible. Filmed by veteran DOP Henri Alekan, who worked on Carné’s Drôle de drame (1937) and Quai des brumes (1938) and shot Cocteau’s La Belle et la bête (Beauty and the Beast, 1946), A Strange Love A ffair is a homage to Ameri­ can cinema (there are explicit references to Johnny Guitar), but also a fascinating analysis of an affair between a film teacher, Michael (Howard Henzel), and his student, Chris (Sep van Kampen), which rekindles memories of an affair Michael had with the student’s father (Karl Scheydt) some fifteen years previously. In the end, the old affair is rekindled. But, this time, there is hope . . . Scrupulously filmed and elegantly told, the film deserves at the very least a cult reputation, at best an international arthouse release.

The Cosmic Illusion group is something else again. An international artists’ collec­ tive, active in theatre, film and the visual arts since the mid-seventies, the group’s first two features are heavily dependent on ►

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 33

the extraordinary Caribbean actress, Marian Rolle. In 1984, the group — led by director Felix de Rooy, who is from Curacao, and writer/producer Norman De Palm (from Aruba) — made Desiree, an English-language film set in New York, whose eponymous heroine’s life is traced, partly in flashback, from a disastrous child­ hood, through a love affair, and into religious obsession and infanticide. The style is mid-way between documentary and filmed theatre, and it is Rolle in the title role who holds it together.

The group’s second film, however, Almacita di Desolato (1985), is set in a village on Curacao, the dialogue is in Papiamentu, and the result is close to stun­ ning. Almacita di Desolato moves inexor­ ably from realism to folk tale, reliant on ritual action and music, as it tells its tale of a village priestess (Rolle) who becomes pregnant by (apparently) a spirit, and of her efforts to save the child, Almacita. In particular, the last half hour of the film takes on. a truly mystical quality, reminis­ cent of the late Glauber Rocha’s Antonio das Mortes — a memorable achievement.

Less quirky but every bit as original, Jos Stelling and Orlow Seunke are two direc­ tors who have, against a lot of odds, developed a distinctive personal voice in their films. Stelling’s new film, De Wisselwachter (The Pointsman) confirms a talent for storytelling (the entire film’s dialogue, in French and Dutch — one character speaks one language, one the other, but neither both — consists of less than 100 lines) and the ability to create a world with its own rules. Set in an isolated signal box (it was filmed in the north of Scotland), The Pointsman confronts a closet indivi­ dual (Jim van der Woude, the ‘pointsman’) with a sophisticated woman (Stéphane Excoffier) who steps off a train one snowy night and stays through four seasons.

Veering between terror, embarrassment and violent possessiveness in their relation­ ship, the pointsman and his visitor finally achieve an eerie balance. The Pointsman is the kind of film that has one reaching for metaphors, but ultimately forces us to take it on its own terms.

Orlow Seunke, born in 1952, is seven years Stelling’s junior. A graduate of the Dutch Film Academy, he has so far made four TV films, a TV series, an episode in a four-part feature, a documentary, a cinema short and two features. The first feature, De Smaak van Water (The Taste o f Water, 1982), which won the Golden Lion for best debut film in Venice, is a fascinating but slightly uneven work about a social security man establishing a relationship with a cata­ tonic child. But Seunke’s second film, Pervola, shown at this year’s Sydney Film Festival (Melbourne apparently didn’t want it) is a clear indication of a major filmmaking talent. Two brothers, a seedy cabaret artist and an investment broker, set off for a nameless northern country to visit their dying father. Their father’s last wish is to be buried even further north, in Pervola.

As the brothers journey into the wilderness, threatened by a hostile climate and hostile inhabitants, their relationship changes, with the wealthy Hein (Bram van der Vlugt) overwhelmed by the more resourceful Simon (Gerard Thoolen). The journey, though, is what Pervola is all about — an insane trek through frozen wastes in a vast, unwieldy sleigh which finally catches fire.

Like Stelling’s The Pointsman, Pervola creates a world and inhabits it — a strange, beautiful and utterly compelling film.

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T H E L U R E OF T H E LAND These individual voices apart, though, it is impossible to make definitive comments about a national cinema in a four-page magazine article. But it seems worth attempting a couple of generalizations. In recent Dutch cinema, two key themes — the land and the war — seem to predominate.

The first may seem rather odd, in a couhtry that is densely populated and almost acutely urbanized (426 people to the square kilometre, as against Britain’s 225 and Aus­ tralia’s 0.48). But a periodic examination of the traditional values of the land and of the struggle against nature (often, though not always, the sea) seems to occupy, for Dutch filmmakers, the same sort of ‘touchingbase’ function as do the pioneer days in the United States and Australia, or the Vic­ torian era in Britain.

A key film here is the extraordinary De Dijk is Dicht (The Dike is Sealed), directed

by Anton Koolhaas in 1949, which matches the postwar disorientation of a man (Kees Brusse), whose wife has been killed while he was in a German labour camp, with the desolation caused by the bomb that breached the sea wall protecting the Schedlt Delta island of Walcheren. From the opening grimness — than man’s grief; the newsreel footage of desolation — the film shows man and land being rebuilt, morally and physically, in the era of postwar optimism. And its ending — a village-hall dance, in which Bert (Brusse) finally breaks the spell of his depression — is as exhilara­ ting as anything in the great populist fables of Frank Capra a decade earlier.

In The Dike is Sealed, as in other con­ temporary films about the war (such as the partly dramatized documentary, LO /LKP [1949]), the countryside seems to occupy a special status — a kind of repository of ‘real’ Dutch values, untainted by the occupying forces, who have turned the cities and towns into forbidding, furtive places. Gradually, though, as peace and prosperity return, a phenomenon can be observed similar to that noted by the American critic, Ben Stein, in his book, The View from Sunset Boulevard (1979): small towns, once the places where ‘real folk’ lived, have become hot beds of reaction and bigotry, perhaps even of psychosis and other murderous forces. The real people are now urban or suburban.

Thus, in Paul Verhoeven’s 1979 Spelters, the only one of the lads to live outside the town is persecuted, mentally and physic­ ally, by his narrow-minded father, a religious zealot who will not even try to understand his son’s different ways. But the old theme — the old need — of the land lingers on nevertheless, giving rise to one of the more interesting films of the eighties, De Dream (The Dream, 1985), directed by Pieter Verhoeff.

Like Verhoeff’s 1980 film — and first feature — Het Teken van het Beest (The Sign o f the Beast), The Dream is based on historical fact: a rigged political trial in the north of Holland at the turn of the century, in which a socialist farmer, Wiebren Hogerhuis (Peter Tuinman), is falsely accused and even more falsely convicted. The main characters all speak the regional dialect of Friesian (in Dutch, the title would be De Droom), and Verhoeff’s recreation of rural poverty and the desperate, troubled birth of socialism out of need and oppression are sensitively and convincingly handled. A pity

that the last part of the film — the events surrounding the trial — is (like the left itself) too ready to become embroiled in factional nuances. But the film as a whole is one whose failure to travel outside Holland remains a mystery — indicating, perhaps, that the whole business of filmmaking in the Netherlands is so tenuously financed that there is nothing left over for pro­ motion and marketing: producers at major foreign festivals tend to see their films over­ whelmed by the publicity machines of larger countries.

O C C U P IE D T E R R IT O R Y One interesting aspect of The Dream is the way in which the Dutch-speaking police in the nearby town of Leeuwarden take on, for the Friesian-speaking farmers, the aura of an occupying force, above all in the scene in which they first ride into the farm­ yard, to the simultaneous terror and con­ tempt of the farmers themselves. Watching that scene, it is hard not to think of that other recurrent theme of modern Dutch cinema: the German occupation during World War II. This topic was the subject of an inter­ national critics’ forum in Utrecht this year, organized by the Circle of Dutch Film Journalists. The title was ‘Occupation, Col­ laboration and Resistance in Dutch Film’, and the exercise revealed two things: there have been an awful lot of Dutch films about WWII, especially recently; and the subject is one which it is quite impossible to relegate to the category of historical oddity.

The war was a time in which the Dutch national character was tested and redefined in a way that could only happen in an occupied country. Communities were split three ways: those who joined the resistance, those who joined the fascists, and those who kept their heads down and survived.

250,000 Dutch people died during the war, especially Jews, who were herded into a ghetto in Amsterdam, then systematically deported and exterminated. The echoes of the war still sound in Dutch society; and, as the films screened in Utrecht — and some of the opinions expressed in the closing colloquium — suggest, the issues are far from buried.

Dutch films about the war make the same journey from innocence to scepticism as the films about rural life — something intensi­ fied by the fact that, by the mid-eighties, those filmmakers making films about WWII are mainly too young to have experi­ enced it directly, even as children. What they have experienced, however — and this is crucial — is the aftermath.

In the early features and documentaries — which are, in any case, few in number, given the very low level of feature-film activity in Holland in the two decades following the war — there is a ‘lest we forget’ tone. Even as late as De Overval {The Silent Raid), directed in 1962 by English documentarist Paul Rotha, the tone is that of an adventure story (albeit a very well-told one), and there is no shading between good guys and bad guys. Indeed, R otha’s Griersonian style, with its montages of atmospheric shots, gives one the bizarre (for a 1962 film) impression that one is watching something made during the war.

Twenty years on from The Silent Raid, however, although good and bad are still pretty clearly located — it seems unlikely

D utch cinem a in the eighties that a Dutch filmmaker will produce a sym­ pathetic film about a member of the NSB (the Dutch Nazi Party), or even about a reluctant collaborator: a Dutch Lacombe Lucien is still a long way off — some of the inevitable questions about wartime realities are beginning to be asked. Were those who joined the resistance inevitably propelled by a heroic hatred of fascism, or may they just have been ordinary young people with a craving for action or even a desire to settle old scores? Were all the Germans murderous martinets, mindlessly carrying out the Master Plan? Did everyone do all they could to help the Jews? Above all, were the noble aspirations of the resist­ ance fighters fully realised — or realised at all — after the war?

They are, in some cases, questions so delicate even nowadays in Holland that filmmakers seem reluctant to ask them directly. Yet the fact that the resistance leaders — the rebels of the early forties — became the establishment of the fifties and sixties, makes them highly pertinent. Ben Verbong’s film, H et Meisje met het Rode Haar (The Girl with the Red Hair, 1981) was among the first to tackle some of these questions. It is the story of resistance heroine Hannie Schaft (Renee Soutendijk), a member o f the communist resistance — a group whose key role in the anti-German struggle has been somewhat played down by official postwar chroniclers. Hannie’s lover and mentor, Hugo (Peter Tuinman), is clearly something of what, in the sixties, would have been called a left opportunist.

And Hannie’s own final acts seem to have more personal than political motivation.

Yet the questions are secondary: Hannie remains a heroine.

Dimitri Frenkel Frank’s De Ijssalon (The Ice-Cream Parlour) tackles, for Holland, a truly dangerous subject: a three-way friend­ ship between a Dutch girl (Soutendijk again), a German officer (Bruno Ganz) and the Jewish owner of an Amsterdam ice­ cream parlour (Gerard Thoolen), who had been friendly with the German in Berlin before the war, where he had been proprietor of a similar (though much larger) establishment on the Kurfiirstendamm. Again, the film has a basis in fact: it was clashes between Dutch fascists and anti-fascists outside a Jewish ice-cream parlour that sparked off the rounding up of Holland’s Jews by the Nazis. But the film is less concerned with historical events than, with its characters, and with the pressure that forced ordinary people into making irrevocable choices.

A third film, Kees van Oostrum’s Bittere Kruid (Bitter Sweet), tries a lot less success­ fully to take a similar approach to the Jewish question (the Dutch title refers to the bitter herbs eaten on the Day of Atone­ ment). The film was originally based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Marga Minco, a Jewish writer who was, like her heroine, the only member of her family to survive the war. But Minco sued the pro­ ducer, and references to the book were dropped. Bitter Sweet watches the dis­ integration of a prosperous Jewish family, but parallels it with the disintegrating friendship between the daughter (Ester Spitz) and a friend (Mirjam de Rooij) whose father is a high-ranking NSB man. It is an idea that probably looked better on paper than it does on the screen: the clash between the two worlds is too extreme for Sara to be able to link them by the simple (if dangerous) fact of crossing the bridge out of the ghetto. And, if the extra dimen­

sion indicates an attempt to approach the subject from a less-than-traditional angle, it creates more problems than it can solve.

F in a lly , A te de J o n g ’s In de Schaduw van de Overwinning (In the Shadow o f Victory, 1986) really attempts to bite the bullet, but is spoiled by a muddled construction and some unconvincing scenes. It contrasts a gung-ho resistance man (Jeroen Krabbé) with a Jewish intel­ lectual (Edwin de Vriest) playing a danger­ ous game with the Germans, whereby he may be able to save the lives of 600 Jews.

The two men’s methods are wildly different, but perhaps the Jew’s are more effective. If In the Shadow o f Victory had only been a better film, it might have been the definitive statement about Holland and the occupation.

T H R E E F IL M S In retrospect, the best films about occupa­ tion, collaboration and resistance are those which are, in fact, about something else.

And here, the theme of WWII has enabled Dutch cinema to produce three world-class films: one masterpiece, one very good film, and one near-miss that is worth all the careful pieties of recent Dutch war films.

Two of the films are by Fons Rademakers, whose career has already seen one Academy Award nomination (for Dorp aan de Rivier/ Village on the River, 1958), a Berlin Silver Bear (for Makers Staakt uw Wild Gerass/That Joyous Eve . . ., 1960), and one of the few Dutch films to get a major release in the United States (the epic Max Havelaar [1976], about the Dutch in Indonesia, which occasionally shows up here on SBS TV).

But it is his 1963 film, Als twee Druppels Water (The Spitting Image), which towers above all of them. Shot in widescreen black and white by the inimitable Raoul Coutard, Godard’s cameraman, it is a film which begs to be rediscovered — almost, one might say, to be rescued from being Dutch.

The film starts in 1942, when a boring tobacconist called Ducker (Lex Schoorel) hears a plane flying low and sees a para­ chute drifting down behind his house. Im­ pulsively, he takes in the parachutist, offer­ ing to do anything to help him. The para­ chutist, Dorbeck, turns out to be Ducker’s spitting image (and is played by the same actor).

As time goes by, Dorbeck gives Ducker a series of mysterious assignments, which in­ volve him in shoot-outs, cold-blooded assassinations and a number of para­ military acts which, Ducker imagines, are making him a resistance hero. But, when the war ends, all trace of Dorbeck has dis­ appeared, and Ducker’s acts begin to look like those of a traitor, not a hero. He can prove nothing to his captors — not the existence of Dorbeck, not the reasons for his acts, not that they were tactically successful. Indeed, his own identity has become totally lost, beneath the dyed hair and assumed personality of Dorbeck. “ The circumstances of war, the threat, the ten­ sion, the danger in the background,” says Rademakers, “ can produce very bizarre effects from everyday events. That is what appeals to an artist. Those are the reasons why a filmmaker tackles the subject.”

Twenty-three years later, with money from the ubiquitous Cannon (who are the single biggest force in Dutch cinema), Rademakers has returned to the war with De Aanslag (The Assault, 1986), which

takes the opposite approach: a single war­ time event is refracted through the years that follow, making the film a history of Holland from 1944 to 1985.

Towards the end of the war, during the ‘hunger winter’ of 1944-5, when the Allies were in the south of Holland but the Germans still occupied the north, a young boy, Anton, loses his family, almost by chance. An NSB man is shot by the resist­ ance outside the neighbours’ house. The neighbours move the body in front of Anton’s parents’ house. The boy’s elder brother tries to move it again, but the Germans arrive, and the brother is killed.

The family house is torched in reprisal, and Anton’s parents executed. An almost banal event, in a war which saw 250,000 Dutch people die . . .

The Assault records the event, then follows the boy (now grown into a man and played by Derek De Lint) through the postwar years, with his comfortable profes­ sional life still dominated by that night in 1944. Anton gradually pieces together the events of the puzzle, meeting the son of the dead NSB man, then the resistance assassins, discovering that the body wasn’t moved the other way because the people in that house (whom his parents had always thought stand-offish) were sheltering a Jew. It is a film which would work better as a miniseries, but its 144 minutes remain the most thorough piece of Dutch cinema yet made about those traumatic and simultane­ ously formative years. It is so because, like The Spitting Image, it is ostensibly about something else — the aftermath. And it confirms that, at 66, Rademakers is still a filmmaker of world standing.

The final major film about the war comes from the irrepressible and irreverent Paul Verhoeven (see the interview in Cinema Papers 55, January 1986). Soldaat van Oranje (Soldier o f Orange/Soldier o f the Queen/Survival Run, 1977) is about a group of prewar college chums whose lives diverge with the commencement of hostilities. Two more or less drift into the resistance and end up with Queen Wilhelmina in London, making dangerous trips back to Holland; one joins the NSB and dies on the Eastern Front; one is black­ mailed into collaborating and becomes a traitor; one simply pursues his studies and, in a wonderful little scene at the end, tells the only other survivor how dangerous it was getting through to take his final exams!

What makes Soldier o f Orange so good is that it accords attention to all five, even the NSB man, who dies in a dunny outside Stalingrad when a peasant boy tosses in a hand grenade. That scene, too, gives the key to the film’s strength and success: in an area overpopulated by piety and an excess of caution about stepping on historical toes, Verhoeven blunders ahead with wonderful energy and boundless vulgarity (though his sources — such as a re-enact­ ment of a scene in which worthy Dutch burghers press flowers into the hands of the invading German soldiers — are impecc­ able). Soldier o f Orange is arguably the only Dutch film to have the verve and pace of a Hollywood buddy movie (Rutger Hauer and Jeroen Krabbé careering through an air raid in evening dress in a motorcycle and sidecar is a virtuoso piece of filmmaking). And it has the ability, like Rademakers’s films but in a totally different way, to come to grips in passing with major issues far more successfully than other, more direct, films about occupation, col­ laboration and resistance. * CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 35

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Getting set to raise the hackles in Hawker Problems fail to daunt the $10.5-million Lighthorsemen The sunburnt country was not living up to expectations: Hawker, South Australia (population: 100; location: five hours north of Adelaide) had just been hit by one of those torrential downpours that can evade farmers for decades but follow film crews with glee.

The result was to close off the roads into the area and halt filming on the RKO/FGH/Picture Show pro­ duction of The Lighthorsemen — the first time in his career, says director and co-producer Simon Wincer, that he has had to miss a day's shooting.

The production has not, to date, had all the luck on its side. A heli­ copter crash on the third day avoided fatality by a hair’s breadth.

And, as anyone in the film industry knows, running out of weather cover on the third week of your shoot is not something to be relished.

But no one in Hawker seemed despondent — uncom fortable, a d m it te d W in c e r , b u t n o t despondent. The rushes, flown in on a daily basis from Atlab, were, said writer and co-producer Ian Jones, looking fantastic, and the action footage shot so far had everyone with their hearts in their mouths.

The Lighthorsemen is an Austra­ lian epic — ‘‘a story about men and horses and water” , the press release rather perplexingly calls it — that, unlike other recent big-budget movies about Aussie battlers taking on impossible odds, ends in triumph, not disaster. The film tells the story of the Australian Light Horse Regiment, which took part in the British campaign in Palestine in 1917, and its climax is the charge on the Wells of Beersheba (which is where the water comes in). “ It was the last great cavalry charge,” says Jones, "and it was stunningly successful. It changed the history of the Middle East, by taking Palestine away from the Turks.”

Jones has, he says, been obsessed with the charge and the Regiment that carried it out for — he pauses to work it out — “ 45 years, since, in one year, I read The Desert Column by Ian Idriess, The Wells of Beersheba by Frank Dalby Davison, and saw Charles Chauvel’s Forty Thousand Horsemen.” Chauvel’s film, says Jones, was about a fictitious regiment; and, although the charge has cropped up from time to time in other contexts, “ it hasn’t

been terribly well handled in the past” .

Wincer and Jones aim to change all that, and have got the impressive sum of $10.5 million to spend on doing so — more than was spent on Burke & Wills, and more, in fact, than has been spent on any Australian film to be made to date other than Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome.

That budget has been made poss­ ible by a presale to RKO, arranged

by Film and General Holdings’ Antony I. Ginnane — and what Aus­ tralian film would be complete with­ out him these days? — which secures investors a 60% return.

At one stage, Jones was to have directed the film himself, but appears to have handed over the reins quite amiably to Wincer, whom he first met when they both worked at Crawfords. “ W e’ve worked together on and off for sixteen years,” says Jones. “ We’re not playing egos, and it’s working like a dream.” * Given the size of the budget, one slightly surprising thing about The Lighthorsemen is the absence from the cast of any of those names that, according to Jane Deknatel’s Parthian shot, you can’t do without if you want the Americans to buy your films.

There is, of course, a very strong local cast, with John Walton, Jon Blake, Tim McKenzie and Gary Sweet as the four-man section who are initially the film’s focus, and Peter Phelps as the young recruit who replaces Sweet when the latter is w o u n d e d . But only A nth ony Andrews, as Meinertzhagen, repre­ sents the sort of international guarantee Australian films are supposed to need.

Wincer is dismissive of the prob­ lem, however. “ What is going to sell this film is not stars,” he says: “ it’s the action. I guarantee the hackles on the back of your neck will rise.

But that’s because you’re interested in the characters. If you get the audi­ ence to fall in love with your charac­ ters enough, they’ll be there with you the whole time. That’s what’s going to sell the film. It’s got the conflict, the drama, the emotion, a fabulous ending — and they win\”

Men and horses: right, the regiment in action; below, Tas (John Walton) and Chiller (Tim McKenzie) visit Frank (Gary Sweet) in hospital.

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Ordinary people Back in the early sixties, when the issues seemed more easily polarized — the Freedom Riders were still on the buses, the TV news reports were still full of redneck Southerners in snarling close-up — Time magazine quoted an unnamed movie critic on the subject of racial integration in Hollywood. He would believe the place was integrated, he said, when Sidney Poitier was cast as a murderer.

Australian cinema is still a longway from anyone being able to make that kind of remark. For a country with a substantial black population, Australia has a spotty record in terms of its cinematic representation of Aboriginals. There have been ‘good’ black people (iManganinnie) and ‘bad1 black people (The Chant of Jimmie Black­ smith). But black people have nearly always remained, from the film’s narrative point of view, other. Only very occasionally, as with Wrong Side of the Road, has there been a film which has integrated its Abori­ ginal characters, in the sense of letting the narrative take them for granted — a film in which what they do, rather than what they are, becomes the chief source of interest.

The greatest strength of Bruce Beresford’s The Fringe Dwellers lies in the way in which it sets out, on at least one level, to do just that: to look at the Comeaway family — Mollie (Justine Saunders), Joe (Bob Maza) and children Noonah (Kylie Belling), Trilby (Kristina Nehm) and Bartie (Denis Walker) — as a family worthy of interest for its problems, not its black otherness. The film treats a series of what one might call 'every­ day traumas’: family financial prob­ lems; Trilby's late-adolescent urge to escape to the greater opportunities of the city; the unwanted pregnancy that may condemn her to a life of kiddominated squalor; and a ‘shock ending’ straight out of the stockbook of family melodrama.

It is a narrative into which social problems have been intricately woven, and which is closed by a coup de cinema followed by a fairly traditional 'leaving scene’: Trilby, the film’s central focus, sets off at dawn with her suitcase, pausing only for a moment’s silent, meaning-laden eye contact with her mother.

The screenplay — by Bruce and Rhoisin Beresford — holds the whole family neatly and concisely in the foreground, only occasionally succumbing to the mechanics of social melodrama (as, for example, in the scene in which Joe is waylaid by a gambling mate as he heads for the Housing Commission to settle the family’s rent debts).

Don McAlpine’s cinematography eschews the dramatic, Australia-thebeautiful tones which so often prove irresistible to DOPs filming in the out­ back, and instead gives the ‘dum p’ where the Comeaways live, its sur­ rounding countryside and the adjacent town a deceptively simple combination of dreary realism and pictorial interest. If the story, taken

from the novel by Nene Gare, pulls the film towards melodrama, direc­ tion and photography repeatedly pull it back to ordinary reality, par­ ticularly in their resolute refusal to mythologize either the dump or the town.

Above all, the performances of Kristina Nehm as Trilby, Justine Saunders as Mollie, and Ernie Dingo, quietly impressive in the much less developed or rewarding role of Phil, the boy who makes Trilby pregnant, anchor the film in a way that, like the cinematography, is deceptive: the stress on banal realism should not be allowed to detract from the fact that these are, very much, performances.

Ultimately, though, The Fringe Dwellers is unable to hold the balance between problem picture and family drama. The ‘otherness’ of the Comeaways slowly and un­ mistakably emerges as central to the film’s depiction of them as a family.

And here, realism fights a losing battle with stereotype.

Joe, the father, is work-shy, fond of a drink, given to gambling ("A boy’s got to have a holiday,” he mutters in the film’s opening scene).

Mollie, the mother, borrows a coat to dress up in a parody of fashionable­

Packing it in: Trilby (Kristina Nehm) about to take o ff at the end o f The Fringe Dwellers. ness for her visit to Noonah at the hospital where she works, only to be told by Noonah that “ you’re the third person to come and see me in it this week” . Noonah, unable to master the written side of the nursing exams, is shown to make up in caring what she lacks in learning.

Only Trilby resists such typage, because that is what the narrative requires her to do: she is the one that will leave, who will make her own life.

That the film needs these props — as it needs the marginal character of Eva (Kath Walker), the old woman who predicts the catastrophe and frightens the children with her tales of Aboriginal spirits — is, however, a direct result of its commitment to ordinariness. For the threats to the cohesion of the Comeaways — poverty, ambition, unwanted preg­ nancy — are so ordinary, at any rate in dramatic terms, that they leave the film with no other way of leavening the dullness.

Liberally determined to be fair and honest, The Fringe Dwellers ends up

trapped and subverted by its own liberalism. Because there is little else to hold the attention, the feckless­ ness of the Comeaways, their cheer­ ful substitution of togetherness for social action, become the real focus of the film. And, subjected to that kind of attention, the stereotypes beneath the conception of the characters and their situation are all too soon revealed.

Nick Roddick

The Fringe Dwellers: Directed by Bruce Beresford. Producer: Sue Milliken. Executive producer: Hilary Heath.

Screenplay: Bruce Beresford and Rhoisin Beresford, based on the novel

by Nene Gare. Director of photo­ graphy: Don McAlpine. Production design: Herbert Pinter. Music: George Dreyfus. Editor: Tim Wellburn. Sound recordist: Max Bowring. Cast: Kristina Nehm (Trilby Comeaway), Justine Saunders (Mollie Comeaway), Bob Maza (Joe Comeaway), Kylie Belling (Noonah Comeaway), Denis Walker (Bartie Comeaway), Ernie Dingo (Phil), Malcolm Silva (Charlie), Kath Walker (Eva). Production company: Fringe Dwellers Productions, in association with Ozfilm. Distributor: Roadshow.

35mm. 98 minutes. Australia. 1986.

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The poetry of paradox Eight years ago, not long after his highly successful Préparez vous mouchoirs (Get Out Your Handker­ chiefs) had won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film of 1977, Bertrand Blier wrote a scenario for the opening scene of a new film. He was, how­ ever, unable to devise a plot to go with it and, abandoning the idea, went on to make four other films, all of which (with the possible exception of 1979’s Buffet froid) were boxoffice — if not critical — failures.

Watchjng Blier’s latest film, Tenue de soiree (Evening Dress), which eventually evolved from that scene, one has the impression that Blier is trying to settle a debt with his audi­ ence. It is without question his most accomplished work to date, and that first scene is a tour de force which sows the dramatic, aesthetic and sty­ listic seeds for the film’s entire, exhilarating 84 minutes.

"Some films," says Blier, “ we make for practice — they're a little self-indulgent. But, with others, it’s necessary to get serious again, to overwhelm the audience right from the start. It’s the sign of a very aggressive filmmaker. In Evening

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Dress, I wanted to prove I still had the guts."

"Y o u poor bastard! Y o u ’ re nothing but a piece of shit," hurls Monique (Miou-Miou) at her timid, almost doting husband, Antoine (Michel Blanc). "Yes,” he replies, "but I love you." "Tell me something new,” she screams. " I ’m sick to death of hearing that. Change the record, will you? Everybody knows you love me . . . The more I stink, the more romantic you become!”

The couple are in a seedy dance hall, and Monique’s torrent of abuse continues unabated, without so much as a defensive whimper from Antoine. It ends when Bob (Gerard Depardieu), a stranger to the couple, approaches from the bar and sends Monique crashing to the floor with one deft blow, scattering a wad of banknotes (which he has miraculously pulled from his pocket) behind her. "W hy do you let her talk to you like that?” he asks Antoine.

"You’re a thousand times better than she is. You should command more respect."

The scene is pure theatre, and every word is flung rather than spoken: witty, cynical, yet human and strangely lyrical. Just as reveal­ ing of the film's method are Blier’s lavish sets (an important element in all his films), with’ which he gets dose to what André Bazin once described

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as a “ dramatic opaqueness” , while at the same time allowing the sets to reflect their "natural realism".

The dance hall in the opening sequence was entirely reconstucted in the studio (as is almost every set in the film): a little too perfect to be real, it is bathed in an aquarium light, like the illumination of a cruel fantasy.

During the whole violent exchange, during which Antoine pulls a knife on Bob, the other people go on chatting and dancing without so much as a sideways glance.

What is more, the characters are framed in medium shot, and the frame is something they enter or exit: there are no camera movements, no superfluous shots or close-ups (Evening Dress was apparently edited in only four days). We are, it seems, in the theatre, a nightmarish theatre, somewhere between bur­ lesque and melodrama — a cruel fantasy removed from, yet very much a part of, the real world.

Between each sequence, an invis­ ible curtain falls, then rises onto a new place or time, with the gap bridged only by the speed of the dialogue. To condemn Blier’s style as ‘theatrical’ would, however, be a serious critical error, since what he does is, on the contrary, to restore to

The sea chest: Michel Blanc (left), Gerard Depardieu and Miou-Miou.

the cinema its essential ‘theatri­ cality’, without in any way reducing its power as ‘cinema’. It is a paradox he deftly carries through to his narra­ tive.

Blier describes his film as the story of a homosexual who seduces a man by talking to him about women.

But, he insists: "I didn’t want to make a film about homosexuality.

None of my films is about anything. I have characters in an emotional dilemma and I try to find out what’s behind it. If I made a film about women, it would have been exactly the same.”

Bob — Gerard Depardieu at his most masculine — has developed a taste for men during his ten years in prison. And he falls hopelessly in love with the too-straight Antoine, who, after evincing his repugnance at the whole idea, inevitably suc­ cumbs to Bob’s husky wooing.

Monique, the tough ex-prostitute, is seduced as much by Bob’s rampant sexuality as by his promise of excitement, but she later craves the quiet life and is finally reduced to keeping house for her husband and his lover, while sleeping at the foot of their nuptial bed. Little by little, the roles are reversed, the characters transformed. And, while all three p e rfo rm a n ce s are exem plary, Michel Blanc (who shared the Best Actor award at Cannes) plays his ambiguity to perfection.

During the entire first half, Bob calls the tune, leading the downand-out couple on a housebreaking spree around wealthy Parisian homes, where reality offers no resist­ ance. The houses open as if by magic, and Bob can sniff out the cash at a hundred paces. The owners, far from being outraged, invite the trio to stay the night.

Bob has lost interest in his women because “ like houses, they open too easily". But Antoine, despite having jumped the sexual hurdle, never renounces his love for Monique. It is, above all, this sexual ambiguity that interests Blier in Evening Dress, and he resists the temptation to tie it neatly up. Rather, he leaves the spectators to work it out for them­ selves, with the narrative sliding from theatre to travesty, then on to its bizarre, poetic conclusion. And it is in this ability to combine the comic with the tragic, the abstract with an overwhelming reality, that Blier’s triumph lies.

Michael Freedman

Evening Dress (Tenue de soiree): Directed and written by Bertrand Blier.

Produced by René Cleitman. Executive producer: Philippe Dussart. Director of photography: Jean Penzer. Production designer: Théobald Meurisse. Music: Serge Gainsbourg. Editor: Claudine Merlin. Sound recordists: Bernard Bats and Dominique Hennequin. Cast: Gérard Depardieu (Bob), Michel Blanc (Antoine), Miou-Miou (Monique), Bruno Cremer (Art collector), Jean-Pierre Marieile (Depressed man), Caroline Sihol (Depressed woman), Jean-Francois^Stévenin (Husband in third house), Mylène Demongeot (Woman in third house), Michel Creton (Pedro). Produc­ tion company: Hachette Première/DD Productions/Ciné Valse/Philippe Dus­ sart Sari. Distributor: Greater Union.

35mm. 84 minutes. France. 1986.

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Robbing hoods

THE GREAT BOOKIE ROBBERY The Great Bookie Robbery is so thor­ oughly filled with the wit, language, attitudes and mores of suburban Australia as truly to deserve the stamp of a national heritage. The tale is told entirely in the vernacular, and through the commonest vestiges of day-to-day living: families, personal history, loyalties and individual needs are determining factors.

The highly dramatic story is based on the true events of 21 April 1976, when masked gunmen raided the posh Victoria Club and stole a still undetermined amount of money.

The raid was such that it won the respect of many Australians: not a shot was fired, no one was hurt and, after all, it was only the bookies’ money. It wasn’t quite Robin Hood stealing from the rich to give to the poor, but there was an element of poetic justice to the affair. Or, perhaps it was part of a ‘convict’ attitude: the outlaws who outsmart the upholders of law and order deserve at least a passing recog­ nition of their efforts.

Mind you, these roguish crims aren't all bad. The mastermind of the robbery, Mike Power (John Bach), is the reserved, resilient, silent stoic of a John Ford western. His devoted and loving girlfriend, Carol (Cath­ erine Wilkin), who, during the course of the play, becomes his wife, sees beyond her husband’s masculine cops-and-robbers game, and tries to build a normal life for her family. The widow in black, her loss at the series’ conclusion is a confirmation,

none the less, of the life she would rather lead.

Colin Reynolds (Gary Day) plays within the more acceptable boun­ daries of criminal life — a kind of evergreen businessman. Tony Lott (Andy Anderson) is a loyal and proud tradesman of the criminal elite: "I don’t deal in shit,” he tells Jaffa (George Spartels), “ I rob banks.” Cracka Park (Bruno Law­ rence), reported to be the most wanted man in Victoria, and certainly the most volatile and edgy of the crew, is simply someone who doesn’t like ‘‘being stuffed around” .

While the legitimate crims and the legitimate cops battle wits, the rotten underbelly is represented by Merv and Bob Temple (Paul Sonkkila and Ray Meagher); a used car salesman, Slasher Grey (Gary Files); and a scumbag cop, Detective Edwards (Dennis Miller). The Temples rule the local underworld through parasitic stand-over tactics. For Edwards, the Temples are the bait that leads him to the big fish. In this case, he gives Merv (whose brother, Bob, is killed

by Power’s men) free access to Power as he walks handcuffed to the court. It is one of the film’s most brilliantly executed sequences.

The Great Bookie Robbery makes no bones about the moral issues of crime. Like a Hammett novel, crime is an unmitigated fact which the series, quite literally, leaves to Father M o o re (P e te r C u m m in s ) to sermonize over at Power’s funeral in the concluding minutes of the final

Shooters shooting: John Bach (left), Ray Meagher (kneeling) and Paul Sonkkila on the Great Bookie Robbery set. episode. In one of the series’ most touching moments, Merv Temple, visiting his now widowed sister-inlaw, contemplates his nephew’s par­ taking of dance lessons: “ I wonder what would have become of me if I ’d taken dance lessons.”

R ecalling the Tom Roberts painting ‘Bailed U p’, The Great Bookie Robbery m ischievously observes the bushrangers making their mark. They are the Australian Bonnie and Clyde, heroes and heroines who exist solely within the crime fiction genre. During one scene, a pivotal moment from the Australian film, Blood Money, flickers across a television screen.

By the s e rie s ’ c o n c lu s io n , everyone gets his comeuppance and there is a return to a cynically rendered ‘normality’. While Power is being buried, Lott shoots Merv Temple. The priest’s eulogy reminds Carol of what a devoted husband Power was ‘‘in this era of fragile relationships and easy divorce” .

Castleway (Frank Gallacher), a likely candidate for Police Commissioner, reminisces: "It's the end of an era.

They don’t make them like Power any more.” Edwards, the man who engineered Power’s slaying, gets a 'promotion' to a small, country town.

And the money is safely invested for those still alive, or behind bars, to

enjoy.

The Great Bookie Robbery rep­ resents one of the finest achieve­ ments of local TV production.

Inspired casting and consistent performances are matched in every department. Phillip Cornford’s script is accurate (to the last word), sharp and sparing. The series’ pace and excitement rarely let up. Shot by Ellery Ryan, directed by Marcus Cole and Mark Joffe and edited by Kerry Regan, it has a distinctive, though low-key, visual style.

It has been likened by some critics to the ‘quality’ British realist dramas, Minder, The Sweeney and Widows, but that in itself smacks of cultural snobbery. The lowbrow manner of The Great Bookie Robbery is too stylish, sardonic and exacting to really stand the comparison.

Paul Kalina

The Great Bookie Robbery: Directed

by Mark Joffe (Episodes 1 and 3) and Marcus Cole (Episodes 2 and 3).

Producer: Ian Bradley. Screenplay: Phillip Cornford. Director of photo­ graphy: Ellery Ryan. Production designer: Michael Ralph. Music: Dave Skinner. Editor: Kerry Regan. Cast: John Bach (Mike Power), Gary Day (Colin Reynolds), Catherine Wilkin (Carol Marks), Andy Anderson (Tony Lott), Bruno Lawrence (Cracka Park).

Production company: PBL Produc­ tions. First broadcast: Ten Network, 14-16 September 1986. 3 x 2 television hours. Australia. 1985. .

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Baking a chocolate pie In 1980, I saw Henry Jaglom’s Sit­ ting Ducks in London and, shortly a fte rw a rd s , c o u ld be h e a rd announcing to the world on BBC Radio that, in Patrice Townsend, I had found the woman of my dreams.

Thereafter, alas, Ms Townsend disappeared from the screen, and I had to see Jaglom’s newest film, Always, to discover that she married Jaglom in 1977, then divorced him to pursue a career as a teacher of yoga. In case one doubts her bona fides, Always contains a hypnotic demonstration by Townsend of her ability to place her left ankle next to her neck and support her entire bodyweight on one slender wrist.

After seeing Always, one can see why she needed such skills. Living with David, the self-confessedly autobiographical character Jaglom plays in this film, Townsend’s Judy would need the stamina of a frontrow forward, and perhaps the sensi­ bility as well.

In Always, Jaglom tries to come to terms with the experience of Town­ send giving him (in S.J. Perelman’s pithy phrase) the mitten. Opening with Judy’s return to her old home after two years to sign the final divorce decree, it ends with her leaving again after a nostalgic 4th of July weekend, during which David flirts optimistically with the possibility that they may get together again. He reluctantly abandons it when Judy shows herself disinclined to waste any more of her life as curator to his collection of thirties memorabilia and custodian of his drooping self­ esteem.

The first image in Always should have warned me what we were in for. It’s a film poster. Not just any film poster, but a poster for a cartoon —

Root and branch: Patrice Townsend and Henry Jaglom in Always. anything but common, as any col­ lector will tell you. And not just any cartoon, either, but Tom and Jerry’s 1942 Fraidy Cat, worth three big ones (at least) from the Larry Edmonds Bookshop on Hollywood Boulevard.

As we learn in the interminable 105 minutes that follow, the poster sits in Jaglom’s vintage Los Angeles villa, every wall and horizontal space of which is clogged with objects of equal interest: comic-book pages, art deco furniture and a real Wurlitzer jükebox (look: you can see the name on the perspex), loaded with genuine 78s.

One of these hisses authentically on the soundtrack over the credits of Always: Fred Astaire singing ‘Dearly Beloved’. And my mind instantly went back to the opening scene of The Band Wagon, where a dis­ tracted Billy de Wolfe tries to flog the top hat and cane of Astaire’s Tony Hunter to an apathetic audience.

Always isn’t a movie, it’s an auction catalogue.

On sale are the memories of Henry Jaglom, filmmaker and col­ lector of celebrities. Aside from Townsend and Jaglom, the film features his brothej, Michael Emil, actor/director André Gregory (of My Dinner with André fame) and direc­ tor Bob Rafelson. Even the actors you haven't heard of turn out to be directors. Never have so many cooks stirred so thin a broth. Un­ e x p e c te d ly a b s e n t — g ive n Jaglom’s association with him — is the late Orson Welles. But, in the event, the Wurlitzer offers an equiva­ lent sense of solidity and eccentric cultural past.

A past master of self-publicity, Jaglom has filled the film’s handout with assurances of the sensitivity and intellect Always is purported to dis­ play. “ The film captures me, my friends, our time, our lives,” he pro­ claims. “ My other films were by

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By virtue of its being the first real attempt anyone has made to take a comprehensive look at the popular music industry in Australia, the sixpart Pop Movie stands every chance of being thought-provoking, incisive, intelligent, important and highly entertaining. All of which it is, in addition to being superbly pro­ duced, paced and presented.

The music-video background of the production company, Musical Films, is particularly evident — and necessary — in the first three episodes, which deal with ‘the industry’. Music, comedy, animation and rapidly disseminated informa­ tion are combined to provide a sur­ prisingly clear overall impression of a business fraught with convolu­ tions, confusions and complications.

In lesser hands, the presentation could have been as perplexing as the industry itself.

The first two episodes, T he Myth of Stardom’ and T he Myth Con­ tinues’, function basically as a warning to young bands. Important definition more indirect. This movie concepts and problems — radio air­ is completely emotionally honest.” play, record contracts, agencies, Welles, absent from the film, makes a managers, rècord producers — are guest appearance in the publicity. intelligently dealt with in fairly basic “ As Orson Welles said on seeing it,” terms by well-known artists like Peter enthuses the filmmaker: “ ‘For once, Garrett, Angry Anderson, Kate no hiding behind masks’. That made Ceberano and Neil Finn. The format me feel very, very good. He said it’s and the rapid pacing preclude any never been done before.” , in-depth analysis, but the gist of the The same sugary self-regard per­ various hazards is made clear. vades every frame of Always. Any T h e re is o n e o u ts ta n d in g minuscule fragments of truth it may sequence at the start of the second contain are coated out of all recogni­ episode, in which Brian Dawe plays tion in a cloying chocolate of a pretentious reco rd-co m p an y narcissism. (Chocolate is, in fact, executive with no interest in music, one of the film’s motifs: guests even who is trying to put one over on a bathe in it, having been told that potentially hot act. As he reads out cocoa added to their bathwater is an the ridiculously complicated contract aphrodisiac.) details, Peter Garrett appears at the An ageing Audie Murphy of the bottom of the screen, playing the intellectuals, the director stares into executive’s conscience, and un­ the camera and favours us with softravels the real meaning behind the centred soliloquies that have all the double-talk. self-pitying poignancy of a suicide Because the episode is caution­ note. The hardware of the house is ary, however, the record companies interesting enough but, after half an and agencies are presented from hour, one longs for a human the artists’ point of view. And, reaction that is not as threadbare as although it is likely that the attitudes the plush on the art deco couch. The of the major record companies mask, whipped off, reveals just would have been close to the artists’ another mask. And under that? perception of them, it would have Nothing, one suspects, except one been preferable to have seen this more poster for a movie one rather than having to assume it. wouldn’t care to see.

Oddly enough, too, the indepen­ John Baxter dent labels, which are often an important part of a band’s early career, are not looked at, and there Always: Directed, written and pro­ is no real mention (apart from a short duced by Henry Jaglom. Associate send-up) of that peculiarly eighties producer: Judith Wolinsky. Director of phenomenon, the film clip. photography: Hanania Baer. Music The third episode is a disappoint­ consultant: Miles Krueger. Sound ingly passive look at commercial, recordist: Ike Magal. Cast: Patrice public and private radio. Interviews Townsend (Judy), Henry Jaglom with the profit-conscious 3XY and (David), Joanna Frank (Lucy), Alan the volunteer-run 3RRR are inter­ Rachins (Eddie), Melissa Leo (Peggy), spersed with clips, and with inter­ Jonathan Kaufer (Maxwell), Amnon views with a private Geelong station, Meskin (The notary), Bud Townsend 3CKP, and a young high-school (Judy’s father), Bob Rafelson (David's neighbour), Michael Emil (David’s band, Modern Force. The issues of brother), André Gregory (Party philo­ playlists, radio formats and the diffi­ sopher). Production company:. Jagculty of getting mainstream airplay film/lnternational Rainbow Pictures. are succinctly covered, but the Distributor: 7 Keys. 35mm. 105 thrust of the episode as a whole is minutes. USA. 1985. too diffuse.

There is the implication, for

music is not getting the mainstream ’airplay it deserves But aside from t f e oGcasional snide comment from the narrator — a tram conductor’ taking us on a tride through the air 'VJaygsi 4-Tthe'poiot lacks"emphasis Modern Force simply do not appear to typify the problemsia young band has in getting airplay, the attitude of IJv#' commercial stations is not sufitipiently questioned, and too much "•reliance is placed upon Peter Gar­ nett’s 1^984 submission to the Aus­ tralian v. Broadcasting Tribunal, to /n a k e the. point A wider, more biting Ipgk, atfthe/situation-is needed. t®;{rheeuitural .aspects* of pop music % nd-the ‘pop generation’ " are the subject of the, fourth and fifth 'episodes, which take a more con­ ventional documentary ’form. The fourth JRock and RolPHigh School’ , chronicles The disgiphnp, organizatiqn," co-operation, talent and dedica­ tion required by the students at Fre.’m,ont' High, in Adelaide to stage a rpck musical, .unifying the different ^school levels and drawing oui their talent and.'enthusiasm, sometimes to the surprise of'parents.

■- in term s' of the cultural and social fu/iction of popular music, however, the npxt episode, ’Miles of Music’, is The,strongest in the series It follows ‘the * government-funded ."Teenage Roadshow^ as - it winds its way through Queensland and around the i top, end of Australia, taking the, "music of two bands, The Azmen and Lynx, To isolated Aboriginal com. munities.

-The nature of the music itself doesn’t' appear to be nearly as important as the way it operates as a source of scarce entertainment in rhanyjDf the settlements. Most of this ' is expressed through a portrait of the Roadshow’s organizer, Gil Weaver.

Although he can be a bit of a babb­ lin g buffoon when introducing acts, Weaver ‘is ‘motivated by a, stropg belief jn the dedication and devotion

Left to, right, Justin Fitzgerald, Guy May and Maria Frame in Episode 6 .. of -Fop Movie.

of the band members and the rd'adies; and in the importarice of the music to the people.in the remote settlements.^,’ The episode occasionally lapses into the ponderous mode of a travel­ ogue, but this is offset by some fine atmospheric shots, such as a sunset rehearsal by a guitarist in a dusty settlement, a cricket game in the middle "of Woop Wopp, and the fascination of the Aboriginal children as they tinker with electric guitars and synthesizer drums.

Might this not be a piece- of cul­ tural imperialism?- Says Weaver- “ I took an Aboriginal band to Canberra and they 'played- reggae Some Bloody idiot of a politician gets up and says- 'O h .T th o jjg h t they were going to be doing something cultural!’ Whaf-the fuck do you think they’re doing? To them, that’s important!”.- ; , Whatever theofintentions of the people who made and produced it, Pop Movie combats at least three popular, misconceptions: that TV documentaries are", by’ definition, boring and earnest, that ’^popular culture’ is synonymous with throw­ away culture; and that people under 20 cannot be -treated intelligently, educated and entertained at the same time; Jim Schembri

Pop Movie: Directed by Ray Argali Producers: Ray Argali,,Cristina:Pozzan and Daniel Scharf. Associate pro­ ducers. John Cruthers and Bryce, Menzies. Written by Ray Argali.

Directors of photography: Ray Argali and Mandy Walker. Production' designers. Noel Crombie and Maria Ferro Editors Ray Argali and Bettina Petith. Sound recordists: Bronwyn Murphy, Daniel Scharf and Pat Fiske Music played by Azmen, Celibate Rifles, Do Re Mi, I’m Talking, Joe Camilleri, Lynx, Midnight Oil, ModemForce, Rose Tattoo Production corhpany: Musical Films' First broad-, cast. ABC-TV, 5 June-iO July 1986 F6mm. 6 x 30 television minutes. Aus­ tralia. 1986.

Impair et passe

Heart at the wheel: Patricia Charbonneau as Cay Rivvers in Donna Deitch’s Desert Hearts.

Over the past 20 years, gay relation­ ships in films have run the full gamut: from portraying the toughness (especially in the sixties and seven­ ties) of homosexuals surviving as society’s persecuted victims, to highlighting the humour and compli­ cations of a gay relationship (as in La Cage aux folles); from ‘preaching to the converted’, with their own dis­ course and brand of narcissism, to ‘ordinary’ love stories in the romantic vein, which just happen to be between people of the same sex (as in Lianna).

In her first feature, former docu­ mentary filmmaker Donna Deitch opts for the latter, romanticizing a process of self-discovery in a setting that is ostensibly incongruous with the film ’s sensitivity — Reno, Nevada, in 1959.

The setting acts as an interesting catalyst, however. Impressed by the metaphor of gambling and risk­ taking in the novel by Jane Rule from which the screenplay was adapted, Deitch and screenwriter.

Natalie Cooper adopt the same formula in developing what was a friendship into a lesbian love affair.

The film begins and ends at the train station, with the arrival and departure of Vivian Bell (Helen Shaver), a 35-year-old professor of English Literature from Columbia University, who is in Reno for a quickie divorce.

Ironically, though, Vivian’s real journey takes place during her stay in the desert. From her first appear­ ance, attractive" but conservative and awkward, it is evident that she needs more than a divorce: she has been too lo ng im m ersed in academia to find out about the real business of living.

She has come to Reno to shed her former life, a loveless marriage between, two academics doing ‘the right thing’ in careers that bound them together. But, at this stage,

there is no indication what direction freedom is to take. She is tense, vulnerable and somewhat lost.

Rather than stay at a hotel, Vivian opts for a dude ranch, run by the outwardly tough and gregarious Frances Parker (Audra Lindley).

After an initial period of retreat, she is befriended by Frances’s surrogate daughter, Cay (Patricia Charbonneau), a potter who lives in a cottage on the ranch and earns her living at the casino. The rapport between them is immediate.

The attraction works on a number of levels: there is a creative affinity; yet, for Vivian, the younger Cay represents a vitality and directness antithetical to her own confusion and diffidence. "Perhaps your gambling spirit will rub off on me," she remarks hopefully. She enjoys a warm friendship at a time of need, and visibly transforms in its glow, shedding her conservative city clothes for more casual western apparel.

For Cay, much more aware of her own sexuality and preference for women, it’s the recognition that she has met "someone who counts", as she confides to her friend, Silver (Andra Akers), a sexually ambigu­ ous figure who has now obviously opted for the security of a hetero­ sexual relationship.

The crisis for Vivian comes when she is confronted by the relation­ ship’s physlcality. Cay, like any lover, drives her out to admire a beautiful view, and makes advances that leave no room for ambiguity.

Vivian, stunned and confused, especially at her own responsive­ ness, panics.

Returning to the ranch, the couple are condemned (in what is the film’s only anti-lesbian outburst) by a hostile Frances, who throws Vivian out. In the turmoil of betrayal and shock, Vivian retreats to the safety of a hotel room to wait out her divorce and sort out her new predicament. ►

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But her feeble resistance is no match for Cay’s persistent pursuit and, in the love scenes that follow, the audience is taken on a journey of discovery with Vivian, witnessing the awakening of passion as her dormant sensuality finds expression.

Much of the vibrance and chemistry of the relationship in the film must be attributed to sensitive script and direction (already evident in Deitch’s documentary, W o m a n to W o m a n ), and to powerful perform­ ances by Shavers (winner of the Canadian Best Actress Award for In P ra is e o f O ld e r W o m e n ) and Charbonneau, a New York stage actress with only one minor film credit to her name.

Deitch and cinem atographer Robert Elswit take the relationship ‘underground’, protectively setting much of the action in dimly-lit, cocoon-like interiors (the ranch, car, hotel room, lawyer's office, casino), isolating it from the glare of the Nevada desert and the public eye.

Even the casino scenes create a smokescreen of anonymity.

But this repression of the outside world points to a weakness in the film. The blandness of the social context — evidently a device to high­ light the romance — places the rela­ tionship in a vacuum. Deitch seems to be at cross-purposes here: on the one hand portraying this as an affair like any other but, by simultaneously stripping it of social relevance, deny­ ing it that right.

The few male roles are written and perform ed as one-dim ensional cameos, simplified to the point of imbecilic dullness. Fleetingly on screen, they plough their way through a flat script, matching it with wooden performances. Frances’s son Walter supposedly befriends V ivian, th o u g h this is never developed. Darrell (Dean Butler), Cay’s supervisor at the casino, is supposedly in love with her, though this is never convincing. Silver’s fiance aimably acquiesces.

Somehow, it is all too easy. Vivian cruises unscathed out of a marriage into self-discovery and a relationship that presents few dilemmas and is optimistically resolved. Apart from Frances's outburst, there are no tensions or conflicts to provide a spark.

Much as she encourages risk­ taking in her characters and uses it as a metaphor throughout the film, Deitch herself plays it too safe, with the romance failing to create the dilemmas or oppositions that would have provided the relationship with more potency.

Mary Colbert

Desert Hearts: D ire c te d a n d p r o ­ d u c e d b y D o n n a D e itch . S c re e n p la y : N a ta lie C o o p e r, b a s e d o n th e no vel, D e s e r t o f th e H e a rt, b y J a n e R ule.

D ire c to r o f p h o to g ra p h y : R o b e rt Elswit.

P ro d u c tio n d e s ig n : J e a n in e O p p e w a ll.

E d ito r: R o b e rt Estrin. S o u n d re c o rd is t: A u s tin M c K in n e y . C a st: H e le n S h a v e r (V ivian Bell), P a tricia C h a rb o n n e a u (C a y R ivvers), A u d ra L in d le y (F ra n ce s Parker), A n d ra A k e rs (Silver), D e a n B u tle r (D arrell), K a tie L a B o u rd e tte (L ucille), J e ffre y T a m b o r (Jerry), G w e n W elles (G w e n). P ro d u c tio n c o m p a n y : D e s e rt H e a rts. D is trib u to r: 7 K eys.

3 5 m m . 9 3 m in u te s . USA. 1985.

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incorporated We attend sequels in a somewhat ritualistic fashion — not in a logical, natural progression (the pursuit of the ongoing saga) but in a regres­ sive manner: to recapture a certain charm, to return to the delights of the original.

The promise that ‘things will be as before’ is not always kept, however.

So, I have to admit I didn’t attend Aliens because it was the sequel to Alien (1979), but because it was directed by James Cameron, who g a in e d c r e d ib ility w ith The Terminator, the best sci fi film of 1985.

Aliens delivers a double blow, keeping one promise, then keeping another I didn’t think it was going to (although that is less surprising if you accept The Terminator as a realign­ ment of Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner without the metaphysics).

For Aliens, Cameron retains the cool, methodic, nail-biting tension of Scott’s Alien, and counterbalances it with his own special brand of switch­ blade velocity and aesthetic destruc­ tiveness — terminator art. The best of two worlds, intact.

Aliens is quite self-conscious about making a return. In what is a characteristic follow-on device, it opens with Ripley taken from her hypersleep capsule and transferred to what looks like an antenatal ward.

As her stomach begins to swell, one thinks: "Oh, no! Exit Sigourney Weaver!” It seems that she has un­ suspectingly become a carrier for the parasite, and that the nightmare will follow on from here. But it’s a dream, and the dream marks a special kind of return: to Ripley’s repressed fear. One could also call it desire.

So intense is her fear that it calls on Ripley to return to its original site (Freud would have called it the primal scene). A site that Ripley, after 57 years of hypersleep, dis­ covers is in the process of coloniza­ tion, but which has lost contact with the space station belonging to ‘The Company’ that has been monitoring its progress. Ripley accepts the call to return and, in what becomes something of a therapeutic exercise, Aliens echoes Alien stage by stage, action for action, incident for incident, almost completely without variation.

Sci fi movies have always pro­ vided a welter of sexual metaphor, and Aliens is no exception. (Nor was its predecessor.) Ranging from the pool of white, gooey substance (incidentally discovered just before a character is shredded by a vagina dentata) to more subliminal, per­ verse suggestions of cunnilingus, the sexual imagery of Aliens is more potent than the prototypical phallic variety.

Interesting, too, that today’s mili­ tarist fetishes (the highly eroticized, Ramboesque torsos and the erect,, below-the-belt weaponry of the space marines who accompany Ripley back to the planet) are no match for alien aggression.

Indeed, one could chart this sexual imagery, and put Aliens

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through a sieve of psychoanalytic deliberation that would make it an instance of patriarchal discourse, evidencing the myth-conceptions of the monstrous maternal figure as an ideological project for keeping it under control. But I don't want to do that, because there is already an in­ built programme in all this to see only what you want to see.

No unconscious level this time.

Aliens’ concepts of the maternal are blatantly laid out. The final scene has ‘good’ mother Ripley battling it out with the Queen alien for the posses­ sion of a human child, Newt (Carrie Henn). Just as the Queen alien is about to turn baby into dumpling, out comes interplanetary momism, looking like Gigantor and with a clear-cut message: "Leave her alone, bitch!”

Newt, it is worth pointing out, is the only survivor of the colony, an orphan who takes the place of the child-substitute cat, Jonesy, of the previous film. And it seems neces­ sary that Jonesy be displaced by an ‘actual’ child for, in the dream which features the cat and Ripley reunited, it is only after Ripley’s affectionate pamper — "Come here, baby!

That’s my baby!” — that the threat of a Caesarian section from the inside becomes likely.

Underlying Aliens is a paradigm of procreation that cannot be ignored.

Basically, it is of sustaining life by drawing the life out of another being.

The birth scene of an alien creature bursting out of a human abdomen seems hardly like conventional pro­ creation. And, with the image of the Queen alien mass-producing her eggs, one gets the idea that this is the reproductive process in an industrial sense.

This can be elaborated in Aliens when you realise that Burke (Paul Reiser), the representative of The Company’, sees the alien creature as beneficial to his own advance-

Space-age pietà: Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) and Newt (Carrie Henn) in

Aliens.

ALIENS

ment. ‘The Company’ is interested in the alien for scientific research, which typifies colonization in space, and Burke is willing to sacrifice his colleagues to do it. Indeed, he is very much like the aliens: a parasite feeding off others.

Sure, Aliens is about ‘monstrous’ and ‘acceptable’ mother figures.

But, when there’s an analytical model that ignores the matrix through which they are constructed (capitalism in its highest state) and is going to tell me that a huge repres­ sive element is at stake, then it gets a different ball rolling.

Aliens' guiding division is not be­ tween the monstrous and the acceptable, the good mother and the bad mother, but between The Company and everybody else, into which everything is subsumed.

From this perspective, it is difficult to figure Ripley, at the end, as a support for a system whose blatant ideology is: "If I can make a buck, then screw the human race” . As for the name Ripley, I’ll let you work on that one.

Raffaele Caputo

Aliens: D ire c te d b y J a m e s C a m e ro n .

P ro d u c e r: G a le A n n e H u rd . E x e c u tiv e p ro d u c e rs : G o rd o n C arroll, D a v id G ile r a n d W alter H ill. S c re e n p la y : J a m e s C a m e ro n , fro m a s to ry b y J a m e s C a m e ro n , D a v id G ile r a n d W a lte r Hill, b a s e d o n c h a ra c te rs c re a te d b y D a n O ’B a n n o n a n d R o n a ld S h u se tt. D ire c ­ to r o f p h o to g ra p h y : A d ria n B id d le . P ro ­ d u c tio n d e s ig n : P e te r L a m o n t. V isual e ffe c ts s u p e rv is io n : R o b e rt S kotak.

C o n c e p tu a l d e s ig n : R o n C o b b . M u s ic : J a m e s H o rn e r. E d ito r: R a y L o ve jo y.

S o u n d re c o rd is t: R o y C h a rm a n . C ast: S ig o u rn e y W e a v e r (R ipley), C arrie H e n n (N ew t), M ic h a e l B ie h n (C o rp o ra l H icks), P a u l R e is e r (B urke), L a n c e H e n rik s e n (B ish o p ), B ill P a x to n (P rivate H u d s o n ), W illiam H o p e (L ie u te n a n t G orm an ), J e n e tte G o ld s te in (P rivate V a sq u e z), A ! M a tth e w s (S e rg e a n t A p o n e ). P ro d u c tio n c o m p a n y : B ra n d y ­ w in e , D is t r ib u t o r : F o x - C o lu m b ia .

3 5 m m . 1 3 7 m in u te s . USA. 1986.

When movies were still silent but talkies loomed, there was a brief, last-ditch stand by one or two utopian humanists who argued that, with dialogue, the universality of cinema would be lost: hence­ forward, each film would speak only to that country whose language it talked.

The same argument has cropped up from time to time in other guises, built on that old Idea that, if nation could only talk to nation, the world’s problems would evaporate. The communicative possibilities of tele­ vision were once heralded as much the same kind of panacea.

As it turned out, TV has proved to be one of the most narrowly chau­ vinistic of media. But cinema has retained a vestige of that old inter­ nationalism, perhaps because, un­ broken by commercials and unpre­ ceded by announcers telling us what to think, films can thrust us, un­ prepared and unprotected, into another world.

Only certain films, of course — those of Yasujiro Ozu, for instance, with their ritualized window on Japanese bourgeois life. And, occa­ sionally, those films which show us rural life: Georges Rouquier’s Farrebique (1946), for instance, or, more recently, Rauni Mollenberg’s Earth is a Sinful Song (Finland, 1973), Agust Gudmundsson’s Land and Sons (Iceland, 1980) or Souleymane1 Cisse’s The Wind (Mali, 1982).

In addition to their considerable artistic merits, all of them carry that special thrill of a suddenly widened horizon, of a brief intimacy with something strange, beyond our experience — something which exists without any reference to us, with no need of or concern for our sympathy or understanding.

It is tempting to look on MarioCamus’s Los Santos Inocentes (The Holy Innocents) in that way. Its story of a desperately poor family living in feudal conditions in the Spanish pro­ vince of Extremadura some 20 years ago is, indeed, jarringly strange.

Paco (Alfredo Landa), the head of the household, is cherished by the young master, Ivan (Juan Diego), not as a man, but as a useful beast.

In one unforgettable scene, Paco, on hands and knees, sniffs the trail of a partridge through a field, while the sehorito and his friends look on in amused wonder.

As in all the best romans de terroir, the rest of Paco’s family Is highly emblematic: a strong wife, Regula (Terele Pavez), who cannot, how­ ever, go beyond the philosophy of feudalism; a son who leaves for the city; a daughter who misses out on education by being put into service in the ‘great house’; and the ‘little girl’, a catatonic child who periodic­ ally emits bloodcurdling screams of voiceless rage and misery.

And then there is Regula’s brother, Azarias, m agnificently p la y e d by F ra n c is c o R abal, Bunuel’s Nazarin, who is mentally retarded, given to peeing into' his hands to stop them chapping, and likely to shit anywhere without notice.

Azarias lends a touch of the magic realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez to the film, through his strangely sym­ biotic relationship with the bird he

Beyond the fringe

Magic realism: Azarias (Francisco Rabal) and his beloved goshawk in Mario Camus’s The Ploly Innocents. trains and cherishes. The Holy Innocents opens with Azarias hoot­ ing delightedly at an owl, then run­ ning, laughing and hooting, through the trees in a delirious tracking shot, as Anton Garcia Abril’s primitive per­ cussive music, like the drums of Bunuel’s Calanda, fades up on the soundtrack. It is a magic opening sequence, with an oneiric power, a bravado sense of place and person merged, like the tram-freak with his imaginary tram route in Kurosawa’s Dodeska 'den, or the family with their farm in Olmi’s Tree of Wooden Clogs.

But beware: there is far more to The Holy Innocents than a troubling tourist trip through a saga of rural misery.' Over the film hangs the spirit and legacy of Bunuel’s Las Hurdes (Land Without Bread, 1932).

It is worth remembering the puzzlement that greeted — and, to some extent, still greets — Las Hurdes. Coming after the surrealist flamboyance of Un chien andalou (1928) and L ’Age d'or (1930), its humourless, documentary bleak­ ness shocked the critics, prompting them to seek the hidden surrealist joke.

There was none. For, by 1932, the playful, adolescent side of surreal­

ism had (other than in the work of Salvador Dali) given way to André Breton’s more serious, political stance — ‘Surrealism at the service of the Revolution’, as Breton’s mani­ festo put it. And the message of Las Hurdes was brutally simple: how, in the age of the motor car and the aeroplane, could such poverty exist?

That, too, is the message of The Holy Innocents. But it is, as it was in Bunuel’s film, contained within, not laid on top. The Holy Innocents is certainly beautiful, with cinemato­ grapher Hans Burmann capturing the changing faces of the Extremaduran plain, and lighting and com­ posing his interiors in a way that is both painterly and realist. But the mastery of Camus’s film lies else­ where.

I have no way of knowing — and nor, I imagine, have more than half a dozen people on this continent — whether the film’s portrait of life on an Extremaduran estate in the sixties is accurate. But it has all the consist­ ency and the contradictions of truth.

And it indicates, lest we forget, that Spain was the true birthplace of sur­ realism, one of this century’s most potent and most misrepresented philosophies.

Like true surrealism, The Holy Innocents is more real than real (that, after all, is what surrealism means), and it uses that device to

provoke thought, not lull us with pretty, stylish strangeness. Like all such provocations, it is an exhilara­ ting experience — a form of cinema generally lost to the exigencies of narrative or the tyranny of re­ assurance.

There is nothing reassuring about Camus’s film, and its narrative isstrange and convoluted, with flash­ backs, flashforwards and a shifting time scheme. But it is a dense and unforgettable 104 minutes — the kind of film that we too rarely get the chance to see in Australia. As such, it should not be missed.

Nick Roddick

The Holy Innocents (Los Santos Inocentes): D ire c te d b y M a rio C am u s.

P ro d u c e d b y J u lia n M a te o s . S c re e n ­ p la y b y M a n u e l La rre ta , M a n u e l M a tji a n d M a rio C a m u s, b a s e d o n th e n o v e l b y M ig u e l D e lib e s. D ire c to r o f p h o to ­ g r a p h y : H a n s B u rm a n n . P ro d u c tio n d e s ig n : R a fa e l P a lm e ro . M u s ic : A n to n G a rc ia A b ril.

E d itin g : J o s e M a ria B iu rru n .

S o u n d r e c o r d is t: C a rlo s Fa rue lo . C a st: A lfre d o L a n d a (P aco), F r a n c is c o R a b a l (A z a ria s ), Terele P a ve z (R eg ula), A g u s tin G o n z a le z (D o n P edro), J u a n D ie g o (S e n o rito Ivan), M a rib e l M a rtin (M iriam ). P ro d u c ­ tion c o m p a n y : G an esh, in a s s o c ia tio n w ith T e levision E s p a ñ o la . D is trib u to r: N e w V is io n .

35m m .

10 4 m in u te s .

S pain. 1984.

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S Letting o ff steam: one o f the ‘Mar­ garet Preston paintings’ in My Life Without Steve, winner o f this year’s Greater Union Award.

MY LIFE WITHOUT STEVE

His story "H is to r ic a lly , th e d is c o u r s e o f a b ­ s e n c e is c a r r ie d o n b y th e W o m a n : W o m a n is s e d e n ta ry , M a n h u n ts , jo u r n e y s ; W o m a n is fa ith fu l (s h e w a its ), M a n is fic k le (h e s a ils a w a y , h e c ru is e s ). ”

Roland Barthes The short film, M y L ife W ith o u t S te v e , can be accepted into Barthes’s his­ torical tradition because, again, it is a woman elaborating the fiction, telling of the loss of her lover and the loss of her self. Liz (played by Jenny Vuletic) is the central character, deliverer of the monologue. She is Penelope, weaving songs, snap­ shots, jottings from a diary, quota­ tions from theoretical writings, the words of her therapist, notes from a friend and family letters, into a narra­ tive layered with questions about female sensibility and — dare I say it? — the post-feminist condition.

The fragmentary nature of the text is complemented by the precisely composed (though discontinuous) series of visual images. Cinemato­ grapher Erika Addis is the painter, saturating the screen in the opening shots with a brilliant blue, tike one of R othko’s abstract expressionist works. The view is broadened to reveal a harbour, bustling with sea­ faring activities. Then, leaving behind the suggestion of a journey, the camera pans up to the window of a small bedsitter.

Aspects of this domestic interior are revealed slowly: a curtain ruffling in the breeze, a still life, an old paint­ ing of the picturesque bay we have just seen, an unmade bed . . . and a photo which provokes the first words: “ After you left, I moved in here, hoping that the view would pull me out of the misery.”

The words are stilted and heavily punctuated. The tone is, however, countered by the smoother, more abstract flow of images: kitchen implements, a kettle boiling on the stove, a clay pot of purple daisies, a tub of nasturtiums on the windowsill,

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a decorative ceiling pattern — Margaret Preston paintings trans­ posed, with the same formality, onto film. Sometimes, we are given more specific indicators of a ‘lifestyle’: photographic equipment, video­ tapes, drawings, books on psycho­ analysis and feminism, film and revolution, screen legends. And flowers, always flowers.

The structure for the entire film is established in the initial scenes: one woman’s voice and a series of images, presented as if we were turning the pages of a book. A very measured pace is kept throughout.

There are moments of irony, a desperate kind of humour, but generally a sense of frailty and extrem e loneliness. From the window, the view changes from early morning to night. Four seasons go by.

M y L ife W ith o u t S te v e is very per­ sonal cinema. Written and directed

by Gillian Leahy, it is a suggestive, poetic, but ultimately very frustrating film that attempts to deal with issues which, the film implies, feminism has denied. It points to the contra-

dictions which arise between ideo­ logy and practice — in this instance, what is at stake when we love. It examines the process of negotiating degrees of independence/dependence, and ridicules the “ fashionable belief” that you shouldn’t be jealous of a ‘sister’.

These questions are the core of Liz's story. She tries to find answers or consolations in snatches of popular song, singing ‘I Fall to Pieces’, ‘Forever Now’, ‘I’ll Never Fall in Love Again’ and Bob Dylan’s ‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’. She further searches the books of Freud, Lacan, Marge Piercy and Colette.

However, it is when these cata­ logues begin to form that the problematic nature of M y L ife W ith ­ o u t S te v e is most evident. Liz’s character is too easily defined and categorized: she has ‘tested’ femin­ ism and is still trapped, disillusioned with the promises of the past. While the images combine to produce this very exact picture of her domestic space, the fragments of theory do not cohere into any pattern. The film is frustrating precisely because the images provide a way of investi­ gating and analyzing Liz’s past, but this is not supported by the text. The theoretical quotations are a cata­ logue of (fashionable) disillusion­ ment and function only to make random (not strategic) critical points.

The questions she raises — which are, I think, crucial — are skimmed, not confronted.

Liz recalls the activism of the sixties. “ Where’s the new material conditions for more than just sur­ vival?” she reads. She then apolo­ gizes for the rhetoric, backs off: these are questions we are appar­ ently not allowed to ask.

The paradox is that a film that wants to be about a woman’s re­ discovery of herself should let itself spiral further and further inwards, until all we are left with is the wretchedness of one relationship and a sense of bitterness and resent­ ment.

Feminists have argued that women should in fact tr a n s la te this darkness, should u s e rage and anger to acknowledge a personal strength and, more broadly, to contribute to a feminist politics that tolerates contradiction. In M y L ife W ith o u t S te v e , Liz refuses her own intelligence. The conclusion signifies defeat, for she remains defined by Steve (whose voice we never actually hear): the same predict­ able movements have been made on the sexual battlefield, Kathy Bail

My Life Without Steve D ire c te d a n d w ritte n b y G illian L e a h y . P ro d u c e d b y D ig b y D u n c a n a n d G illian L e ahy.

D ire c to r o f p h o to g ra p h y : Erika A d d is .

A rt d ire c to r: J a n M a c K a y . E d ito r: D e n is e H aslem . M u s ic a l d ire c to r: E liza­ b e th D rake . C a st: J e n n y V u le tic (Liz).

P ro d u c tio n c o m p a n y : G alfilm s. D is tri­ b u to r: B o n in . 3 5 m m . 4 5 m in u te s.

A u s tra lia . 1986.

Lovers’ labours lost If Kurosawa can do it with King Lear, then Crawfords can at least try with Romeo and Juliet. My Brother Tom, the most recent and colloquial ver­ sion of thwarted love, is set in 1938 in the small country town of St Helens on the Murray. The two young lovers, Tom (Tom Jennings) and Peg (Catherine McClements), are separated not just by family rivalry, but by religion: he is a Protestant and she is a Catholic.

The real town of Chiltern provides a charming setting for this tale of modern bigotry, and the surrounding landscape offers scope for beautiful photography; but neither can save the miniseries from banality. My Brother Tom is sweet, sad and ulti­ mately a bit silly. Perhaps an earlier time slot would have better suited it: it is a decidedly adolescent drama.

Religious bigotry ought to make for a more complex and interesting story. Indeed, until quite recently in Australia, religion determined social standing, politics and employment, and had distinct racial overtones, but none of these is explored with any subtlety or depth. Conse­ quently, the characters in My Brother Tom are reduced to stereo­ type and the plot to cliche.

Acting their way out of this double bind are Keith Michell as Tom’s pompous English lawyer father, Edward Quayle, and Gordon Jackson as Peg's Gaelic hustler father, Lockie MacGibbon. Their excellent performances, however, tend to dis­

advantage those of the rest of the cast.

As the town Is polarized by the romance and the threat of an 'abominable union’ between Tom , and- Peg, the two young lovers seem to exhaust their range of facial expressions: they either appear worried by parental threats or look wetly into each other’s eyes. Tom’s politics and strength of character (on which the narrator insists) do not convince, and his denunciatory soliloquy of farewell to St Helens is as badly performed as it is written.

Another annoying feature of My Brother Tom is the limited and repeti­ tive expression of the town’s conflict.

The adults fight it out in a cliched courtroom battle over a case of suspected arson, while the young­ sters engage in perpetual wrestling matches between meaty Catholic and Protestant boys in period costume on the banks of the billabong, or in exchanges of provoca­ tive banter in language more suited to the eighties than the thirties.

Maybe it is at the level of language that the ghost of Shakespeare does My Brother Tom most damage.

Tom’s opening line to Peg is ‘G’day’, and the balcony scene is embarrassingly and monosyllabic­ ally re-enacted over a picket fence.

The final, very bloody, fight between Tom and Finn (Christopher Plummer), the town’s Catholic bully, takes place in the boxing ring (perhaps a sword fight might have been more suitable!). Tom wins, of course, spurred on at the last minute The professional: Gordon Jackson as Lockie MacGibbon in M y Brother Tom.

by a glimpse of Peg. But to no avail: he and Peg are doomed to separa­ tion by an earlier scenario. Even so, and in the 20th century, her father literally sends her away to the nunnery in Castlemaine.

For all its faults, My Brother Tom does attempt to show the futility and stupidity of religious prejudice. However, Tom’s equation of the bigotry of St Helens to that of Nazism is too brief to be as powerful as it might have been.

Finally, the war takes over from Shakespeare: Tom goes down with his plane and Peg, who has become a nurse, is blown to pieces by a mine. Their names appear on the St Helens war memorial — together in death as they never were allowed to be in life. At this point, that old Shakespearian magic works its spell.

Susan Bridekirk

My Brother Tom: Directed by Pino Amenta. Producer: Rod Hardy.

Associate producer: Michael Lake.

Executive producers: Hector Crawword, Ian Crawford, Terry Stapleton.

Screenplay: Tony Morphett, based on a novel by James Aldridge. Director of photography: James Doolan. Produc­ tion designer: Otello Stolfo. Music: Garry McDonald and Laurie Stone.

Editor: Phil Reid. Cast: Tom Jennings (Tom Quayle), Christopher Cummins (Kit Quayle), Keith Michell (Edward Quayle), Catherine McClements (Peggy MacGibbon), Gordon Jackson (Lockie MacGibbon). Production com­ pany: Crawford Productions. First broadcast: Network Ten, 23 and 24 September, 1986. 16mm. 2 x 2 tele­ vision hours. Australia. 1986.

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Family chin-wag: Kris McQuade (left), Emma Coles (centre) and Kris Bidenko in Jane Campion’s 2

Friends.

While many teen movies seem un­ able to rise above the problem of how to get ‘it' — preferably while the folks are out of town — Australia’s television teenagers (Sons and Daughters, Neighbours, A Country Practice, The Henderson Kids) seem perennially Immersed in ‘adven­ tures’: writing to the PM, running away, saving the town's Aboriginal cave art, or fending off illegal sub­ stances and hit men.

The ABC's 2 Friends, written by Helen Garner and directed by Jane Campion, is a remarkable departure from the narrative fodder readily associated with TV’s teenagers. In fact, both the writer and the director seem keenly aware of the format, style, structure and content of con­ ventional TV, and mount a concerted campaign to dismantle the tradi­ tions. The first sign of this intention is the time scale. Set over five time periods, from July one year to Octo­ ber of the preceding one, 2 Friends, like Harold Pinter’s Betrayal, works backwards chronologically.

As it traces the ebb and flow of the relationship between two teenage girls, Louise (Emma Coles) and Kelly (Kris Bidenko), it becomes clear that this drama's focus is not on the traumas that keep most of TV's teen­ agers on the streets, but on a rela­ tively 'small event’: the girls having their friendship jeopardized and ulti­ mately diluted by Kelly's step­ father’s refusal to let her attend a private school. While this climactic event is far removed from the run-ofthe-mill teenage frustrations, the sharply-focused context in which it is seen is consistent with Garner's and Campion’s previous works and demonstrable skills.

Both women seem to be finely tuned to their turf. With deft juxta­ positions, fleeting observations and meticulous attention to milieu, both are able to capture the complexity of a social situation. Each has the capacity to cut to the quick. Works like Garner’s Monkey Grip or Cam­ pion’s After Hours and A Girl’s Own Story bring vivid and uncomfortable life to social situations. Their con­ fused characters flounder and occa­ sionally flourish in environments that are both familiar and strangely surreal.

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The marriage of their talents in 2 Friends results in a telemovie as distinctive and perceptive as their individual works and, equally, a fiction that is concerned to treat the everyday, the ‘small event’, as a catalyst. At odds with the afore­ mentioned fodder of TV drama, this film focuses on social dynamics, not ‘issues’. Its primary concerns are character and the location of charac­ ter within a milieu, whether it be family, peer group or class. This is not to say that 2 Friends is oblivious to issues: they simply provide a background against which the characters can bounce.

The treatment of the girls’ parents is an ideal example. Both camps seem like veterans of the Woodstock generation: 20 years on, they are confronted with coping with the guidance of teenagers reaching a crucial and difficult phase in their lives.

Cast by Louise as the villain of the piece, Kelly's stepfather, Malcolm (Peter Hehir), is a tradesman, who objects to his daughter attending a segregated school that he sees as elitist and reactionary. Though his doormat of a wife will apparently acquiesce to anything for the sake of peace and quiet, Malcolm is far from the bullying, perverse monster that Louise — and, later, her mother Janet (Kris McQuade) — imagine him to be. His act of restraining Kelly — viewed as the film’s destructive catalyst — is based in a belief about the function of education.

In the opposing corner, Janet and her former (but still friendly) husband come from the school of thought that cherishes opportunity. Unlike Kelly — who is expected to work for her opportunities — Louise is given every chance to develop her musical skills. Her acceptance into a prestigious school is celebrated by her parents, who see it as an alterna­ tive path through the minefield of adolescence. They hope that, by financing her attendance at such a school, they may help her avoid seduction by the dark side.

The way that this opposition is pre­ sented — as one square in the patchwork of the social fabric — is mirrored elsewhere in the film. Its precision also pinpoints the 'bloom­ ing' and inhibitions of adolescence, the confusion and liberation of sexual awakenings, the tender and tense relationships between mothers and daughters, and the urgent, intimate friendships of youth.

The film ’s visual style is also structured on a series of oppositions.

The signs of naturalism pervade the interior sets, the dialogue and the interaction between characters. The camera, set static and wide for most of the film, chronicles casual, familiar middle-class life. Characters drift in and out of shot, preparing food, eating, gossiping, trimming their toe­ nails and cleaning up. Their largely low-key conversations and the amiable clutter of their lives creates a sense of cosiness. But when they move outside, the camera absorbs a sharply contrasting environment: one of stark, flat colours and of careful, deliberate compositions.

As the narrative moves deeper into the past, the naturalism is further upstaged by fast-motion sequences, fantasy scenes, computer animation

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and handwritten sub-titles. This con­ tradiction in styles — the early veri­ similitude, the subsequent emphatic artificiality, the reverse chronology and the tone and pace produced by the static camera — creates a series of stylistic oppositions that underpins the dissenting chords that make up the narrative.

The result is a complex and finelycrafted work. Rich in detail, inno­ vative in style and gentle in execu­ tion, 2 Friends is all the more gratify­ ing for its focus on adolescence. Its refusal to m ilk the sim plistic ‘troubling issue' (which invariably finds a comforting solution) is, in itself, a distinct plus. But this inten­ tion, placed in the intricate tapestry of social oppositions, makes 2 Friends virtually unique within the current climate of television pro­ duction.

DebiEnker

2 Friends: Directed by Jane Campion.

Producer: Jan Chapman. Screenplay: Helen Garner. Director of photography: Julian Penney. Production designer: Janet Patterson. Editor: Bill Russo.

Cast: Emma Coles (Louise), Kris Bidenko (Kelly), Kris McQuade (Janet), Stephen Leeder (Jim), Peter Hehir (Malcolm), Tony Barry (Charlie), Steve Bisley (Kevin). Production company: ABC. First broadcast: ABC, 26 September, 1986. 80 minutes. Aus­ tralia. 1986.

The Moor’s murder Franco Zeffirelli's second venture into the world of the opera film (as opposed to filmed opera, like Berg­ man’s The Magic Flute or Syberberg’s Parsifat) is an adaptation of Giuseppe Verdi’s penultimate work, Otello, using the original libretto by Arrigo Boito.

Yet, if Zeffirelli remains faithful to the sources of his inspiration —. he directed a film of Verdi’s La Traviata in 1982 — the same cannot be said for his treatment of the composer’s last tragic work. Seduced, perhaps, by the generous budget ($12 million) and too preoccupied with his own ambitions as a metteur en scene, he has produced an Otello that disappoints.

Revolving around the conflicting relationships of the three main characters, Othello, Desdemona and lago, Shakespeare's tragedy is, in the context of his other work, a relatively simple domestic drama — a work with deliberately limited ambitions, and a rigour in its con­ struction that results in a (for Shake­ speare) exceptional unity of action.

In essence, the main character­ istics of Othello are very similar to those usually found in an opera, especially an opera composed by Verdi, expressing the same force of passion, sympathy for the heroes, sharp contrasts and narrative flow present in La Traviata, Rigoletto and Un Ballo in Maschera.

A tragedy of love and betrayal, Otello deals with the destructive power of passion over reason.

Blinded by the jealousy which is

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administered to him like a poison by the guileful lago (Justino Diaz), Otello (Placido Domingo) is driven to murder his beloved wife, Desde­ mona (Katia Ricciarelli), and finally commits suicide under the bemused eyes of the innocent Cassio (Urbano Barberini), her supposed lover.

Otello seems the ideal project for Zeffirelli. It is a synthesis of his prin­ cipal loves and passions: Shake­ speare, Verdi, opera, cinema, music. Already familiar with filming Shakespeare (whose The Taming of the Shrew and Romeo and Juliet he brought to the screen in the sixties) and Verdi (La Traviata), Zeffirelli is no stranger to live opera or theatre, either. But it is precisely his impres­ sive background and considerable experience which make it hard to come to terms with his treatment of Verdi’s masterpiece.

First, there are the multiple cuts.

Boito had to condense Shake­ speare’s play for his libretto, placing more emphasis on the character of lago and bringing, in the process, a unity of time and place and such other coherent qualities that the result often seems superior to its model.

But Zeffirelli subjects the libretto to even more excisions (particularly concerning the character of lago), which are often detrimental to the w ork’s coherence and impact.

A m on g the victim s are: the dialogues between lago and Cassio in Act I, between Roderigo and lago (plotting the murder of Cassio) and between Otello and lago (culmina-

Placido Domingo as Otello: a survivor o f Zeffirelli’s “gaudy” film version o f Verdi’s tragic opera.

ting in the murder of Desdemona).

Also gone are a major part of the dialogue between Desdemona and Emilia and, even more regrettably, one of the opera’s most beautiful arias, the ‘Piangea Cantando’ sung at the beginning of Act IV. What is more, as if Boito and Verdi were not adequate, Zeffirelli explains every little detail visually, incessantly making use of irritating and un­ necessary flashbacks (particularly in the splendid duo between Otello and Desdemona in Act I), in a way that destroys the musical and dramatic beauty of the scene and sometimes borders on the ridiculous (we are forced, for instance, to ‘visualize’ a naked Cassio mastur­ bating while dreaming of Desde­ mona).

Well-known for his taste for spec­ tacular and profusely luxurious sets, Zeffirelli finds the perfect opportunity to indulge himself in the Venetian R e p u b lic of 1520. H ow ever, perhaps in order to cater for a more commercial audience, the film is encumbered with a questionable baroque opulence and an over­ abundance of costumes and set­ tings which, if they were acceptable in La Traviata, tend to stifle the rigour and austerity of Otello.

Surrounded by magnificent ex­ teriors (the fortress at Heraklion, the castle at Barletta), the director destroys their spatial potential with his camera pirouettes, choosing to zoom in on faces or gestures, or insisting on reaction shots in the middle of an aria.

Among the few survivors are the brilliant trio of Plácido Domingo (an imposing Otello), Katia Ricciarelli (who effortlessly gives Desdemona her grace and purity) and, particu­ larly, Justino Diaz, who succeeds admirably in mixing human warmth and evil guile, transforming the deus ex machina iago into a pathetic but likeable character.

In general, though, from Verdi’s tragic masterpiece, Zeffirelli has pro­ duced a gaudy and pompously mutilated spectacle, losing the power of its drama and its passion.

Otello's appeal will be confined to lovers of entertainment on the large scale, not those who appreciate the true richness of Verdi’s work. From a workaday director, the film would have passed as a less than adequate entertainment. But, from Zeffirelli, it is a major disappoint­ ment.

Norbert Noyaux

Otello: Directed and written by Franco Zeffirelli. Producers: Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. Associate pro­ ducers: John Thompson and Fulvio Lucisano. Based on the opera by Giuseppe Verdi (libretto by Arrigo Boito). Director of photography: Ennio Guarnieri. Production design: Gianni Quaranta. Costumes: Anna Anni and Maurizio Mitlenotti. Sound recordist: Roberto Forrest. Cast: Placido Domingo (Otello), Katia Ricciarelli (Desdemona), Justino Diaz (lago), Petra Maiakova (Emilia), Urbano Barberini (Cassio), Sergio Nicolai (Roderigo), Edwin Francis (Montano), Massimo Foschi (Lodovico). Produc­ tion company: The Cannon Group.

Distributor: Hoyts. 35mm. 120 minutes.

Italy. 1986.

WHOSE BABY?

Sons and daughters Crawfords who, in the past, have been responsible for a good many highly popular and just as highly fic­ tional television series, have, in Whose Baby?, produced a drama­ tization of the factual Morrison/ Jenkins ‘mixed-up babies' case as a two-part telemovie. The result, though, is more ‘tele’ than ’movie’, a distinction I hope to elucidate.

The actual case began on the night of 22 June 1945, when two babies were born almost simultane­ ously in tiny Kyneton Hospital to Jess and Noel Jenkins (Vicki Luke and Peter Curtin) and Gwen and Bill Morrison (Angela Punch McGregor and Drew Forsythe).

The first half of Whose Baby? deals with the Morrisons’ legal attempts to gain custody of the child they believe to be rightfully theirs — Nola Jenkins — a contention denied by the Jenkins. After losing the initial court case, the Jenkins win the right to retain custody of Nola after three appeals, the last at the Privy Council in London.

The second half of the telemovie deals with subsequent fam ily fortunes — or rather, misfortunes.

Aged nineteen, Nola (Lisa Critten­ den) meets the Morrisons, but remains confused and restless about her background. She drinks and drifts through odd jobs in Mel­ bourne. Then, in 1973, she has a motorbike accident which leaves her a paraplegic and a double amputee.

Gwen Morrison dies of cancer. Nola is rehabilitated and becomes a teacher of handicapped children.

High melodrama might have been expected from the opening image (it actually was a dark and stormy night), but the film begins in muted realism, as it follows the two couples to the hospital and chronicles the mild chaos caused by the simultane­ ous deliveries. In the best whodunnit fashion, visual clues are given as to the likelihood of a mix-up occurring in the cramped and hectic condi­ tions.

The story, however, does not unfold in conventional narrative-film terms, -allowing the audience the freedom to comprehend and reflect

Putting their faith in the legal p ro ­ fession: the Morrisons (Drew For­ sythe and Angela Punch McGregor) with Jack Galbally (Ron Graham).

But the drama between the characters is secondary to the legal processes, usually thrown in as a red herring quickly resolved, such as the matter of the Morrisons’ blood on the material presented. Instead, tests: they prove that Bill could not discreet titles providing date-andhave been the father, but Gwen place information give way to a could be the mother. Has adultery mind-bruising voice-over narration taken place? Keep watching. that goes far beyond a useful linking Whose Baby? skims over Nola function, and often explains what is and Lee’s adolescence, an area being said and done on screen as it which a cinema film might have is actually happening. found fertile for introducing ques­ T hus, d u rin g th e d e liv e ry tion s of id en tity and related sequence, we are told that two problems. Part Two then changes deliveries are taking place, and that tack, using minimal narration and' their future ramifications will lead to centering on dram atic events, ‘‘the highest court in the land” . This, chiefly Nola’s accident and her fourof course, is the ploy of a television day survival, pinned under the bike. producer, forever nervous about This ordeal is not, however, en­ ratings and the assumed short atten­ tirely convincing. While we are kept tion-span of his audience. T here -1 informed of the number of hours after, Whose Baby? does not so passing, there is little to suggest the much flow as swing from hook to severity of the climatic conditions or hook, the narrator’s function being how close to death Nola was, until to dangle these as frequently as this comes up later in the dialogue. possible so as to forestall channel­ And her ordeal is Intercut with switching. Television is a battle­ Gwen's final days in hospital — . ground. more of a dramatic contrivance than The narrator, Peter Carroll, must a coincidence to arouse irony and be considered the voice Australians speculation. trust by many a producer, but the In total, Whose Baby? is a lightly purple rhetoric he is made to utter entertaining two-parter, good in pro­ here in his familiar tones (“ The real duction detail and performance, battle was about to begin . . . " “ It irritating in technique. Above all, one would be a Happy Christmas for could have felt more involved with someone . . .” ) comes close to self­ the events if it had not been for the parody. narrator hectoring us from the Nevertheless, the facts of this screen. extraordinary case do emerge, once Mark Spratt we get past the initial stumbling block of why, in the light of the early evidence, some of the parties should Whose Baby?: Directed by Ian Barry. stubbornly refuse to believe a mixProducer: Mark Defriest. Executive pro­ up could have occurred. All four ducers: Hector Crawford, Ian Crawford and Terry Stapleton. Associate pro­ leads give natural performances, ducer: Michael Lake. Screenplay: especially in Part One, before the Vince Moran and Peter Schreck, based difficulties of acting under ‘ageing’ on the novel by Colin Duck and Martin make-up cause variable results.

Thomas. Director of photography: They manage to sketch in the lives of Jamie Doolan. Art director: Philip Ellis. families in an ordinary country town Editor: Grant Fenn. Sound recordist: — people with faith in the infallibility John McKerrow. Cast: Angela Punch of higher authorities like the legal McGregor (Gwen Morrison), Drew For­ and medical professions. And the sythe (Bill Morrison), Vicki Luke (Jess street scenes, the parades and Noel Jenkins), Peter Curtin (Noel Jenkins), Jenkins’s community activities have Robyn Gibbes (Joanne Lee Morrison), an authentic note.

Lisa Crittenden (Nola Jenkins), Moya The script cleverly balances audi­ O’Sullivan (Amelia Williams), Rhys Mcence sympathy between the two Connochie (Justice Barry). Production couples, firstly the Morrisons, when company: Crawford Productions. First blood tests prove Lee could not be broadcast: BTQ-7, Brisbane, 14 and 15 their child; then the Jenkins, when it September 1986. 16mm. 2 x 2 tele­ vision hours. Australia. 1986. appears they may have to give up Nola without receiving Lee.

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T h e 30 th J u n e is b e h in d y o u a n d y o u a r e ju s t a b o u t r e a d y to k ic k o f f . . .

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Using fifties melodrama as a back­ ground, director James (Reckless) Foley returns to familiar blue-collar territory to refute the old adage that blood is thicker than water. At Close Range (Roadshow) reprises the theme of poor bad boy meets rich good girl, but turns the romantic aspect into a sub-plot, focusing instead on the father/son relation­ ship.

Based on a true story, with a screenplay by Nicholas Kazan, Elia’s son, the film is a moody character-study of a small-town Pennsylvania youth (Sean Penn), son of the leader of a burglary and S m u g g lin g rin g (C h ris to p h e r Walken).

Trying to survive in hopeless poverty and inebriated by his own heady desires, Brad Jnr. becomes fascinated by his father’s lifestyle, and is slowly entangled in his need for an emotional connection, whose inexorable expression is violence and murder.

As in Reckless, emotions spring to the fore, and Foley composes a cogent and intense study of disillu­ sio n e d y o u th and e m o tio n a l turbulence tinged with Freudian undertones. With a remarkable economy of mise en scene and wellhoned cinematography by Juan Ruiz Anchia, the film is a refreshing variant on the current Flollywood obsession with family ties, reassert­ ing the fifties theme of the rebel with­ out a cause, but placing it in a more relentlessly honest milieu.

Norbert Noyaux

Lumbered with a father fixation: Sean Penn in At Close Range.

Beer commercials seem to breed a special type of joker: ruddy-faced, anti-intellectual, sexist — the kind of guy who is in tune with the 'real world’.

Rodney Dangerfield, star of the huge US box-office success, Back to School (Roadshow), fits the mould, but he has also won popu­ larity with American audiences — particularly the college crowd — in clubs, on talk shows and through his other comedies, Caddyshack and Easy Money.

Like the beer he advertizes on American TV, Back to School is very light; and, with four writers credited for the screenplay and three for the story, there is a lot of froth. Dangerfield plays Thornton Melon, a busi­ ness tycoon who has made his fortune in ‘Tall and Fat’ stores. In an attempt to stop his very serious, un­ yuppie son, Jason (Keith Gordon),

from dropping out of college, he decides to enrol and give him ‘immoral’ support.

A touch of romance (the gushing Sally Kellerman is unbearable as the seductive English teacher), mad music, raucous humour (too many easy one-liners), and the formula for true success is set.

Kathy Bail

In flagrante at fresco: Sally Keller­ man, Rodney Dangerfield in Back to School.

Unfortunately, the recent spate of American teen films has given birth to little that is memorable — unfor­ tunately, that is, because there seems to be no end in sight. Like so many before it, B etter o ff Dead (Hoyts) tells the story of a virginal young man (John Cusack) who has crazy parents who don’t understand him; a brother who’s a weird genius; a girlfriend who dumps him; a buddy who’s a nerd; a tough, older bloke at school who rubbishes him; a beautiful girl across the road with whom he eventually falls in love; a musical instrument which he can play; a Chevy Camaro to do wheelies in; and, of course, a sport he’s good at so that he can become a triumphant winner in the end.

Written and directed by Savage Steve Holland (his name is more interesting than his film), Better off Dead is littered with standard sequences and standard character motivations. Worse, it has an aimless direction that slugs its way towards the inevitable. Even the humour is on the level of the nerd sucking jelly up a straw into his nose. Or how about the scene where the fat boy falls over, on top of his mum?

Tony Cavanaugh

Out o f the ball game: John Cusack in Better Off Dead.

A self-made stylist, John Carpenter has had such creative control in the past that it has been easy to see him as the Howard Hawks of the seventies. But, with Big Trouble in Little China (Fox-Columbia), the signs of surrendering to the Spielbe rg ia n school of M essianic Success are all too evident, despite the film having most of the earmarks of a Carpenter picture.

The premise is pretty much that of Escape from New York: a lone figure struggles against time to steal some­ body away from the clutches of a vil­ lainous clan. But this time, it’s set in a fantasy land of ghost and monster myths beneath San Francisco’s Chinatown.

The peculiarity of Carpenter’s vision, from Dark Star (a beach-ball space monster) to Starman (an alien who is hip on Sinatra), has been his assured, low-budget acuity. In Big Trouble in Little China, however, it’s become Raiders rip-off, with a bigbudget demand for special effects and kung-fu stunts.

Carpenter isn’t really a state-ofthe-arts special effects man, at least to the point where it dominates the picture. He is at his best in his Lewtonesque use of space, light and shadow, and in his minimal, cryptic incarnations of villainy. Neither of these things happens in Big Trouble in Little China.

Raffaele Caputo

Beer ’n guts: Kurt Russell in Big Trouble in Little China.

Based on an unproduced screen­ play by Dylan Thomas (adapted here by Ronald Harwood), T he Doctor and the Devils (CEL) emerges as a clumsily artificial exercise.

The source material, often filmed in the past, is the true story of a pair of nineteenth-century Edinburgh grave-robbers, Burke and Hare (Jonathan Pryce and Stephen Rea), and their client, Dr Knox (Timothy Dalton).

Knox (here called 'Dr Rock’) was a haughty and self-righteous anatomy professor, who chose to ignore the laws limiting medical research to the cadavers of executed criminals, and sought supplies of fresh corpses via the back door.

The leading characters are all saddled with unnecessary pseu­ donyms, and .Harwood has added a vacuous love-interest between the doctor’s assistant (Julian Sands) and a cardboard-caricature Cockney whore (Twiggy), presumably to

bring Thom as’s highly literate screenplay .into line with supposedly contemporary tastes.

To add to the confusion, the incidents that inspired the narrative are depicted as happening in an un­ specified English city in the eighteen-forties, whereas they actu­ ally took place in Edinburgh some 20 years earlier.

Horror specialist Freddie Francis, better known as a cinematographer (The Elephant Man), makes heavy going of potentially Interesting material in what is a cramped, studio-bound drama reminiscent of Hammer on an off-day.

Paul Harris

Spare parts? Julian Sands and Twiggy in The Doctor and the Devils.

It wasn’t hard to see, with Return of the Jedi, that the cuddly, teddybear­ like Ewoks deserved their own series of kiddie fantasy films. Ew oks and the M arauders of Endor (Hoyts) is the second, and there are bound to be more.

Although Jim and Ken Wheat, who wrote and directed the film from a story by papa George Lucas, hold onto the short attention spans of four- and five-year-olds by moving things along with a mixture of wellstaged action, new characters and p a la ta b le sch m a ltz, th e y do occasionally stretch things a bit. The scenes, for instance, where the young heroine (Aubree Miller), having lost her family early in the film, befriends Noa (Wilford Brimley), a grumpy surrogate father-figure, go on for far too long.

As with last year’s Caravan of Courage: An Ewoks Adventure, however, the modest production is boosted by some nice special effects from Industrial Light and Magic; there are some wonderful stop-motion beasties; and there is a good set-piece where a hang-gliding Ewok chases a winged dragon.

Jim Schembri

Aubree Miller, Wilford Brimley in Ewoks and the Marauders of Endor.

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A Fine M ess (Fox-Columbia) is suit­

able for either a micro-review or a very long one. The micro-review is this: a film only suitable for people interested in Blake Edwards and/or slapstick farce; all such people should see it. The long review would have to deal with the following.

Edwards wants to make a film as strictly limited to being about only itself as he can, with no portable parts to carry away and regale people with later, and no ideas to think about the following day. A cruel old saw has it that Edwards has forgotten more about comedy than Woody Allen ever knew. This film remembers all that.

A Fine Mess is a show-off’s film, a formal exercise in virtuosity. It posits a very few simple components, and arranges them in a mathematics of permutation, not transformation.

Important fiction abstractions like Motive and Emotion are reduced to either Cause or Effect.

There is a plot. An amoral wouldbe actor (Ted Danson) overhears gangsters doping a horse. The gangsters pursue the actor, his sidekick (Howie Mandel) and girlfriend (Jennifer Edwards), thus complica­ ting the actor’s pursuit of innumberable women. But the film’s charac­ ters have no learning curve. They do not change from beginning to end.

Nobody thinks in this film. The basic moment of the drama is suspended between “ What next?’’ and “ Any­ body get the number of that truck?’’

The Edwards repertoire company of comic specialists supports well, and there’s lots of nice Motown music.

R.J. Thompson

Man maid: Ted Danson (with gun) and Howie Mandel in A Fine Mess.

Forbidden (CEL) could hardly be

described as unique in its style or subject matter: set against the land­ scape of Hitler’s Berlin, it is just another story of laboured and im­ possible love that flourishes against all odds.

Nina (Jacqueline Bisset) is a dis­ inherited but suitably well-connected German countess, while Fritz (Jurgen Prochnow) is a sensitive Jewish poet with a classically over­ bearing mother.

They first meet while defending a Jewish shopkeeper who is being attacked by Hitler Youth bully-boys.

The plot then thins and, after several clandestine meetings, a fully-fledged affair is under way. Against Fritz’s mother’s advice, they decide to live in Nina’s apartment. She studies by day, while Fritz crawls around on the floor, avoiding detection by the out­ side world. But the notion of these

two characters as put-upon victims sits uncomfortably: they are not victims.

Technically, Nina and Fritz are under siege, but narrative devices distance the sense of siege from the characters’ lives. The evidence of the horror of the war is mediated through voice-over and disjointed newsreel footage. That is, we hear of the horror after the event, rather than see its effect on the characters.

We are left with an empty film that is constantly seeking to substantiate itself. F orbidd en prevents an elevated truth: the ‘true’ events of Countess Nina’s life during the war.

And it continues to hide behind this convention in order to justify its constant contrivances.

Fiona O'Grady

A world apart: Jacqueline Bisset and Jürgen Prochnow in Forbidden.

One of the enduring qualities of small-town America is that it can be taken for a ride, time and time again.

When ‘Helltrack’ comes to town, it is not just a BMX-bike race for which one wins a red Corvette: the real, flickering prize is big-city television coverage.

Too late, the honest but simple townsfolk discover that the tourist dollar has crooked and knotted purse-strings attached: the race is rigged. The local boy, Cru Jones (Bill Allen), a most effete character who wears the town’s collective heart on his sleeve, manages, how­ ever, to shut out the crooked pro­ moter, the world champion and his twin goons in the lowest farce on two wheels.

The direction of H elltrack (Road­ show) by Hal Needham is most unsensational. In effect, every charac­ ter in the film is transient and ineffec­ tual. Every one seems to possess no

Flipping hick: Cru (Bill Allen) does a backflip in Helltrack.

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past, an accidental involvement in the present and a dim future. This disengagement is the result of appalling writing and a plot so facile that Helltrack seems to fade before one’s eyes, and to leave the memory unblemished.

Luke Nestorowicz

“ Hollywood! The city where it all began. The prostitution, the porno­ graphy, the crime, and the most un­ usual police force in the world,” declares the poster for H ollyw ood Vice Squad (Roadshow), a small film that not only cops out on its promises, but can’t even get its simple priorities right.

There are three cases, the main one of which exhausts every cliche, as a mother goes through the ’search for the darling daughter lost in the city of broken dreams' routine.

She is helped by Police Officer (“ Goddamit, someone’s gotta have a sense of morality in this cesspool of crime” ) Jensen (Ronny Cox, who should know better).

The only mildly interesting narra­ tive thread has Carrie Fisher playing a token “ I can do my job as well as a man” cop having a shot at smashing a porno-film racket. There was a chance here to do something of genuine interest (along the lines of The Glitter Dome). But it doesn’t happen.

The film advances the theory that the Hollywood Vice Squad is unusual because its members do really interesting things like go undercover and have criminal con­ tacts. It also suggests that, if you throw in a few swear-words, you can cover up the fact that all you have to offer is a bad TV pilot.

Jim Schembri

Making her day: Carrie Fisher and porno king in Hollywood Vice Squad.

Tobe Hooper’s career has so far been characterized by a very precise blend of the ordinary with the over-the-top. The grand guignol slaughter of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, for instance, needed the dreary ordinariness of the inves­ tigating kids to complement it.

With Lifeforce (1985), Hooper showed signs of losing the knack.

With Invaders from M ars (Hoyts), it seems to have gone altogether. All that is left is a half-hour (the first) of ' .skilful build-up, mirroring the topo­ graphy and the tone of the 1953 3-D classic: the same twisted fence stands atop the same mysterious ridge, and the Gardners are still the nicest folks ever to be colonized by aliens.

From there on, though, the film is

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gradually taken over by rubbery monsters, preposterous sets and leaden dialogue. It was a neat idea to cast Jimmy Hunt (the boy in the 1953 version) as the police chief in this one. But the mother-and-son casting (Karen Black and Paris, Texas’s Hunter Carson as the kid and the teacher who helps him) merely wastes Black’s edgy screen persona in a role that requires only that she (a) gradually understand, (b) try to help and (c) be rescued.

Nick Roddick

Alienated: Karen Black, Hunter Carson in Invaders from Mars.

Speed (Roadshow) would have us believe, in keeping with current political rhetoric, that each nation is hostage to itself, and that the ideals espoused by any nation as a whole (i.e. America) are some­ how threatened by its citizens.

Maureen’s peaceful lesson . jn European culture is rudely inter­ rupted when she is captured and exported by white-slave traders to the United States of Africa. Her guiltridden sister, Margaret (Karen Hopins), conjures up Jake Speed (Wayne Crawford), hero of six volumes of pulp adventure stories, and he takes on her case in order to publish a seventh.

Given that Jake and his ghost­ writer, Desmond (Dennis Christo­ pher), are motivated by sales poten­ tial, Maureen begins to wonder if she isn’t being conned. Their plans are so pitiful that her suspicions seem confirmed. By way of punishment for her doubts, she is captured by the vicious Sid (John Hurt), ring-leader and embodiment of evil. On the tarmac, as the archetypal revolution Jake

Writing the wrongs o f the world: Wayne Crawford in Jake Speed.

rages, Jake saves the day, having gained strength and poise from Margaret’s new-found faith.

America’s only problem, accord­ ing to Jake Speed, is that the selfevident truths and obvious justices which constitute the United States of America are too good to be true. But Jake reminds Margaret in the dedication of his novel that he will return, as long as some people con­ tinue to believe.

Luke Nestorowicz

In these times of upward mobility and ostentatious lifestyle, Ivan Reitman’s Legal Eagles (UIP) proves to be the perfect prototype of the new 'designer cinema’, where outmoded values like plot and substance are replaced by style and slickness.

Thus, after the art-directed sexual angst of 9 1/2 Weeks and the stylized airforce chic of Top Gun, we are plunged into a world inhabited by lawyers and thieves who look like Robert Redford and Darryl Hannah, where Picassos and Giacomettis exist only as potential investments, and where "aerobics” , “ Mercedes Benz” and "going out for breakfast” are the very stuff of communication.

Redford plays Assistant District Attorney Logan, whose brilliant career is jeopardized when he becomes involuntarily involved in the case of Chelsea Deardon (Hannah), accused of theft and murder. Convinced of her inno­ cence and helped by defence attorney Laura Kelly (Debra Winger), Logan sets out to fight for truth and justice in the fashionable American way.

The ‘comedy’ side of Legal Eagles tends to founder in a quagmire of irredeemably unfunny gags, but Reitman seems more at ease with the film's thriller element, providing some mildly convincing moments of suspense and action.

But he soon relapses: the ending is predictably weak and facile, and the film as a whole the reflection and product of a society absorbed in its own appearance and good looks.

Norbert Noyaux

he learns that, after 37 years of marriage, his mother (Eva Marie Saint) has left his father (Jackie Gleeson).

The film now has to confront the breakdown of the nuclear family and the problem of coping with the com­ munity’s ever-increasing elderly population. David struggles to sup­ port his parents financially and emotionally, whilst juggling a huge airline advertizing deal and an affair with the airline boss’s hard-nosed daughter.

David is forced to recognize the nature and individuality of his parents, and to reassess his position and responsibility as a family member. The crisis comes when his father has to undergo a major opera­ tion, and David must choose between remaining affiliated to the 'Me generation’ or assuming the role of the father.

In a climate of flippant American comedies, Nothing in Common is particularly welcome for dealing with sensitive and pressing social issues with a degree of sophistication and h o n e s ty th a t a v o id s o v e rly moralizing tones.

Fiona O’Grady

At first, Nothing in Com m on (FoxColumbia) appears to be just another yuppie movie. Then, how­ ever, it develops from a dull comedy into a reasonably convincing drama.

David Basner (Tom Hanks) is an ambitious, cocksure advertizing executive, whose prime concerns are money, ego and sexual con­ quests. All this is threatened when

Mother and son: Anthony Perkins as Norman in Psycho III. earnest debates with Mother and the nifty knife-work.

The plot is almost random — women arrive chez Bates and don’t leave — except for the role of Maureen (an excellent performance

by Diana Scarwid). An ex-nun with problems enough of her own, Maureen is a dead ringer for Marion Crane/Janet Leigh, and becomes convinced that saving Norman is her holy mission.

Sadly, though, the moments of outrageous humour — Maureen, trying to commit suicide in her bath, mistakes the looming figure of Norman/Mother for a vision of the Virgin Mary — can’t really disguise the tedium of a plot with nowhere much to go and a directorial style that, flourishes apart, consists mainly of long shots and angle/reverse-angle set-ups.

Judge Reinhold and Helen Slater, do not do so well. They've gone to a lot of trouble — even had the guest room redecorated for the event — but Sam won’t pay and their guest terrifies them with her tantrums. To allay suspicions, Sam finally agrees to $10,000 — a bargain reduction from the original $2 million.

Ruthless People is structured around the best comedy has to offer: a brilliant script, with constant reversals, loaded lines and a frenetic pace; and, as a result of collabora­ tive efforts between directors (Flying High's David and Jerry Zucker and Jim Abrahams) and cast, great per­ formances.

The result is boisterous, hilarious and superbly crafted. If this is Dale Launer’s first feature script, I can’t wait for more.

Mary Colbert

Nick Roddick

When an innocent country cat first hits town and has to deal with scheming alleycats instead of droopy-eyed cows, chances of survival are slim, especially since his name is Peter and he doesn’t have a tail. But the moral is that tails — or perhaps tales — aren’t everything.

P e te r-N o -T a il (Filmways), a Swedish children’s animation film screening for the school holidays, follows tried-and-true formulae, and the tale it tells doesn’t, like more pro­ voking children’s stories, encourage different levels of reading (a few barbed comments about the Rus­ sians were all I could decipher).

Using uninventive animation and dull, sing-along tunes, Peter-No-Tail sets out to teach: we go through the alphabet; there is a lesson to learn about power-points; and, of course, there is something to say about honesty (Peter triumphs over Mean Mike, the Tom Cat, and wins pretty Molly).

But, with a mediocre graphic style and the uncoolest of central char­ acters, there is not much left — cer­ tainly nothing to equal Bugs Bunny, who has more style, more wit and more tail/tale.

Kathy Bail

Innocence in the eye o f the beholder: Darryl Hannah in Legal Eagles.

The kidnappers in R u th less People (Greater Union), played by

As with that 1976 sequel which asked us to believe in a bunch of contemporary characters who had never heard of a giant ape called Kong, so follow-ups to Psycho have difficulty overcoming the problem that the Bates Motel, the house on the hill, the shower in Cabin 1 and the proprietor’s twitching face have become part of the cultural wall­ paper.

Psycho III (UIP) is set only a month after Psycho II (1983).

Anthony Perkins, who directs as well as stars, combines homage — a number of direct quotes from Hitch­ cock, a fondness for overhead shots — with humour. Understanding Norman’s psychosis is discarded in favour of emphasizing the twitch, the

"Who do you think I am: Dirty Harry?” grins Arnold Schwarz­ enegger as he launches into his career as a one-man retribution squad. Sadly, the answer seems to be ‘Yes': Arnie speaks soft and deep, like Clint, and delivers most of his more epigrammatic lines with a steely, unblinking stare.

Which would be fine, if the lines were better . . . or, for that matter, the plot, which might well be — and, to judge by the writing credits, probably is — recycled from a Bgrade Italian thriller.

Raw Deal (Hoyts) has Schwarz­ enegger as a sacked FBI man who is given the chance to redeem himself by infiltrating the organiza­ tion of a Chicago crime boss (Sam Wanamaker). After a lot of consumerist time-wasting, he does what is expected of him in a — and I use the word advisedly — appallingly violent ending, which mirrors the appallingly violent opening.

Director John Irvin, whose last credit was Turtle Diary, does little more than fiddle around the edges, occasionally placing pieces of irrelevant business in the fore­ ground, while the dreary main action goes on behind.

Schwarzenegger, who can be a mesmerizing screen presence, stumbles through a role that could (and should) have been played by some authentic, low-budget nasty in the mould of Ralph Meeker or Joe Don Baker.

Nick Roddick

Some people have all the luck! Just as rag-trade tycoon Sam Stone (Danny De Vito) is planning to kill his wife (Bette Midler), she is kidnapped by someone else. And, though she has been unsuccessfully trying to lose weight for years, as a captive using her fury to work out, she emerges 20lbs lighter in no time, as well as svelte and mellowed in temperament.

Wanting is a way o f life: Bette Midler in Ruthless People.

In Starchaser: T he Legend of Orin (Filmways), a young hero called Orin discovers a magic lightsabre and sets out to free his people.

En route, he meets an immoral but charming space buccaneer, a princess called Aviana, a couple of comic robots and an evil galactic overlord.

If this sounds familiar, there is more. Aviana’s hair is coiled on the side, like Princess Leia’s. The overlord turns out to be a robot. And there is a sort of Death Star like a huge microchip, with a channel down the middle that skilled pilots can fly spaceships through.

But Star-Wars aspirations are thwarted by the fact that Starchaser is an animated feature with a lot of its backgrounds and in-betweening done in South Korea. It is also in 3-D, although all this means is that there is a gap between the flat foreground figures and the featureless back­ ground, giving the ‘film all the dynam ic vitality of a M ye r’s Christmas window.

The early promise of Orin’s encounter with a hideous race of part-human, part-prosthetic people called Mandroids, who try to raid him for spare parts, is never realised, and the end result is lowgrade, Saturday-morning stuff, given a PG rating for a bit of gore and a handful of 'damns’.

Nick Roddick

Wim Wenders once observed that trains had a special purpose, in French films particularly, as symbols of hope and despair. He, in turn, used the Paris metro in The Ameri­ can Friend for a sequence in which

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 53

he intended the setting to explain how his amoral hero could cold­ bloodedly m urder a com plete stranger.

The same venerable setting is used in S u bw ay (Filmways) as the habitat for a disparate group of characters who find, in Paris's life­ line, a refuge from the confines of the real world: a roller-skating pick­ pocket (Jean-Hugues Anglade), a seedy seller of flowers and other tid­ bits (Richard Bohringer), some musicians about to get their big break, a cynical policeman (Michel Galabru) who is tired of the inept assistants assigned to him, and so on.

Down comes Fred (Christophe Lambert), escaping to the familiar safety of the subway, having just stolen incriminating documents from the husband of Helena (Isabelle Adjani). He attempts blackmail, but finds his infatuation for Helena a much worthier cause. Fred eventu­ ally succeeds in wooing her from an oppressive and bland middle-class life and into the sordid grime of the underworld.

Subway tells its irreverent and nihilistic story in a slick, comic-book fashion. Its very insistence on not being quite French — as evidenced by the title, the protagonist’s name, the English songs — is riddled with pop-art impishness.

For 26-year-old Luc Besson, it is a notable achievement, as it is for the veteran art director, Alexandre Trauner, who does a startling job with the film’s design.

Paul Kalina

Sw eet L iberty (UIP) gives you a

sense of the 'n u d g in g fo rty ’ syndrome — a definite psycho­ logical edginess creeping into a cosy existence of middle-aged, upper-middle-classness.

The film centres on a divorced his­ torian, Michael Burgess (Alan Alda, who also wrote and directed), who can’t convince people to see things his way. He can’t convince a film director (Saul Rubinek) that his book on the American Revolution is more than a trashy teenage movie. He can’t convince his girlfriend (Lise Hilboldt) to live with him without a marriage certificate. And he can’t convince his mother (Lillian Gish) that the man she loved 25 years ago no longer loves her.

The one continuum between Michael’s emotional, familial and (as it were) creative dilemmas is a kind of historian’s ideal for the ‘genuine article’. This seems to turn up in the form of Faith Healy (Michelle Pfeiffer), the actress chosen to play Mary Slocumb, the principal figure in his book. For Michael, Faith is Mary.

But he soon learns that Faith com­ promises herself to get the film finished.

Michael’s partial readjustments — he’s willing to keep his mother happy by supporting the idea that she is still loved, and to give marriage another go — are accep­ table to an extent. But, poised between television sit com and the murmurings of a personal cinema, Sweet Liberty lacks any sense of critical scrutiny.

Michael hardly discovers for him-

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54 — N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

K nocking on h is to r y ’s door: Michelle Pfeiffer in Sweet Liberty. self the origins of his edginess. It is not ideals or failure to compromise that cause his dilemmas: it is — in a finale which is pure Alan Alda — selfrighteousness turned into self-sac­ rifice.

Raffaele Caputo

Made in 1983, Utu (NewVision) could be seen as a kind of New Zealand Chant of Jimmie Black­ smith. A big-budget, historical drama that traces a violent conflict between rebel Maoris and their English colonial rulers in 1870, it looks as if it was crafted to be ‘the’ film for a developing industry, the yardstick by which all future produc­ tions would be measured.

Blacksmith certainly suffered when audiences felt deprived after expectations had been built up for an important event: it wasn’t ’the’ Australian film after all. Nor is Utu ‘the’ New Zealand film.

It is powerful and evocative, however. As well as tightly-packed action sequences, there is an imag­ inative and thoughtful look at New Zealand society through its racial conflicts. The spine of the film is the Maori revenge (utu) for an attack on a village by white soldiers, but the film (directed by Geoff Murphy, who co-wrote with Keith Aberdein) is more than just a story of black versus white. Through one of the characters, a New Zealand-born soldier (played by Kelly Johnson), the film explores nationalist loyalty and offers a future direction for the country.

Music (by John Charles) and photography (by Graeme Cowley) are both excellent, but the film is marred by some clumsy editing, inflicted on the film after its initial release at the advice of foreign ‘experts’. The intercutting of the final scene throughout the narrative only succeeds in confusing and irritating the audience, as well as diluting the tension by revealing the end of the story.

Tony Cavanaugh

When one of the lead characters in Vam p (Roadshow) finds himself turning pale, discovers he is not reflected in the mirror and has a pair ■of emergent fangs, he exclaims: “ It’s just like in the movies, man!” Which goes to show that an element of selfconsciousness is creeping into today’s vampire movies.

Following on from last year’s Fright Night at a somewhat cautious distance, Vamp is the second of what one m ight call teenage vampire comedies. But, if you include Lifeforce, The Flunger and

Once Bitten, it looks like we are wit­ nessing a revival of the vampire genre.

In Vamp’s self-consciousness, one can probably discern an element of regret for the passing of the vampire movies of old. Fangs, it seems, are no longer enough for today’s audi­ ences: vampires seem to have lost their aristocratic charm, and have to look expertly ghoulish.

Nevertheless, with its sense of after hours in Kansas City and with a comic moodiness that sometimes appears to have been lifted from Marc Behm ’s story, 'The Ice Maiden’ — the old man in the sewer sucking on a rat just has to be from Behm — Vamp is at least in higher gear than Fright Night.

But its best moments are when it is indecisive — those moments just before the fangs are going to emerge for certain or are not. Then, there is a sensuous play with suggestion and uncertain moods.

Raffaele Caputo

Nightclubbin’: Grace Jones in the A fter Dark Club in Vamp.

In W etherb y (Roadshow), Jean Travers (Vanessa Redgrave), a middle-aged Yorkshire teacher, lives an isolated existence with only her repressed feelings to keep her com­ pany. Her major consolation in life seems to be the easy rapport she enjoys with her pupils, who are seemingly doomed to a career on the unemployment lines.

One night, Jean throws a dinner party, which is gatecrashed by a gaunt stranger, who returns next day and commits suicide in her kitchen. From this point onwards, playwright David Hare, making his feature debut, constructs a complex narrative, with numerous flashbacks illustrating the neuroses that afflict his various characters — and, by implication, Britain itself.

For a woman who is ostensibly an emotionally stunted spinster, Red­ grave seems to subvert Hare’s inten­ tions with a performance that hints at a woman of inner resources and hard-won maturity. Nevertheless, as in Plenty, the villain of the piece is the emotional repression so deeply engrained in the English character, which cuts across all boundaries of class and sexuality.

Or so Hare would have us believe.

But his thesis is forced and ultimately unconvincing, even if his command of the film medium is surprisingly assured.

Paul Harris

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Rubbing it in FILM STYLE AND TECHNOLOGY: HISTORY AND ANALYSIS by Barry

Salt (Starwood, 3 Minford Gardens, London W14 OAN; 1986 [pbk], ISBN 0 9509066 1 1, £10.00 [inc postage & packing]).

Barry Salt is Australian, although the only way you would know It in this book is by his tendency to use that strange localism, ‘different to’. Barry Salt is also an obsessed film scholar, who knows as much or more than any other human being alive about lighting, camera placement and the capabilities of cinematic machines in film from the beginning to (nearly) the present.

He is also idiosyncratic. Film Style and Technology is self-published, which represents a commitment far in excess of what is usual in film studies. The book contains swinge­ ing (and not always pertinent) refuta­ tions of most contemporary film theory, and a number of gratuitous swipes at Marxism, Freudianism and the common practice of interpreta­ tion.

This maverick stance is the foundation of what is good about this very good book. Without it, Salt would surely not have done the work he has done. He would not have counted and timed shots, drawn up graphs, tabulated results and delved into the technological history of the medium. He would not, I think, have looked so long or so carefully at so many ‘boring’ early films.

The result is a fundamental book for film historians, not so much for its questionable rejection of current trends (although even questionable opposition to accepted opinion is praiseworthy) as for the abundance of empirical information it contains.

Indeed, Salt’s is the sort of work which ought to be absolutely essen­ tial before the formulation of theories — something which he doesn’t hesitate to point out.

He characterizes his own position as ‘Scientific Realism’, and attempts, throughout the book, to reach some sort of objective knowledge about films, mainly by means of statistical analysis of ‘formal’ elements like the duration of shots and the distances between camera and subject.

In view of his contempt for the current orthodoxy in film studies, it is somewhat surprising that Salt’s book agrees, by and large, with that ortho­ doxy’s revision of film history. By this 1 mean that, like most others in the field today, Salt sees a gradual de velopm e nt tow a rds 'C lassic Narrative’ or ‘Film’s Institutional Mode of Representation’.

His name for this master style — ‘Continuity Cinema’ — is succinct and descriptive. But, so far as I can see, it does not designate anything substantially different from the other names. Rather, it announces a more detailed account of the specifics of that style (or ‘code’, as it would usually be called today) and corrects minor deficiencies of description by

those who, unlike Salt, had not done their homework.

What Salt and others are trying to describe is that way of making films which we tend to accept as the ‘right way’. It is a ‘mode of representation' which seems to invite the spectator’s emotional participation in the ‘lived reality’ created by the film. And, of course, it can be achieved more or less mechanically by the application of certain accepted ways of doing things with lights, cameras and splicers, not to mention styles of acting and script structures.

Salt departs from orthodoxy in his rejection of the ideological and (Freudian) psychological connec­ tions which are often made between this style and the dominance of capitalism, an economic and social formation he rather seems to like. In other words, he sees the movement towards Continuity Cinema as a Good Thing rather than a Bad Thing. He thinks that films ought to strive to imitate life — ‘artistically’ — as completely as they can, because that is what they are for.

Now, it seems to me that Con­ tinuity Cinema, unlike capitalism, is neither a Good Thing nor a Bad Thing, but a Thing toute faite (well, not exactly a Thiing, but let it pass).

This may be why I am more struck by the similarities of Salt’s conclu­ sions to the prevalent views than by their differences, and more willing than others apparently may have been to say that his work is important.

His position is silly; but then, so is theirs. Both positions have pro­ duced work which is interesting because of and in spite of their silli­ ness. It is a pity that we don’t have many film books yet which one can read without giggling, but that is surely not Barry Salt’s fault.

Meanwhile, I may have given the impression that Film Style and Tech­ nology wallows for most of its length in theory. That is not the case. The theoretical bits are amusing, but short. Most of the book is admirably concentrated on descriptions of apparatus or stylistic devices. If you want to know when whip pans first appeared, or why Ralph Ince was important, or why no 16mm prints of post-1954 Hollywood films are accurate reproductions of the 35mm originals, this book can tell you.

Unfortunately, however, one must not accept every ‘fact’ in Film Style and Technology as true — a mini­ mum standard for 'Scientific Realism’ as I understand it. For example, Salt does not seem to have seen a com­ plete (nor even an accurately titled) copy of the historically significant film, L ’Assassinat du Due de Guise (1908). Nor are there, as he claims, foreground silhouetted figures in The Silver Wedding (1906). And sources other than Salt have pub­ lished evidence that, by 1912, the Swedes may have been producing some films with as much cutting in them as most American films of the period. These are trivial errors, but they merit pointing out so that the reader is not misled into believing that this book, unlike any other, need not be taken with a grain of salt.

William D. Routt

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

56 — N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

Norwich union ALL OUR YESTERDAYS: 90 YEARS OF BRITISH CINEMA edited by

Charles Barr (BFI Publishing, 1986, ISBN 0 85170 179 5, £12.95).

Appearing with immaculate (and probably quite intentional) timing just as British Film Year is all over, Charles Barr’s compendium — 23 essays by nineteen different writers — is the third recent book of essays on British cinema. And, as with British Cinema FUstory, edited by Charles Curran and Vincent Porter (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1983), and British Cinema Now, edited by Martyn Auty and myself (BFI Pub­ lishing, 1985), the possibility of an extended analysis of the subject tends to be frustrated by the format.

With that reservation, though, All Our Yesterdays is a very stimulating and useful book, well up among the top half-dozen in the field (among which I would include Raymond Durgnat’s A Mirror for England [1970], David Pirie’s A Fleritage of Horror [1973], Alexander Walker’s Hollywood, England [1974] and Charles Barr’s own Ealing Studios [1977]).

Inevitably, some of the contribu­ tions in this new collection are better than others: a few are excellent, some are informative but dull, and one or two have no place in the book. But, although Barr makes the mandatory apology in the Preface that the essays “ do not claim or aim to be comprehensive either within their own spheres or in the way they interlock with each other to cover the field’’, they do hold together remark­ ably well.

There is, to start with, a definite approach, common to at any rate most of the articles. It could be described as the 'Norwich line’, since several of the key contributors have links with the University of East Anglia, where Barr himself teaches.

Broadly speaking, this line runs through the following critical view­ points: the development of British film c u ltu re has been both hampered and determined by the com forta ble repressiveness of British society; the war years were a Golden Age, with a shared national identity on which cinema could draw and to which it could react; the shadow of realism has always hung over British cinema, determining the modes of critical discourse and shaping the development of the films themselves (with the corollary that those films produced against the realist grain — Gainsborough melo­ drama, Hammer horror — are often the most interesting); and finally, by extension, the ‘best’ British films tend to be those which don’t belong to the accepted notion of quality cinema (Great Expectations, The Servant, Gandhi), but sit outside it.

Michael Powell’s Peeping Tom (1960), which appears (uncredited) on the book’s cover, is the prime

example of this last point. Execrated at the time of its release, it has subsequently been elevated to the very peak of the British pantheon.

The Norwich line doesn’t account for the whole book, however. Other areas are covered, and two of the best pieces fall outside the leitmotif: R obert M u rp h y ’s exhaustively researched, clearly written and bril­ liantly contextualized ‘Under the Shadow of Hollywood’, the best overview to date of this complex and crucial subject; and Sylvia Harvey’s ‘The “ Other Cinema” in Britain: Un­ finished Business in Oppositional and Independent Film, 1929-1984’, which is an equally impressive survey of a totally different field.

But it is the book’s main line that determines its value — and, for that matter, calls for the most comment.

In its dense, well-designed 400 pages, All Our Yesterdays effectively questions many of the orthodoxies of British film criticism. But it rests on a couple of fairly crucial assumptions itself.

The first has to do with realism, neatly summed up near the end by Peter Hutchings, a research student at East Anglia: “ With the war comes documentary . . . and, with it, crucially, a critical privileging of realism which has been with us ever since.” There are two problems here. First, as Geoffrey Nowell-Smith points out in his excellent short piece on Humphrey Jennings, realism may not have been as high on the documentarists’ agenda as we have always assumed. Wartime films cer­ tainly engaged with reality (how could they have done otherwise?), but there is no simple definition of ‘realism’ that will hold them — or th e ir p o s tw a r su c c e s s o rs — together.

More importantly, it is far from certain that the “ critical privileging of realism” — or critical comment of any kind — had anything like the effect on British film practice that is consistently assumed in this book.

Of all film cultures, Britain's could be argued to be the one least affected by how film, as one writer here puts it, has been critically “ thought through” . The notion that critical dis­ course is central to the filmmaking process is a great deal more problematic than All Our Yesterdays would have us believe.

Secondly, there is the matter of the war. The evidence that British cinema “ came into its ow n” (Barr) during World War II is certainly seductive. But to argue that it did so because of the wartime sense of community seems a rather sophisti­ cated version of the sentimental ‘spirit of the Blitz’ which permeated British cinema until the late fifties.

One is left with the feeling that the attraction of forties cinema is not just its dynamism, but its distance: it is long enough ago for the dividing line between po pu lar cinem a and ‘quality’ cinema to be less absolute, and for both to- be able to be set firmly in the context of contemporary social reality.

This feeling is reinforced by the fact that All Our Yesterdays is a good deal less ready to deal with more recent forms of popular, imagebased entertainment. Television is treated in only the broadest of terms.

Hammer horror films are cited

.: . t i

Names not dropped in Barr’s book: B arbara W indsor as M elo d y Madder, Jim Dale as Dr Nookey, Sid James as Gladstone Screwer and Hattie Jacques as Matron in Carry On Again, Doctor. repeatedly as a rich vein, but never looked at in detail. And box office success is used on the one hand to indicate the ‘popular’ nature of the Gainsborough films, and on the other to denigrate later, commer­ cially successful films. The distinc­ tion made in Andy Medhurst’s essay on 'Music Hall and British Cinema’ between “ commodity forms of humour” and “ untainted folk roots” , romantic though it may be, could usefully be brought to bear on other areas of the book.

Medhurst's essay, though, does at least mention one of the most per­ sistent and distinctively British forms

Pure Goldsmith THE FINAL CONFLICT (Composed

by Jerry Goldsmith, National Philharmonic Orchestra, Varese Sarabande STV 81272, $16.99).

LEGEND (Composed and conducted by Jerry Goldsmith, Filmtrax, Moment 100, $18.99).

COMMANCHEROS/ TRUE GRIT (Composed

and conducted by Elmer Bernstein, Utah Symphony Orchestra, Varese Sarabande [digital] 704.280, $17.99).

For lovers of genuine film music, these are dark times. Contemporary films are looking more than ever like extended videoclips, and the major studios have cemented the relation­ ship with their recording subsidiaries (or is it the other way round?) so firmly that film scores are almost ceasing to exist in their own right.

The record companies have virtu­ ally dropped whatever commitment to legitimate film music they might once have possessed, directing their energies towards the only sector of the public that figures in their par­ ticular scheme of things — the youth market. Look in the 'Soundtrack'

of popular cinema, the Carry On films, which have never come within hailing distance of quality cinema, but don’t appear to make the grade here, either. They would, surely, have provided rich (though difficult) fuel for the book’s concerns, as they did (with limited success) for an essay in the Curran/Porter book.

The new book’s strength, how­ ever, and what makes it such a valu­ able addition to a limited area of the bookshelf, is precisely that it does raise so many problems — that it is, perhaps, so often so irritating. Thus, for all that I find something to dis­ agree with on almost every page, I have also found All Our Yesterdays the most stimulating film book I have read this year. But it is (still) not the critical history of British cinema that we so desperately need.

Nick Roddick

section of any record shop, and you’ll find a depressing abundance of alleged ‘Original Soundtrack’ recordings which are nothing more than ‘Various Artists’ compilations.

Even a box-office giant like Back to the Future has its excellent Alan Silvestri score emasculated on record, while none of Dave Grusin’s symphonic music for The Goonies is to be found on the soundtrack album, apart from the unrepresenta­ tive^ pop ‘End title'.

Fortunately, true film music — music, that is, which has some sort of functional dramatic point — lives on on the independent record labels, notably Varese Sarabande, Southern Cross, and their British counterparts, That’s Entertainment and Filmtrax. Without them, we could more or less kiss goodbye to recorded film music.

Jerry Goldsmith’s score for The Final Conflict can justly be called a classic, even allowing for contem­ porary over-use of that term. It is a truly awesome work, which delivers far more than the film itself ever intended. The Omen and Damien: Omen 2 were almost fully atonal scores. By contrast, The Final Con­ flict places a good deal more emphasis on the melodic, taking into account an important new element in the series: the birth of the Christ, which instigates a strength and harmony amidst the prevailing chaos.

Nowhere is this better demon­ strated than in the ‘Second coming’ cue. Though built around the ‘Christ’ theme, the central melody con­ stantly defers to the ‘Damien Thorn’ theme, as the anti-Christ becomes aware of the imminent birth of his adversary. The music builds in intensity, one side giving way to the

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other as each strains for supremacy, until finally the ‘Christ’ theme signals Thorn’s defeat in a dazzling burst of musical grandeur with full orchestra and chorus joining together to rejoice in the victory.

The music from Legend is an entirely different affair. A more sub­ dued work than The Final Conflict, it is an incredibly evocative piece, which requires (as do most of Gold­ smith’s scores) repeated listenings for full appreciation of its subtle nuances. It is the composer’s most delicate work for some time, with the accent strongly on the pastoral, characterized by melodies of fragile, ethereal beauty.

To portray the mystic forest setting, Goldsmith uses harps, flutes, bells and hushed voices, heighten­ ing the effect through a judicious use of echo. Finding a suitable musical reference point for fairyland is solved by turning to known but archaic musical forms to suggest an other-worldly, timeless environment.

Goldsmith employs the medieval ballad and the madrigal to give musical effect to the two main characters.

Around these central themes, Goldsmith has woven a romantic theme of great emotional intensity to express the love between Jack and the Princess. Important as these pieces are to the film, they are never allowed to be repeated ad nauseam, but form a small, though integral, part of an exquisitely constructed whole. The score is a perfect complement to the visuals — in the European version, that is. For the American version, G oldsm ith’s music has been disgracefully dis­ carded in favour of the more com­ mercially-oriented electronic non­ sense of Tangerine Dream.

Elmer Bernstein’s music for The Commancheros and True Grit points up the two problems which have always bedevilled film music: not being able to get a release on record, or getting a record but not the right music. Bernstein pioneered a whole new approach to scoring westerns with The Magnificent Seven. Influenced by Aaron Cop­ land and drawing upon diverse folk elements, he developed a breezily robust, instantly recognizable style that was a memorable feature of many a fifties and sixties western.

In spite of this, The Comman­ cheros was never released on record, which was a pity, as the score is vintage Bernstein. Moving along at a terrific pace, propelled by his characteristically driving rhythms, it features a main theme superficially similar to The Magnifi­ cent Seven, but with a unique flavour of its own. This is not one of Bernstein’s best scores, but it’s one of the most entertaining. The digital sound is superb, and far superior to anything that could have been pro­ duced back in 1961.

True Grit was a different story: the film marked the acting debut of Glen Campbell, who also happened to sing the title song. Sensing Top 40 dollars, Campbell’s recording com­ pany, Capitol Records, opted for the right to release the soundtrack album, but only on condition that the original score be re-arranged in easy-listening, 'now' fashion. Thus the soundtrack LP was a con

(although a pleasant enough record).

Bernstein himself could hardly have been pleased, as evidenced by the fact that he has waited all this time for an opportunity to re-record his original concept. It’s still not com­ plete, but the best moments are there — the lyrical ‘Main theme’, the kinetic 'Rooster Cogburn theme’, and a short cue that literally makes my flesh tingle every time I hear it.

It’s called 'The pace that kills’; and, if anyone wants to know why I love film music, it is this brilliant piece that I play for them. The album as a whole is a must for anyone’s collec­ tion: the sound is superb; it is enthusiastically performed by the Utah Symphony Orchestra; and the music is Bernstein at his most energetic.

Tony Drouyn

★ ir ik ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Books received NB. Inclusion of a title in this list does not preclude a future review.

JEROME KERN: A BIOGRAPHY by Michael Freedland (Robson Books, ISBN 0 86051 339 4, £3.95).

A paperback reissue of Freedland’s 1978 biography, with a few correc­ tions, sometimes rather badly com­ bined with the original setting.

Though solid, Freedland’s Kern is not a patch on his Berlin book (see below). The information is drily pre­ sented, often in a rather disjointed way, and the composer repeatedly emerges as a man of considerable arrogance and limited charm.

PLAYING BEATIE BOW by Ruth Park (Penguin [A Puffin Book], 1986, ISBN 0 14 032249 3, $5.95).

First published in 1980, when it won the Children's Book of the Year Award, Ruth Park’s novel now reemerges in its fifth paperback print­ ing as the ‘book of the film’. Park’s heroine, Abigail, is two years younger than the film’s, and a lot gawkierthan Imogen Annesley, who could never have been described as “ looking like a stick in jeans and a tank top” . The book’s tone is often darker in both time periods, but it is also a lot more diffuse than Peter Gawler’s admirable screenplay.

A SALUTE TO IRVING BERLIN by Michael Freedland (W.H. Allen/Century Hutchinson, 1986, ISBN 0 491 03593 4, $39.95).

A new edition of Freedland’s 1974 biography — ‘new’ meaning a few minor rewrites and a couple of short extra chapters. Freedland is a pro­ fessional biographer, and this is a ‘professional’ biography: a com­ bination of intermittent praise and chronological catalogue, neatly crafted together in five-line para­ graphs. The fact that it is a ‘tribute’ gives it quite a bit of extra sparkle, however, even if it means that any criticism of Berlin is either glossed over or dodged. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

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Looking for the high flyers ‘Howardgate’ began with uneasy rumblings at a preview screening, and culminated with Frank Price’s resignation as chairman of the Motion Picture Group and president of Universal Pictures. In between, th e G e o rg e L u c a s -p ro d u c e d Howard the Duck let loose the year’s most talked-about rumour: that feathers, if not fists, flew in an alter­ cation between Price and MCA president and chief operating officer, Sid Sheinberg, over who, exactly, was to blame for their $35-million-plus box-office bird.

The summer bomb, despite a much ballyhooed $8 million adver­ tising campaign (that took care not to reveal the film’s feathered star), Howard the Duck garnered just $5 million in its first week out. (Even Friday the 13th Part Vi: Jason Lives topped it at the box office that week­ end.) It was strictly downhill from there: Howard managed only $14.9 million at the box office, while Legal Eagles, Universal’s other feathered summer entry, grossed $47 million, not exactly offsetting the reported $38 million cost.

Columbia Pictures also had its share of late-summer dramatics, with the announcement that Ishtar, its big Christmas picture, would not be released until 22 May 1987. The announcement came at the same time that a 90-second trailer for the mega-budget comedy (the figure is said to be $35-50 million) was making the rounds, as an append­ age to the 1,554 prints of the comedy, Armed and Dengerous.

The announcement kicked off a flurry of gossip that alleged every­ thing from a potentially disastrous film (more than one film writer reminded readers that director Elaine May’s last film, Mikey and Nicky, had barely been released), to reports of problems between May and her two $6-million (apiece) stars, Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman.

There was also the worries of exhibitors, who were left without a major Christmas release. Four studios (Columbia, MGM, United Artists and Cannon) now have nothing for movie-goers to ho-ho-ho about. And Universal’s only entry, Brighton Beach Memoirs, will only have limited engagements in Los Angeles and New York. This leaves many cinemas without product, which may explain the phone calls that reportedly flooded the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group, with requests to book either King Kong Lives or Crimes of the Heart (which is, at present, slated for a limited release pattern).

The summer’s top films (from 23 May to 1 September) were led by Top Gun, with ticket sales of $119.1 million, followed by The Karate Kid, Part II, with $99 million, and Rodney Dangerfield’s Back to School, with $80.3 million.

Although Sylvester Stallone’s Cobra was widely dismissed as a summer flop, it managed ticket sales of nearly $50 million — making it the

“I ’m in a constant struggle with my­ self to avoid diluting the film ’s integrity. ’’ Stallone and D avid Mendenhall in Over the Top. summer’s seventh highest grossing film. Asked about that film’s ‘dis­ appointing’ ticket sales, Stallone said, “ You’re getting a bit jaded about this business, wouldn't you say? If each one of my movies makes only $50 million, I’ll go to my grave a happy man.”

Speaking from the Las Vegas set of Over the Top, he described his latest film as “ a sweet little love story” . Directed by Cannon’s Menahem Golan, it represents a change of character for Stallone (who this time will not rack up a body count).

He plays a father trying to reconcile with his estranged son during a cross-country odyssey.

Asked if audiences will buy him in such a property, he admitted:

“ You’re right — I carry a lot of baggage with me in the way of past characterizations — even in the first half hour. They'll be saying: ‘OK, when's the gun come out? When’s the bomb go off? When’s he punch somebody?’ I’m bringing that with me all the time . . . “ So in this one, there’s a tendency to just, say, every eleven minutes or so, put in some action-oriented scene that the film could live very nicely without. I am in a constant struggle with myself to avoid bastardizing the film, diluting its integrity.” The film rolls into view in February.

Meanwhile, cameras are rolling in Los Angeles on Surrender, a con­ temporary comedy about a mystery writer who juggles love and money.

Written and directed by Jerry Belson, it stars Sally Field, Michael Caine, Steve Guttenberg, Peter Boyle, Jackie Cooper and Louise

Lasser. TV king Aaron Spelling is the co-producer.

Summer School, directed by Carl Reiner, is also being filmed in Los Angeles. It is about a gym coach who reluctantly teaches a remedial English course during a summer school session, and it stars Mark Harmon and Kirstie Alley.

A contingent of veterans (Bette Davis, Lillian Gish, Ann Sothern, Vin­ cent Price and Harry Carey Jr.) are in Maine, making The Whales of August, based on the David Berry play. It is about an emotional crisis that besets two elderly widowed sisters. The director is Lindsay Anderson.

Finally, in Chicago and LA, teensceen king John Hughes is co-pro­ ducing and directing (from his script) She’s Having a Baby. Kevin Bacon and Elizabeth McGovern star — apparently Molly Ringwald was un­ available.

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 59

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After the British Film Year, the British film slump Over six months down the track, d e v e lo p m e n ts re s u ltin g from Cannon’s takeover of Thorn-EMI Screen Entertainment (see Cinema Papers 58, July 1986) continue to dominate the British film scene.

Cannon now controls 485 of the country’s 1,300 cinema screens, but the Office of Fair Trading has finally decided not to refer the matter to the Monopolies and Mergers Commis­ sion, and the company marches on: plans for a seventeen-screen multi­ plex in London’s West End have been backed up by proposals for multiplexes in ten other major cities.

Meanwhile, on the production front, Cannon also plans to extend its newly acquired studios at Elstree, where the £40-million ($88-million)

Superman IV is now shooting, leaving a big gap at Rank’s rival Pinewood, which is where it was scheduled to shoot before the take­ over. As reported in Cinema Papers September US column, the stars will be Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder. Sidney J. Furie will direct.

On a much less expansionist note, however, the British Film and Tele­ vision Producers’ Association is turn­ ing to the government for help.

During the first half of 1986, fifteen features costing a total of £42 million ($97 million) started production, compared with 28 costing a total of £109 million ($240 million) for the same period last year.

The BFTPA is asking the govern-

60 — N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

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Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane: further TV screenings will have an electronic loincloth — an on-screen symbol to warn shockable viewers. ment to consider a variety of tax allowances and other fiscal incen­ tives to investment, pointing out that current production levels are run­ ning at less than half the average for the past three years.

One of the films that has gone into production is the latest Bond opus, The Living Daylights, which will not now star Piers Brosnan in the leading role of 007. Brosnan has been unable to free himself from his contractual obligation to the recently reprieved American TV series, Remington Steele. Producer Cubby Broccoli has, therefore, named Timothy Dalton, a 6 '2 " Welshman whose film credits include The Lion in Winter, Flash Gordon and The Doctor and the Devils, as Roger Moore’s replacement.

A very different production, Full Metal Jacket, Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Gustav Hasford’s Viet­

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nam combat novel, The Short Timers, has finally wrapped, after a typ ica lly lengthy tw elve-m onth shoot. Warners’ Little Shop of Horrors, on the other hand, recently returned to Pinewood for some extra shooting, despite the fact that it was already 70 days over schedule when it wrapped in June.

Another production, meanwhile, was briefly postponed, following a b iz a rre press c o n fe re n c e at London’s National Film Theatre, during which star Bob Dylan remained as tight-lipped as ever.

The delay in Hearts of Fire was caused by Dylan’s insistence on a re-write of this tale about “ creativity, stardom and success’ ’. Rupert Everett co-stars as a rock singer, Wang Chung will provide the now obligatory rock soundtrack, and Richard Marquand is to direct.

Finally, with their latest E.M. Forster adaptation, A Room with a View, still enjoying a successful run at London art houses and provincial cinemas, James Ivory and Ishmael Merchant have announced plans to film another Forster novel, Maurice, a posthumously-published volume in which the author reveals his homosexuality, which had been hidden until then.

Recent British openings have in­ cluded Stallone’s Cobra, which was denied a press screening in the hope of fooling some of the people for some of the time. After a strong opening, it soon faded away. Woody Allen’s Hannah and Her Sisters, on the other hand, has brought his British fans out again, and was only deposed from the number one boxoffice slot by Aliens.

And, despite being dismissed in some quarters as “ unutterable tosh’ ’ , Russell M ulcahy’s eyescorching fantasy adventure, High­ lander, has opened nationwide to sizeable audiences. Not that Mulcahy need worry about being out of a job: as well as being en­ gaged by Sylvester Stallone to direct Rambo III, Mulcahy also recently signed a three-picture contract with Dino De Laurentiis.

The widening gap between what is acceptable in the way of explicit sex and violence on cinema and television screens in Britain (where there is no system of TV classifica­ tion) has been highlighted by the backlash which followed Channel 4 ’s recent screening of two Derek Jarman films, Sebastiane and Jubilee.

Attacked by Conservative MPs and clean-up-TV campaigner Mrs Mary Whitehouse, the minority channel has responded by intro­ ducing a warning symbol, which will be displayed in the top right-hand corner of the screen throughout any potentially shocking film. Viewers who are about to watch, or have stumbled upon, the film in question will thus be warned that it contains scenes which rifiay give offence if they are of delicate sensibility.

The major TV channels, however, have already rendered such a system obsolete, by screening ‘American TV’ versions (which will be-familiar to Australian viewers) of films like Body Heat and The Post­ man Always Rings Twice, whose draconian censorship renders them all but incomprehensible.

I In film production in Germany nowa­ days, it is comedies that seem to be the neverending story. As a follow­ up to Manner (Men), which was the summer sensation, director Doris Dome has now completed her new film. Called Paradies, it is apparently a tragi-comic story about a zoology professor married to an attractive woman, who one days falls in love with her extremely improbable schoolfriend.

Paradies looks like being the best of the comic bunch, at any rate by comparison with the other ‘funny' films in the offing. Geld Oder Leber, for instance, is a rather dumb non­ sense comedy by Dieter Proettel.

Proettel seems to be able to churn this sort of thing out on a regular basis, but at least this time he has Austrian rock star Falco (‘Rock me, Amadeus’) on board. And then there is Didi Hallervorden, whose speciality is a fairly straightforward brand of slapstick humour. He will have Didi auf vollen Touren in the cinemas in good time for Christmas.

As usual, the story is a simple one: our hero is driving to France with a load of highly explosive drums. Didi, of course, doesn’t have the slightest idea of the danger involved . . .

With comedy as king, the Docu­ mentary Distribution Co-Operative is finding the going too tough, and will have to close its doors at the end of the year. An independent, unsubsi­ dized undertaking, the Co-Op has, for the past seven years, been trying to find a way of putting documen­ taries into public cinemas. But the fin a n c ia l s itu a tio n has now deteriorated to the point where it can’t carry on any longer —

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by D ieter O ss w a ld The new season: lots of laughs, floods of festivals but a dead end for docos ‘‘exhaustion as a result of swimming against the tide,’’ is how the Co-Op’s members put it.

The same sort of problem doesn’t seem to be hitting Germany’s film festivals — quite the opposite, in fact, to judge by a list recently pro­ duced by the Austrian Arts Ministry (and available, free of charge, from: B u n de sm iniste riu m für Kunst, A-1014 WIEN, Minoritenplatz 5, Austria).

The list covers the whole of Europe, but it is Germany where festivals seem suddenly to have become a growth industry. Among those lined up for next year are the 'Tage des unabhängigen Films’ (independent films) in Osnabrück, and the ‘Max Ophuls Wettbewerb’, a competition for rising young German directors in Saarbrücken. Both are in January. February brings the ‘Inter­ nationale Filmwochende’ (which has gay film as one of its focuses) in Würzburg, and the new 'Inter­ nationalen Trickfilmtage’ (special effects) in Stuttgart. In Kassel in March, it’s documentaries, and April sees the return of the ‘Westdeut­ schen Kurzfilmtage’ (short subjects) in Oberhausen.

German-language films by new directors have their own festival in

Gottingen in May, and June will see the first edition of,a new festival for ecological films, ‘Ök'ömedia’, in Frei­ burg. The summer continues with the now well-established ‘Filmiest München’ (July), followed by the ‘Low Budget Kinotage’ in Hamburg in September. To wrap things up, there are the ‘Filmschau Frankfurt’, the ‘Internationale Filmwoche Mann­ heim’, the traditional get-together in Hof and the ‘Feminale’ in Cologne, all in October. Finally, in November, there are the ‘Nordische Filmtage’ (Nordic Film Days) in Lübbeck and, in December, the ‘Internationale Verbraucherfilm W ettbewerb’, a competition for industrial films, in Berlin.

On top of all this, of course, there is Germany’s main event, the Berlin International Film Festival, whose 1987 dates will be 20 February to 3 March. The 1987 retrospectives are already set: a tribute to Rouben Mamoulian (including City Streets, 1931, and The Mark of Zorro, 1940), and a retrospective of the films of actors Madeleine Renaud and JeanLouis Barrault, including Le Ciel est a vous (1943) and Les Enfants du paradis (1945).

Berlin is also the location for Wim Wenders’s new film, Der Himmel

über Berlin. Apart from being in the title, the city is the ideal location for the film, since the local administra­ tion comes up with 30% of the pro­ duction costs under the terms of the ‘Berlin Förderung’ (Berlin Fund).

After a protracted dispute and a spectacular damages suit, the new director of Die Tigerin (see my column this time last year) has finally been announced. The successor to the deposed Robert van Ackeren, of Die flambierte Frau (Woman in Flames) fame, is the Austrian director and cameraman, Xaver Schwarzenberger.

Following its foothold in Australia, the Amsterdam-based group, CIC, is planning a string of multiplexes in Germany, with an eye to sites in busy shopping centres, especially in the Frankfurt and Mannheim area.

And another Australian event — the success of Crocodile Dundee — hasn't passed unnoticed, either.

20th Century-Fox are due to open a German version in February, under the title Ein Krokodil zu küssen.

Finally, a look at the German box office: still at the top (inevitably), are Manner and Out of Africa, not to mention Top Gun. The GermanItalian production, Momo, men­ tioned in my September column, is also doing very well. But, while Hans C h ris to p h B lu m e n b e rg ’ s D er Sommer des Samurai did ‘satis­ factory’ business, The Money Pit, Iron Eagle and Silver Bullet all flopped, as did My Chauffeur and, sadly, F/X.

Ways o f making you laugh ? The up­ coming comedy, Geld oder Leber.

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 61

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by M ike N icolaid i Confidence creeps back into the Kiwi film industry The proverbial light at the end of the tunnel may have dawned for the New Zealand feature film industry in its darkest hour.

The Lange Government’s 31 July Budget removed existing inequali­ ties faced by comparison with other investment opportunities, such as bloodstock, and has begun to rub shine back into the celluloid strip.

The incentive formula imposed on film, when its freewheeling days were stymied in 1984, was a 100% one-year write-off on investment in certified New Zealand films. This formula remains in place and industry insiders believe investors are again expressing cautious interest.

Indeed cautious optimism is today’s operative mood, with Film Commission Chairman David Gas­ coigne setting the tone: the industry is not yet out of danger, he says, but there are “ glimmerings of hope’’.

Producers’ and Directors’ Guild President John Barnett senses signs of a turnaround that could refocus interest in the one-year write-off, and says the Inland Revenue Depart­ ment is examining 60 special partnerships which invested in films before 1984. He hopes this will result in some positive assessments by Christmas for the thousands of private investors whose returns are held up.

Three leading Auckland pro­ ducers reflect the new optimism.

Mirage Films’ Larry Parr believes there will be a lot more action in 1987, with more high-risk money directed to film. “ One of the real troubles is that there are so few decent scripts worth making into films," he says.

Cinepro’s Don Reynolds says that, provided budgets are kept to around $1.5 million and projects appeal to overseas markets, there should be little difficulty obtaining local investment.

Lloyd Phillips of Phillips-Whitehouse Productions, who will be moving on his Sinking of the Rain­ bow Warrior project once a co­ production treaty between the New Zealand and Canadian govern­ ments is in place, avers film is “ crawling back" to being worthy of consideration by local investors. He also notes that strong overseas appeal is necessary for any project.

The overall mood was symbolized by the presence of Prime Minister Lange at a reception in Auckland’s Regent Hotel on 12 September to announce local release plans for four Kiwi features over the summer months.

Generally enthusiastic, though s p e c ific a lly g u a rd e d , L a n g e described the industry as “ extra­ ordinary" in its ability to adapt to South Pacific conditions, and gave an undertaking to discuss problems with film commission and guild representatives. While it is the

Government’s view that film can compete with other investment opportunities, he says he is pre­ pared to encourage “ greater vitality and confidence" in the industry.

Meanwhile, Film Commission Marketing Director Lindsay Shelton, together with Dorothee Pinfold and Paul Davis, marketing executives of Wellington’s Gibson Group and Mirage Films, have been touting product at MIFED in Milan. The line­ up embraces Richard Riddiford’s Arriving Tuesday, John Laing’s O ther Halves and Dangerous Orphans, and Bruce Morrison’s Queen City Rocker.

For Shelton, another expression of the renewed confidence is the feature-length documentary, The Leading Edge, reeling in the cou ntry’s Southern Alps. With former independent distributor Barry Everard as executive producer, the film will be a sequel to director Michael Firth's spectacular ski and hang-gliding epic, Off the Edge.

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Elsewhere, the announcement of New Zealand’s first co-production agreement with Australia (see this column in Cinema Papers 59, September 1986) is already attract­ ing interest. At least two companies, Phillips-Whitehouse and the Gibson Group, have TV miniseries projects with Australian interests that may qualify under the scheme.

There is also the matter of Vincent Ward’s The Navigator, which stam­ peded pessimism with the news of its abandonment some months back. Ward moved to Australia in August, and producer John Maynard has since been investigating the possibility of shooting the feature in both Australia and New Zealand.

Projects approved as official co­ productions by the New Zealand and Australian Film Commissions will qualify for official film production in c e n tiv e s a p p ly in g in bo th countries. Gascoigne says the agreement will further strengthen the links New Zealanders have with the Australian industry, while AFC Chief Executive Kim Williams notes that collaboration will help give both industries a competitive edge in world markets.

The growing strength of television production in New Zealand is signi­ fied by the developing aggression of TVNZ International in overseas markets. For the first time, it joined the Film Commission and the

Worzel Gummidge Down Under; Bruce Phillips, Una Stubbs, Jon Per twee.

National Film Unit at MIPCOM in Cannes, and may take out its own stand next year. The gem in the grip of marketing head, Peter Fowler, is TVNZ’s highly praised ‘kidult’ series, The Fire-Raiser, written by Maurice Gee and produced by Ginette McDonald.

Independent programme sup­ plier Grahame McLean was also at M IP C O M w ith th e W o r z e l Gummidge Down Under series. This property, with the original 30 Britishmade episodes, was lying on the shelf, following Southern Tele­ vision’s loss of a broadcasting licence in the UK. McLean has now com pleted ten ‘ Down U n d e r’ episodes, with original stars Jon Pertwee and Una Stubbs, and has another twelve going into production in the New Year. Thirteen episodes are in script development. McLean’s target is 65 episodes by November 1987 — enough for a season on US television.

France by E d o u a rd W aintrop A tale of two budgets, or Two lessons In how to make a film According to the summer’s crystal ballgazers, the traditional French return to work at the end of August was going to be characterized by two major cinema events.

The first was to be Jean de Florette, a Claude Berri film, and the first half of a two-part adaptation of Marcel Pagnol’s charming novel of the same name (part 2, Manon des sources, is due in November). It had been vaunted as a real piece of thoroughbred cinema, and received fantastic promotion: hardly a radio station and not a television network that didn't devote at least one broad­ cast, if not an entire day, to pro­ moting it.

As a result, the latest film by the director of Le Vieil homme et I'enfant (The Two of Us, 1968) — who, since then, has been better known as a producer than as a director — did pretty impressive business during the first week of its Paris run: 281,000 tickets sold.

But, since the film turned out to be a great deal less good than the novel, and less good still than the films of Pagnol, the master film-

maker, word-of-mouth was not quite up to expectations, and the second week showed something of a fall-off.

Nevertheless, 176,000 people still paid to see it.

All the same, it now looks as though this very ordinary but muchvaunted film, which features the flower of French cinema stardom (Yves Montand, Daniel Auteuil, Gerard and Elisabeth Depardieu), will reach its target: to turn a profit on the 120 million francs ($29 million) which it took to make the two episodes.

The second big event had to do with Eric Rohmer. It goes without saying that, as things now stand in French cinema, Rohmer's latest film, Le Rayon vert, comes at the opposite end of the scale from Jean de Florette. Shot in 16mm, it cost the derisory sum of 4 million francs (under $1 million) to make, at a time

Eric Rohmer’s Le Rayon vert; released in the US before it hit the Paris screens. when the average French film budget is around-12 million francs.

What is more, before the film had even opened, its producers had re­ couped, in subsidies and presales, the equivalent of 80% of its budget.

From the US, Orion Classics came up with $US100,000, with the bizarre side-effect that Le Rayon vert opened in New York (under the title Summertime) on 29 August, five days before its official French premiere.

For its part, Canal Plus, the French pay-TV service, paid 850,000 francs ($205,000) as a part of a unique deal. And, for the first time ever in France, a film was shown on tele­ vision three days before it opened in the cinema.

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by Georgina Pope and Naoko Veda Stepping out of line

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Because of this, Le Rayon vert came under the heading of films which would be shown for the first time on one of the new TV channels.

That made it eligible for a subsidy from a fund aimed at supporting TVprogramming industries. So, with the official status of telefilm, it quali­ fied for the tidy sum of 1,700,000 francs ($410,000).

In the event, Le Rayon vert, even with its scaled-down budget, cost a lot more than expected: the dis­ covery of the ray itself called for some shots over the English Channel, which could not finally be done until several months after the main shoot (at Las Palmas, in the Canary Islands).

Production, too, turned out to be more costly than it should have been. Two successive blow-ups from 16mm to 35mm to get the right quality, and a fresh start in between, meant that the final budget was four, rather than two, million francs. Even so, it was still a third the average.

It all seems to have paid off, how­ ever. The film opened strongly in Paris, with 23,000 tickets sold in five cinemas (Jean de Florette's total came from 64). Good reviews and a strong word-of-mouth mean that business is likely to hold up, especi­ ally since the film carried off the Golden Lion at the 43rd Venice Film Festival.

This is the first major prize for Rohmer, the original pioneer of the French new wave, and it has finally enabled him to square the prover­ bial circle: critical acclaim, big audi­ ences, a TV screening and a major impact abroad (the Venice prize, the New York opening). A moral tale indeed.

Above and below: Tatsuya Nakadai as the truckie and Miyako Fujitani as the girl in Michi fRoad), a remake o f Henri Verneuil’s 1956 French film, Des gens sans importance.

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In Japan, the life of an assistant director is generally not an easy one.

But, for the first time in seventeen years, a major studio has given the position to a university graduate, a daring move in an industry where the youngest assistant director working for a major studio is 38 years old (average age is 45). After an assistant has been working for ten to fifteen years for a major, he is given a chance to direct. No move­ ment at the box office and they are assistants for ‘life’.

The appointment, by Shochiku, along with their recently revamped Ofuna studios, indicates a swing away from the recent practice of using outside production companies on productions financed by majors, and the restrengthening of the true studio system.

For the last 20 years, the only major taking on creative staff has been Nikkatsu, where 98% of the produc­ tions are soft porn for widespread domestic consumption. This vehicle has, however, been a launching pad for a number of directors who have managed to move on to greener pastures, the most recent being Yojiro Takita, who directed Comic Magazine, which screened in the Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes this year. Kitchitaro Negishi, who directed Enrai, also began his career in ‘pink’ pictures.

One of the few directors in Japan who has not come from an assistant director situation — ‘pink’ or other­ wise — is Yoshimitsu Morita, who is known locally for Family Game (Kazuko Gaimu). An unabashed self­ promoter, Morita privately raised the finance for his first feature, Live in

Chigasaki. Shot on 8mm, it is a documentary-style picture about the teenagers who haunt the murky beach areas south of Tokyo. It took off on the 16mm circuit nationally, and won a couple of domestic prizes. He was then able to interest the major, Toei, in his film, Yonomona (Likely), which preceeded Family Game, Sorekara (And Then . . .), and his most recent film, Sorobanzuku, a frisky comedy set in an advertising agency, and stars two popular young television com ­ edians.

During the past five years, a num­ ber of Japanese companies not pre­ viously involved in the film industry have begun financing, and occa­ sionally producing, feature films.

One of the most successful is the Kadokawa Publishing Company.

More recently, a number of food manufacturers, medical suppliers and even soft-drink makers have moved into the field.

The need for facilities, coupled with chronic land shortages and in­ flated real estate costs, is a major problem. Now, however, a group of companies, including Nippon Tele­ vision, Toho, Warner Pioneer and Filmlink Productions, have together developed the eight-vehicle ‘Movie Caravan’, a complete mobile pro­ duction unit including office space, editing suite, power systems, tele­ phones and fax. The entire produc­ tion is constantly mobile. Soft-drink maker Pocari will be the first to use the recently completed system when they begin production in Tokyo next March.

It is a quiet time for domestic releases, the most significant being Michi, a Japanese version of the French classic, Des gens sans im­ portance (Unimportant People). It is directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara and the performances are fantastic, with Tatsuya Nakadai (from Ran) playing the truckie, and the delightful Miyako Fujitani (Sorekara) as the waitress.

Perhaps the most pathetic film to be released in a long while is Minamie Hashire Umino Michi, a Japan­ ese Rambo. For a simple revenge tale set in Okinawa, director Seiji Izumi made the fairly vital error of casting Koichi Iwaki as a Stallonetype hero. Unfortunately, Iwaki doesn’t really look strong enough to lug all those heavy guns around, and gives the impression of straining under the weight.

In competition to Fuji Sankei’s Kitten Story, Toho have released Kozo Monogatari (Baby Elephant Story). It is less cute, with a touching story set in Tokyo during the Second World War. It is a good time for foreign releases with The Color Purple, Aliens, Raw Deal, Jackie Chan's Armour of God, Down and Out in Beverly Hills, and the French hit, Three Men and a Cradle,all in major release. Independents around town include It D on’t Pay to be an Honest Citizen, Garbo Talks, Smithereens a n d J e a n n e M o re a u ’ s film , L 'Adolescente.

And this past summer month in Tokyo has seen an unprecedented three Australian films screened on prime time television. Fuji Network broadcast My Brilliant Career and TBS Television showed Blue Fin and Puberty Blues.

A young Magnani? Valeria Golino in Maselli’s Storia d’amore. She got the Best Actress award.

None of that jazz on the Lido Venice: predictable programme, and a snub to the best films

There were less films shown in the Venice Mostra this year — 100 instead of last year’s 150 — and festival director Gian Luigi Rondi, a confirmed auteurist, still seems un­ able to refuse certain kinds of foreign presences and certain sorts of local product.

Thus the Italian state TV network, RAI, and the French practically ruled the Mostra, as they have for the past five years, with the American majors using the out-of-competition mid­ night screenings to launch whatever mediocre blockbuster they choose, and the USSR sending its usual miles of worthy celluloid.

The fo u rte e n -m e m b e r ju ry, chaired by Alain Robbe-Grillet and including El’dar Sengelaja, Peter Ustinov, Alberto Lattuada and Fernando Solanas, gave no reason at all for its choices. The Golden Lion to Eric Rohmer’s Le Rayon vert seemed to acknowledge the state of grace of the 66-year-old French moralist, here working with no script, a minimal budget, a 16mm camera and a first-time actress. Marie Riviere plays Delphine, a neurotic loner who tries to find happiness and the ideal partner during a summer vacation.

She finally gets them both, and catches the invisible green ray of sunset to boot. Less accomplished, perhaps, than Le Genoa de Claire ('Claire’s Knee) or Pauline a la plage (,Pauline at the Beach), but with an immediate, rather than a literary humanity, Le Rayon vert is already a box-office hit in Paris (see Edouard Waintrop’s column on page 63).

A film scandalously overlooked by the jury, however, was Bertrand Tavernier’s magnificent 'Round Mid­

night, which got the longest ovation from the audience and fulsome praise from .the critics. Tavernier’s film reconstructs the late-fifties era, when black be-bop players were exiled in Paris and lived a hard life.

The veteran tenor sax player, Dexter Gordon, plays an alcoholic musical genius who is helped by a French fan (François Cluzet) during his short-lived^recovery.

Many live jazz sessions by Herbie Hancock, Wayne Shorter, Billy Higgins, Freddie Hubbard and other greats enrich this terribly sad story in which, for the first time, Tavernier brings to the screen the legendary odyssey of black avant-garde music, which Hollywood never treated. The scope camerawork by Bruno de Keyzer is superb, as are the sets by Alexandre Trauner.

Out of competition, Alain Res­ nais's Mélo also shone. A faithful adaptation of the 1929 play by Henry Bernstein, it is a classic boulevardier triangle story, in which Resnais out-Lubitsches Lubitsch, thanks to chiselled performances by Sabine Azéma, André Dusollier and Pierre Arditi, and to the ironic artdeco rooms designed by Jacques Saulnier.

Also totally studio-bound and shot in one intriguing large set was Michel Deville’s Le Paltoquet, a kind of verbal thriller putting together various generations of actors, from Jeanne Moreau and Michel Piccoli, to Jean Yanne, Fanny Ardant and the younger Daniel Auteuil and Richard Bohringer. Piccoli, Azéma and Sandrine Bonnaire, however, do not compensate for the poor script and banal theatrical conven­

tions of Jacques Doillon’s La Puntarne.

Three main prizes, meanwhile, went to Italy — which means, in effect, to RAI: even before it started, the 1986 M ostra was being announced as the ‘Italian renais­ sance’. The awards for best actress to 20-year-old Valeria Golino for Storia d'am ore, by Francesco Maselli, and for best actor to former funnyman Carlo Delle Piane for Regalo di Natale, by Pupi A vati, were both well deserved.

But the ex aequo Special Jury Prize to Storia d ’amore and the Soviet Cuzaja, belaja I rjaboj (The Wild Pigeon), by Sergei Solovyev was a typical political compromise: the Soviets wanted a sign that they had a renascent cinema, too (and indeed, they probably do, but mostly in their faraway republics, as was demonstrated two months earlier at Pesaro), but renewal was certainly not what happened in Solovyev's traditional pacifist opus.

And RAI wanted a tribute to its policy of producing difficult works.

Maselli’s comeback after a long silence — he was a great enemy of the old fascist-structured Biennale — partially works as a neorealist description of working-class tribula­ tions. Valeria Golino, a young Magnani, plays a poor cleaner in love with two friends, who, at the end, finds suicide the only solution.

But the characters recite a literary language with no dialectal inflec­ tions, and Maurizio Dell’Orco’s photography looks too brilliant for those murky suburbs which we have scarcely seen on the screen since Pasolini’s death.

Pupi Avati’s Regalo di Natale is a cynical drama about four friends meeting up on Christmas night for a poker game that will ruin one of them and reveal all their secrets.

With Carlo Delle Piane playing the hardened professional who gives them all a lesson in immorality, Avati orchestrates his exposé as an autobiographical tale very much in contrast with the tone of his former, rose-tinted remembrances.

Finally, Massimo M azzuco’s second film, Romance, acclaimed by many as a discovery, ingeniously concocts a father-and-son conflict between the ageing Walter Chiari and the young Luc Barbareschi (who studied in New York, and shows positive influences from Broadway and off).

The meagre budget of these three films, plus the really insufficient one given to Luigi Comencini’s would-be epic, La storia, demonstrate that, contrary to its boasts, RAI’s policy is to economize In the prestige sector, while wasting money on a string of quiz and musical shows — a fact pointed up by Marcello Mastroianni’s declaration to the press from Moscow (where he is shooting Nikita Mikhalkov’s new film) that, for each ambitious TV project, there are dozens of much more expensive, advertisement-filled shows for prime­ time.

If La storia reduces a broadcanvas novel to an intimist tragedy unconvincingly played by Claudia Cardinale, Theo Angelopoulos’s RAI-sponsored O Melissokomos (The Beekeeper) has the means and genius to expand the very small

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story of an old beekeeper travelling from one end of Greece to the other to find his death into a cosmic ideo­ logical metaphor, with Giorgos Arvaniti’s camera continuing its un­ interrupted exploration of Angelopoulos’s labyrinths of the mind.

The Silver Lion for a first work, meanwhile, went to one of the rare funny films in the Mostra: La pelicula del Rey, by the Argentinian, Carlos Sorin, which tells the old story of a company shooting a kind of his­ torical western in Patagonia, but failing to finish it. Sorin quotes Wenders, Truffaut and Ford, but shows he also has a pungent spirit all his own.

The seven debut works in the C ritics’ W eek em braced some promising talents, notably Olivier Assayas’s Désorde (Disorder), a film noir lacking only a Gabin or a Signoret to be perfectly in the mood; Abel, by the Dutchman, Alex van Warmerdam — a surrealist satire about family life; Nadia Tass’s Malcolm, which was much ap­ plauded by Venetian audiences; and the Japanese Yume mlruyonl nemurltai (To Sleep, To Dream), by Kaizo Hayashi, an inventive blackand-white hymn to the innocence of silent cinema.

Less promising, unfortunately, were the Italian debuts included in the DeSica section: Cesare Bastelli’s Una domenica sì (produced by Pupi Avati and starring several of his young discoveries) was a sym­ pathetic if uneven comedy about two soldiers’ empty Sundays, while Attilio Concari’s 45° parallelo un­ ashamedly copied Bernardo Berto­ lucci’s first black-and-white works.

In the Venice Documents section, there was the amusing and touching Directed by William Wyler, a portrait

by Aviva Slesin, produced by Catherine Wyler, comprising the last interview with the great director, plus many home movies about his travels and pleasures. Gianfranco Mingozzi’s Arriva Frank Capra edits two long and wonderful interviews with the master, together with stories of other Italian immigrants to the New World. And the great screenwriter, Tonino Guerra (co-author of Angelopoulos’s, the Tavianis’ and Rosi’s new films, among others), got a good portrait of himself in Tonino Guerra: caffè sospeso, by German filmmakers Herbert Fell and Joseph Schellensatti.

The Mostra opened with a 22-minute documentary on the recently rediscovered footage of It’s All True, in homage to Orson Welles.

The film is really too short to enable us to judge the many qualities of this ambitious project, but some stun­ ning shots of the fishermen look very similar to Eisenstein’s Que viva Mexico, with local folklore becom­ ing larger than life.

Finally, the one sensation of the otherwise unfocused Spazio Libero section was Miguel Littin's Acta general de Chile, a four-hour docu­ mentary shot secretly in Chile by the exiled director. To coincide with its opening, Gabriel Garcia Marquez has published a book telling how Littin got into Chile, and of the help he got, from friends and others, in putting together his reportage.

Montreal crowds flock to Canadian and Oz films and welcome low-budget efforts There was a record-breaking turnout for the tenth annual Montreal World Film Festival at the end of August.

Approximately 260,000 viewers, 3,000 film professionals and 400 journalists gathered for the ten-day festival, where over 200 features (about 450 films in all) were screened. However, the 'manage­ able' size of the festival is part of its appeal — it is large enough to attract international interest and stiff com­ petition, as well as provide enough viewing choices to make one dizzy, but small enough to maintain its con­ trolled and congenial atmosphere.

Of the 21 features in official com­ petition, the seven-member jury awarded the top prize, Grand Prix of the Americas, to 37°2 Le Matin (or Betty Blue), a French entry directed

by Jean-Jacques Beineix. The special Jury Award went to Czecho­ slovakia’s A¡¡y Dear Little Village, directed by Jiri Menzel (Closely Watched Trains). West German director Helma Sanders-Brahm’s Laputa received the Jury Award, as well as best actress honours for Krystyna Janda’s lead role. Best actor went to Dennis Hopper who starred in three festival entries: The American Way, River’s Edge, and Blue Velvet. In the latter, he was honoured for his role as a small­ town sadist in David Lynch’s strange web of cruelty and sentimentality.

Best short went to Canadian Wendy

Lorenzo Codelli

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Trilby's animated film, Tables of Content.

Producer Dino de Laurentiis was present at the festival for a retrospec­ tive screening of some of his past classics (Bitter Rice, La Strada, War and Peace, Nights of Cabiria, Three Days of the Condor). There was much talk surrounding the De Laurentiis Entertainment Group’s Blue Velvet, whose premiere at Montreal met with mixed reaction, and whose national release in the US has since been curtailed.

Latin American cinema and British cinema rated the official limelight as selected groups in the festival guide, the latter group with entries such as the comic Clockwise, with John Cleese, and the Bill Forsyth-esque Girl in the Picture, directed by Cary Parker. But, without official recogni­ tion or kudos, both the Australian and Canadian cinemas were repre­ sented admirably, with packed houses, word-of-m outh recom ­ mendations and general enthusi­ asm.

The strength of the Canadian films seemed to be in going far with little money, resulting in regional films like Loyalties, director Anne Wheeler’s first feature, which well deserved the praise it got. It concerns a friendship between an

Gail Youngs and Armand Assante in Belizaire the Cajun.

affluent Englishwoman and her Metis servant (halfbreed Indian) in western Alberta. The National Film Board of Canada’s Sitting in Limbo, a product of their Alternative Drama Program, was also popular with audiences and critics. The film deals with the everyday lives of Montreal’s black teenagers living on their own, and uses inexperienced actors whose lives are not very far removed from those of the characters. The downbeat subject matter of un­ employment and teenage preg­ nancy was treated in a way that made for upbeat results. Sitting in Limbo received the Press award for Best Canadian Film (out of competi­ tion). The film was directed by John N. Smith.

Australia maintained its past popu­ larity at Montreal with eleven entries: in the Official Competition, Paul Cox’s Cactus, and Julie Cunning­ ham’s animated short, Double X; in the Hors Concours section, Croco­ dile Dundee, The Fringe Dwellers and Burke & Wills; in a category called ‘Cinema of Today and To­ m orrow ’ , Backlash, 2 Friends, Around the World in 80 Ways, Devil in the Flesh and For Love Alone.

Dennis O’Rourke’s documentary, Half Life, was shown in the ‘Cinema and Peace’ section.

Crocodile Dundee closed the festi­ val, with two screenings on the final day. Paul Hogan, director Peter Faiman and producer John Cornell were more than pleased by the initial positive reaction to the North Ameri­ can premiere. Other Australians present were director Bill Bennett and actress Gia Carides (Backlash), directors Paul Cox and Stephen MacLean, and actress Katia Cabal­ lero (Devil in the Flesh). Bruce Beresford took some time off from editing Crimes of the Heart in Los Angeles to introduce the festival screening of The Fringe Dwellers.

On Australia’s popularity at Mon­ treal over the last three years, AFC Marketing Director Clive Turner said: “ Paying audiences have had no pre-publicity whatsoever, and we’ve had packed audiences for every one of our films. The fact that they’re Australian seems to be sufficient enough to get them in, and obviously they must be pleased, because they keep coming back.

Our fervent wish is that this translates into distribution possibilities for our films in North America and Europe.”

Turner also identified the geo­ graphic proximity to the American market as a positive factor, with the publicity created for Australian films in Montreal influencing the American sector as well.

With the incredible scope of filmmaking possibilities represented at a showcase such as the Montreal World Film Festival, what was notable was the quality of so many low-budget triumphs, often made by first-time directors. Movies like the e x c e p tio n a l Si a t i c by M a rk Romanek, Belizaire the Cajun by Glen Pitre, and the aforementioned Loyalties, revealed a glimpse, into the current underground of talented new filmmakers, who are creating memorable movies that stand quite capably alongside the larger-budget endeavours of the more established filmmakers.

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Machiavelli wrote that one could judge a country by its institutions. If Spain’s film festivals were the deciding measure, the Spanish would seem a strange lot. Under Franco, the festivals served a pur­ pose, mellowing the regime’s liberal opposition by screening films still banned from general release. But, although the abolition of censorship in 1977 removed this raison d ’etre, Spanish festivals have sprung up under democracy like, as one critic put it, “ mushrooms after the rain’’.

Festival prizes have occasionally been laughable: the Cadiz Festival of the Atlantic, for instance, once gave a Special Award to Aristotle Onassis. And the festivals them­ selves still serve as much to titillate the local snobs as anything else: this year’s most awaited film at San S ebastian, M anuel G utie rre zAragon’s La Mitad del Cielo (Half of Heaven), had to be started twice, to allow the Basque bourgeoisie time to stop admiring each other in the foyer.

Above all, Spanish festivals have been continually troubled by political unrest. Last year at San Sebastian, dem onstrations kept journalists cooped up in their hotels for the final day of the festival. “ Going to San Sebastian,” a seasoned visitor warned me, “ is an exercise in masochism.”

As it turned out, however, the 1986 edition was the most success­ ful in years. The film selection was appreciably stronger than in recent years, and was less dependent on multinational releases than has sometimes been the case.

Most plaudits went to Yoshishige Yoshida’s Ningen no Yakusoku (The Promise), which depicts a family burdened by a senile, suffer­ ing grandmother who constantly attempts suicide. Yoshida cleverly balances modernity and tradition, meshing a Japanese family drama with a more Western-style detective plot, centred round the question of who finally kills the grandmother.

Japanese-style front-on film ing mixes with figures-in-an-environment shots reminiscent of Antonioni.

The Promise has moments of heart-rending emotion (the adjective is not reviewer’s hyperbole), and there is a fascinating suggestion of a dislocation of sensibility in contem­ porary Japanese life, caught by a rare entry into a character’s mind, when Yoshida reproduces the grandfather’s vision of a pilgrimage he had wanted to go on with his wife. ,. , .

The grandfather lives in high-rise Tokyo, his native peasant village having long since been overrun by industrialization. His vision is, how­ ever, totally alien to his surround­ ings, reproducing the precision of a Japanese watercolour: two figures with shallow, broad-brimmed hats toil up the side of a volcano; a serene blue lake nestles in the volcano’s crater.

Chair o f history: Margarita Lozano (left), Angela Molina (centre) and Caroline Silva in Gutierrez Aragon’s Half of the Sky. Quality of films aside, this year’s festival also drew on the multiple presence of films from Latin America as well as Spain to achieve that elusive festival virtue: a sense of character. A key feature in the Hispanic films was their depend­ ence on state finance. Argentinian director Eliseo Subiela, for instance, used a 40% advance on his budget from the small but burgeoning Argentinian Film Board to make Hombre Mirando al Sudeste (Man Looking Towards the South-East), the outstanding Latin-American offering at the festival. Subiela’s film is a droll parable, distinguished by excellent acting and a winning whimsicality, relating the fate of an, extra-terrestrial who comes to post­ dictatorship Argentina in human form to spirit away the oppressed.

Spanish films similarly rely on state finance: between September 1985 and June 1986 alone, 45 Spanish films divided up 1,513 million pesetas, at an average of 33 million ptas (around $400,000) per film.

After several years of solid but largely unremarkable productions,

Going south: Lorenzo Quinteros (left) and Hugo Soto in Man Looking Towards the South-East. the projects underwritten by the state are beginning to show greater variety and verve. This year’s Silver Sea Shell went to 27 Horas (27 Hours), the latest Elias Querejeta production, which follows a young Basque drug addict around San Sebastian as he searches for his first fix.

Montxo Armendariz’s film has splendid central performances and a lovely lyrical boost from the overlay of sombre Basque songs. It also suggests that Armendariz is one of the few directors in Europe who still thinks systematically about where to

put his camera. In 27 Hours, con­ tinual zooms and tracking shots create a nervy, physical corollary to the spiritual restlessness of Basque youth.

Refreshingly different, larger in budget and conception and winner of the Golden Sea Shell was Half of Heaven. Gutierrez-Aragon’s film draws on a common malaise in recent Spanish cinema. Faced with what tends to be the cultural bleach­ ing tub of Europe, many directors have attempted to establish a sense of cultural bearing, a connection with the past. And Half of Heaven is set between 1959 and the early seventies, a period during which Spain modernized faster than any other country in western Europe.

Angela Molina plays Rosa, a sensual country girl, who comes to Madrid as a wet-nurse and eventu­ ally makes good as a high-society restaurateur. The film has many of Gutierrez’s trademarks: a fairytale structure, a mix of fantasy and re a lity, m e m o ra b le a p h o ris tic declarations, incisive ironies.

But it is in the relationship between Rosa, her grandmother (played by the magnificent Margarita Lozano) and Rosa’s daughter (who inherits the grandmother’s country supersti­ tions) that the director constructs a marvellous metaphor for the con­ tinuity underlying Spain’s recent dramatic transformation from a backward agricultural land into a modern industrial state.

Given this year's success, it would be churlish of FIAPF to rescind San Sebastian’s ’A ’ category, a qualifica­ tion which ranks it with Cannes, Berlin and Venice, and was con­ ceded to it for a provisional two-year period in the spring of 1985.

San Sebastian still suffers, how­ ever, from a radical ambivalence.

On the one hand, it is one of Europe's most beautiful cities, replete with stately boulevards, fin de siecle elegance and splendid ribands of bays, hills and headlands.

On the other, it is the main city in one of the most politically troubled regions in Europe. The final stability of the San Sebastian Film Festival depends on a resolution of the ‘Basque problem’. And that rests, not with the festival, but with Felipe Gonzalez’s socialist government in Madrid.

John Hopewell

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 67

Film Victoria is the Government film authority for the State of Victoria, established to encourage, promote and assist in the production of film and television.

Film Victoria-409 King Street, Melbourne, Victoria, 3000. Telephone-(03) 329 7033, Telex-FILMVC AA34314, Fax-(03)3291950.

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MOVIES BY

MICROCHIP

3 Compucast: Actors at your fingertip It takes time to change from storing information on index cards, in folders or in filing cabinets, to storing that same material on a computer.

Often, too, there is no obvious improvement — until the first time a search is made for cross-referenced data. An obvious example would be a stock-library search for material of, say, clouds, with the more precise requirement that the clouds be over the ocean, and the weather stormy.

Done manually, this search, could require three or more separate operations and, depending on the size of the stock-shot library, could take a lot of time. But if the listing was computerized, the search for something that matched all three criteria could be carried out in seconds. Prop-hire inventories, loca­ tion files and vehicles are all prime film-industry candidates for com­ puter access.

But what about performers? To reduce the subtleties of actors and actresses to a database that would assist in casting major roles for features and commercials is not so easy. Headsheets, Showcast and files of Polaroids are scanned and eliminated, and the process owes as much to the memory of an experi­ enced casting agent as to any mechanical filing system. Finding minor roles, character types and extras is harder still, especially when there are further requirements such as skills (the ability to ride a horse) and particular physical character­ istics — or, for that matter, both, e.g. a fat man who can ride a horse!

American Steve Kuhn trained as a c o m p u te r p ro g ra m m e r, the n decided to change careers and become an actor. This coincided with his move to Australia; but, after a couple of years trying to get roles, he went back to computers to pay the rent. One of the software packages he was selling was a data­ base text-retrieval language, and it wasn’t a great leap to think of apply­ ing this to the film industry. The idea of a central, computerized database of actors and actresses would, he felt, solve a lot of the problems he had experienced himself, such as trying to make sure that his resumé was presented to the right casting agents and producers, and that the information on it was kept up to date.

He was also convinced that pro­ ducers would see the advantage in saving hours of valuable telephone time in finding personnel, key props and locations.

He approached Showcast Publi­ cations, because of their reputation and their industry standing. They welcomed the idea, but only if Kuhn came along to set up the scheme.

He is now in partnership with them in Compucast, and his original idea is fast becoming a reality. It has under­ gone one modification, however: instead of ha vin g th e ir own computer system, they now buy ‘ s p a c e ’ o n th e le g a l a n d g o v e rn m e n t-a g e n c y d a ta b a s e system, CLIRS. This gives the user the advantage of an established and undeniably solid, Australia-wide net­ work that can be accessed in Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra through local numbers, and else­ where via Austpac for the price of a local call.

Judging by the number of computers sitting on film industry desks, it would appear that we are beginning to accept the change from a paper-based information system to an electronic one. But often, we still treat our computers more like smart typewriters or overweight calculators. And, as Fred Harden points out in the third of his reports on how computers can help you (Parts 1 and 2 were in Cinema Papers 51 and 52), there is a lot more to them than that, particularly when it comes to casting, communications and sound dubs.

The incorporation of Compucast into CLIRS ensures a fast response and a 24-hour hotline. There is support for 300, 1200 and 1200/75 bps modems and a number of different terminals. Indeed, the pre­ liminary Compucast manual actually uses pages from the CLIRS manual, but the operation of the database is simple, and uses step-by-step selec­ tion from menus (see the dia­ gram on page 71). It is possible to bypass the menus once you have become familiar with the data­ base, but they have the advantage of prompting a logical sequence and provide a way of trapping errors.

The computers used by most Compucast subscribers are Macin­ toshs and IBM-compatibles but almost any computer will do.

Com pucast do recom m end a s p e c ific c o m m u n ic a tio n p r o ­ gramme, though: Crosstalk, which is widely used and one of the best available. They even supply a disk file that makes the sign-on process simpler.

At present, the company is making some initial cost conces­ sions to attract both suppliers of information and users. For per­ formers and production personnel, the rate will be $25 a year; for users, the annual fee will be about $300, plus the time spent on-line. This is charged at $1 a minute, so the system is certainly not for casual use. But, considering the time saved by comparison with a conventional search, the Compucast system could probably justify itself on a single production, even on the information it now has available.

At present, the whole of Showcast’s Contacts and Facilities book is

on-line, along with the 50 or so corrections and changes that were notified within a month of its publica­ tion. When, as is the case here, the content is one of current information on a changing industry, an elec­ tronic database is more valuable than hard copies, because of the ease with which it can be updated. “ This tim e,” says Kuhn, “ we entered the information from the book. But, next year, the book will use e n trie s a lre a d y in th e computer.”

Suppliers have the opportunity to make changes in the information now listed, and Compucast will accept telephone notification of alterations. But, says Kuhn, “ we obviously need to have written veri­ fication of a request to change someone’s entry, so we ask for the changes to be notified in writing by fax or telex. We also have an ‘elec­ tronic mailbox’ on the Scorpio Enter­ tainment Network, and that can be used, if preferred.”

The value of a cross-referenced search obviously depends on the detail supplied, so Compucast pro­ vide a standard form to ensure they get the right information and are able to grade it — i.e., how good is an actress’s horse-riding skills and how proficient is she with accents?

And, if a full curriculum vitae is supplied, a user could find an actor’s name from no more than the character played in a particular movie. Similarly, if the information required is for production personnel, a user could find a model-maker with just the name of the commercial he or she worked on.

To allay fears that Compucast users may contact people directly, ►

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 69

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From computers to acting to com­ puterized actors: Compucast’s Steve Kuhn. bypassing agents, no personal addresses or phone numbers are given if an agent is involved. Full details on performers’ clothing sizes, etc., are available, however, along with types of wardrobe that extras have, and the age-range an actor can handle with and without make­ up.

Until there are enough people using it, the system will have a limited value. But, because it will be the bigger companies who already have computer experience that will be attracted, the value of a listing is not necessarily related to the number of subscribers. Says Kuhn: "Compucast are endeavouring to make sure that there will soon be about 25 significant users of the system. We will use them as part of our pilot programme, to make sure that we can ultimately provide exactly the service the industry wants. We get tremendous support from the producers: they sit down in front of the machine and say: ‘We want that!’ ”

Instant postman: the Scorpio Entertainment Network As PCs enter their adulthood, many experts are coming to believe that their true value will be in communi­ cation. Terms such as modem, baud rate, databit, stopbit and parity are all part of what the computer maga­ zines are calling the 'network revolu­ tion’.

Promoting the concept of the Scorpio Entertainment Network (SEN), Peter Sjoquist often points out that, while we are part of the com­ munications industry, we don’t, as a rule, communicate. And this, he reckons, will have to change, if we are to become part of the world industry. SEN, an electronic mail and information system, has been his way of prompting that change, and he happily cites his own experi­ ence as production accountant on Crocodile Dundee as a perfect use of the Network, and of electronic mail in general.

Already a computer convert — he is partner with Jay Jarratt in Scorpio Computers, who sell the MovieMagic budget programme and the Scriptor script re-formatting software already examined on these pages — Sjoquist the accountant spent up to two months on location in northern Australia, reliant on mail, couriers and the telephone for communica­ tion with the production office. When the production moved to New York, the sophistication increased, but there were the added difficulties of changes in time zones and in­

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creased costs. Because he was already taking a computer with him for the production accounting, using an electronic mail system was an obvious solution. Later, when the movie was playing to packed houses in Australia, he used his mail­ box to store information on attend­ ances supplied by the distributor. He would then download this onto his computer and use the information in a simple spreadsheet programme that calculated return on costs, and predicted when attendances were falling and further advertising was required. This same information was sent overseas via the electronic mail system to producer John Cornell.

Electronic mail systems use a cheap terminal or communications programme on a personal computer to send messages, via a modem attached to the telephone, to other individuals or to all subscribers to the Network simultaneously. Because the information is usually transferred via a switched-data network, the cost to access the system is, in most cases, the cost of a local call, plus the charge made by the provider of the Network. The messages are left in electronic 'mailboxes’ for retrieval at the user’s convenience. And, like telex messages, they can be sent when an office is unattended or the subscriber asleep.

S At the moment, though, a lot of these are dummy entries, or else have a very tentative look about them. And Sjoquist admits that they are really there to demonstrate SEN’S potential. "It appears,” he says, "that it is the telex facility and the mail and information up-loading that most users want.” This was cer­ tainly my own experience with SEN, while working for McElroy and Mc­ Elroy on pre-production of The Last Frontier. McElroys subscribe to different box numbers for their Accounts, Production and PostProduction departments, and Kevin Wright — another accountant fully committed to computers — used the SEN when the production office moved to Alice Springs. With a port­ able computer and a modem, the unit sent information to their travel co-ordinators, Budget Air Services, to Colorfilm, and to the post-produc­ tion office at Videolab in Sydney.

Easier on the ear: The SoftSound Dubbing Chart

A third new application for the com­ puter is to speed up — or eliminate the drudgery of — repetitive work.

The SoftSound software, specially written for sound post-production by two Melbourne programmers, is attractive because it effectively frees an assistant dubbing editor for other tasks, and speeds up the production of the often complex dubbing charts required for sound mixes on feature work.

Rod Tasker and Martin Campbell became involved in what looked like the simple process of using a com­ puter to draw up the multi-columned sound charts for a friend who was a sound editor. The task acquired a life of its own, however, and has taken the two of them over a year of solid work to complete.

The result is a neater version of the sprawling charts that tell the sound mixer when new sounds, dialogue and music are forthcoming in the mix, whether the sound will cut in or require a fade, and the duration of Filmmaker shall speak unto film ­ the effect. Often, alternative tracks maker: Peter Sjoquist o f the Scorpio will be laid up, so that a choice of the Entertainment Network. best one can be made when they are all heard in context. It is not un­ The Scorpio Network uses OTC’s usual for a dozen components to be Minerva data network, which offers a used, even on simple scenes, and gateway to the worldwide ITT elec­ they all require listing. tronic mail service. To this, Scorpio The chart is usually drawn up by have added a telex service for users the sound assistant, who then has to redraw it every time a minor without access to a telex machine.

This is charged at standard telex addition or deletion is made to the rates, and the message is ‘delivered’ scene. SoftSound was born with the to the user’s electronic mailbox. idea of a simple graphics editor that would allow these changes to be There are other networks offering made, and then let the computer ‘mail’ services, but it is the industryredraw the altered pages. The pro­ specific nature of the Scorpio Net­ gramme had its first test on Enter­ work that makes contacting other film- and TV-industry users easier. I f tainment Media's Just Us\ and, according to mixer David Harrison, the other user is on-line at the same time, there is a 'Chat' mode that will the result was a great improvement. allow you to type messages to each. Harrison felt that the charts provided1 other (more a novelty than a real by the programme were much easier to work from and, with some alternative to the telephone) and the minor improvements, could speed menu also lists 'News and Informa­ tion’, including headlines from B&T, up the mixing process and save time AdNews, Encore and Broadcast. In and money. addition, there is a list of current and Operation of the SoftSound pro­ planned productions with contact gramme requires a computer that is names, and a 'classifieds’ section of IBM-compatible, with a hard disk 'For Sale’, 'For Hire’, ‘Jobs Wanted' and a high-resolution monitor to and 'Jobs Available’. allow the display of the multiple

70 — Novem ber CINEMA PAPERS

Speeding up your sound dub: Rod Tasker o f SoftSound. columns. The programme is simple to use, with its familiar spreadsheet concept of a window that looks onto a larger area and is scrolled across it. Operation is by a sequence of function and control keys that allow the boxes and triangles representing sections of sound and, fades to be placed easily and accurately by footage (or time-code, if preferred).

Text is typed into the boxes, and simple text-editing ensures that it fits, even when the scale is reduced to show the relationship between the multiple columns.

The output is to a colour printer, and SoftSound have made it poss­ ible to use some of the cheaper models. The trade-off here, how­ ever, is speed: when the pro­ gramme starts printing, it’s time to go to lunch! It is usually not neces­ sary to redo the entire chart, and specific pages can be selected for printing. SoftSound have standard­ ized the paper size, and provide pre­ printed continuous forms. The pro­ gramme seems to handle operator entry-errors well, and should take only a short time to learn.

Because its main use is to handle the reshuffling of long and compli­ cated mixes, the programme will probably not be of great use for commercials or short films. But, for the sound editor on a series or a feature, it could return its cost in one go: it is a simple concept that has been well executed, and should be readily accepted by the specific market at which it is aimed. Remark­ able Film Computers are distributing the SoftSound programme, and will market it in Australia and New Zealand, where it forms a useful addition to their Film Management System schedule, budget and accounting packages (see Cinema Papers 51).

Contact information Compucast Information Retrieval System, 23 Chandos Street, St Leonards, NSW 2065. Phone: (02) 438 2144. Telex: AA 70575. Fax:' (02) 439 1783. Rates on application: con tact Steve Kuhn, G eneral Manager.

Scorpio Entertainment Network, 88 Darling Street, Glebe, NSW 2037. Phone: (02) 660 6005. Join­ ing fee: $150 for first box. Cost per month: $10. Connection fees in Aus­ tralia: $0.31 per minute. Advertising rates: $10 per screen per month.

Contact Jay Jarratt or Peter Sjoquist.

SoftSound Dubbing Charts avail­ able from Remarkable Film Com­ puters, 98A W illoughby Road, Crows Nest, NSW 2065. Phone: (02) 439 2499. For price and further details, contact Peter Klaiber.

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CAN RIDE HORSES: a n e x a m p l e o f a s e a r c h THROUGH COMPUCAST’S ELECTRONIC MENU, AND A PIC OF THE REAL THING: ACTRESS FIONA CORKE. ea sy steps to a n actress w h o

COMPUCAST MAIN MENU --------------- —

SELECT DESIRED DATA BASE 1 2 3 4 5

PERF PAL AGNT CAF PROD ECAT EXIT END

6

7 8

PERFORMERS PROPS, ANIMALS AND LOCATIONS AGENCY LISTING CONTACTS AND FACILITIES PRODUCTION PERSONNEL EQUIPMENT/SUPPLIES CATALOGUE EXIT FROM MENU END FROM SYSTEM

SELECT PROFICIENCY DESIRED ...2 43 found MORE SKILL REQUIREMENTS ? (Y or N) ...n

NUMBER FOUND: 1 ENTER NUMBER FROM MENU ...3

Corke, Fiona Frog Promotions (03) 699 2488 •

PERFORMERS MENU

SF SKILLS

1 2

3 4 5 6

MALE FEMALE MALE AND FEMALE NATIVE STATUS COMPUCAST MAIN MENU LOGOFF

EXCELLENT GOOD Horse Riding, Motor Car Driving FAIR Gymnastics, Roller Skating, Tennis, Swimming, Singing, Table Tennis TYPE ‘Y’ TO RETURN TO DISPLAY SELECTIONS MENU ...y

ENTER NUMBER FROM MENU ...2 EQUITY MEMBERS ONLY ? - (Y or N) ...y

SELECT SEARCH ATTRIBUTE NAME AGENT AGE PHYSICAL DETAILS MEASUREMENTS 6 CLOTHING SIZES 1

2 3 4 5

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SKILL REQUIREMENTS WARDROBE 9 EXPERIENCE 10 COMMENTS 11 NATIONALITY 12 NATURAL ACCENT 8

PERFORMERS MENU NATIVE STATUS DISPLAY MENU NUMBER FOUND: 116

ENTER NUMBER FROM MENU ...7 ENTER REQUIREMENT, E.G. HORSE RIDING ... TENNIS CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 71

Here we go again: Garry Mc­ Donald in Those Dear Departed.

In the run up to the Bicentennial, ‘Australia’ is making its way into more and more film titles. In Philippe Mora’s The Marsupials — Howling 3, we might, however, find a weirder streak of nationalism. Local actors are playing Americans and the tribe of marsupial werewolves are purely indigenous. The feature began a five-week shoot on 18 October and the special effects wizardry is being handled by Bob McCarron.

More sci-fi than horror is the feature, The Time Guardian, which got under way in late September.

One of the main locations is a time­ travelling city which has been a true flight of fantasy for production designer George Liddle. The film is directed by Brian Hannant (co­ author of Mad Max If) and produc­ tion continues at Hendon Studios until 30 November. Another Tony Ginnane feature, The Lighthorsemen, is also shooting in South Aus­ tralia (see the Location Report in this issue, pp 36-37).

Gillian Armstrong’s High Tide wraps on 22 November. It stars Judy Davis, who plays Lilli, a back­

Part o f the new wave o f comedy: Director Ted Robinson with Pamela Stephenson on the set o/T hose Dear Departed. up singer for an Elvis Presley imitator, and Colin Friels. Russell Boyd is DOP. Another romance set on the coast, Phil Noyce’s Promises to Keep (starring Wendy Hughes and John Lone) has been retitled Shadows of the Peacock.

Warm Nights on a Slow Moving Train, produced by Ross Dimsey and Patric Juillet and directed and scripted by the irrepressible Bob Ellis, starts shooting on 3 November.

Further into production, the comedy feature Those Dear Departed, pro­ duced by Phillip Emanuel, written by Steve J. Spears and directed by Ted Robinson, wrapped on 4 October.

The two leads, Pamela Stephenson and Garry McDonald, are supported by comic actors Graeme Blundell, Noel Ferrier, John Clarke, Ignatius Jones, Patrick Cook, Marian Dvorakowski and Su Cruickshank.

Curtis Levy is nearing the end of post-production on a documentary

72 — N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

about the Australian comedian who, surprisingly, didn’t find his way into the above cast: Max Gillies. On a more serious note, Levy is also com­ pleting work on a doco about Father Brian Gore, the Australian priest im­ prisoned by the Marcos regime. It is titled The White Monkey.

George Gittoes and Gabrielle Dalton have been filming on another frontline. Their 58-minute documen­ tary, Where She Dares, looks at the work of five Nicaraguan women writers and their struggle for the liberation of their people.

With Inertia, a black comedy about a group of inner city girls, is now in p o s t-p ro d u c tio n . C o­ produced, directed and written by Margie Medlin and Jasmine Hirst: proof that an all-woman crew is possible. Rod Wayman describes his short comedy, The Anniversary, as “ madcap". That film, too, is nearly finished and has been pro­ duced for 35mm theatrical release.

Interesting work is coming out of Film Australia’s 'Real Life’ series of ‘living camera’ style documentaries.

Getting Straight, Kids in Trouble and Singles are at various stages of pro­ duction. Tom Haydon is executive producer and Tony Wilson is DOP. Big-budget television production now seems to be in full swing. Shoot­ ing on the ABC/Revcom/Resolution Films eight-hour miniseries, The Wind and the Stars, began in Tahiti on 22 September. Written by Peter Yeldham, it is the story of James Cook, and is scheduled to complete

production in March 1987 in Sydney.

The tele feature , Watch the Shadows Dance, directed by Mark Joffe, wraps in mid-November. It is part of the ‘Tomorrow’s News’ package of movies being produced

by James Vernon, who resigned as general manager of The Producer’s Circle in August to work independ­ ently. Filming on The Red Crescent follows, with Henri Safran directing, and the next feature in the package, Pigs Will Fly, directed by Sophia Turkiewicz, is scheduled to shoot after the New Year.

Production is complete on the thriller, The Humpty Dumpty Man, a film loosely based on the David Combe affair. It marks Paul Hogan’s (another one) debut as a feature director and is the second feature for DOP Martin McGrath.

The Simpson Le Mesurier mini­ series, Nancy Wake rolls on 1 December. It is based on the novel

by Russell Braddon, scripted by Roger Simpson, and Pino Amenta is directing. Executive producers are ATN 7’s Alan Bateman and John Sturzaker. The miniseries, Fields of Fire, finishes an eight-week shoot in early December. Produced by David Elfick and Steve Knapman, it is set in the sugar cane fields of northern Australia.

Finally, the American fascination for the strange customs ‘downunder’ continues. Stars of the popular US television series, Facts of Life, spent four weeks in Australia in September shooting a special feature episode and picnicking at Ayers Rock.

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Production Survey continued PANDEMONIUM

FEATURES

Prod, company.............. K.F.M. Pandemonium Pty Ltd Producer.................................... Robert Francis Ü liÄ Director......................................

Haydn Keenan 1111 I I S Scriptwriters.................................. Peter Gailey, Haydn Keenan PRO DUCTIO N Exec, producer.............................. Patric Julllet Assoc, producers.......................... Alex Cutler, Michael Wilcox Music................................................ Greg Ham, DOT IN GOOD OLD HOLLYWOOD Colin Hay, Prod, company.........................................YoramGross James Reyne, Filmstudio Pty Ltd Ross Wilson Producer................................................. YoramGross Photography.......................... David Sanderson Director....................................................Yoram Gross Sound and music director......... Cameron Allan W. Editor........................................................... PaulHealyScriptwriter................................................. JohnPalmer Based on the original idea Prod, designer..........................Melody Cooper b y .........................................................YoramGross Director...................................................... BarryPeakCast: Amanda Dole, Candy Raymond, Ian Assoc, producer..................................... SandraGross Scriptwriter.............................. Michael Quinlan Nimmo, David Argue, Richard Moir, Mercia Length............................................................

75minutes Based on the original idea Deane-Johns, Henk Johannes, David Bracks, Gauge..................................................... 35 mm by............................................................BarryPeakAshley Grenville.

Synopsis: Dot goes to Hollywood to raise Photography.............................................. John Ogden Synopsis: A pagan passion play set under and money for sick koalas.

Sound recordist..........................................John Rowley on the shores ofBondi beach, with bulk Editor........................................Ralph Strasser ratbaggery and meaning.

HIGH TIDE Exec, producer........................ Phillip J. Dwyer PRE-PR O D U CTIO N Assoc, producer................................ Ray Pond Prod, company........................ SJL Productions RIKKI AND PETE Prod, secretary......................... Janette Deason Pty Limited Prod, company.................................... CascadeFilmsDist. company.......................International Film Prod, accountant..................................... MareeMayall THE BIG LUNCH Focus puller................................................RosyCassProducers................................................. NadiaTass, Management Limited and David Parker Wardrobe................................................. RachelNott Hemdale Film Corporation Prod, company................The Marine Biologists Director............................................Nadia Tass Producer....................................... Sandra Levy Producers...............................................AndrewFrost,Budget...............................................$690,000 Scriptwriter................................................David Parker Gauge...........................................Super 16 mm Director....................Gillian Armstrong Nick Meyers, Photography............................................. DavidParker Synopsis: The High Plains cricketer comes to Scriptwriter..................................LauraJones Sean O ’Brien Editor............................................................KenSallows Directors................................................AndrewFrost,town.

Photography..................... Russell Boyd iS M M : Exec, producer..........................

Bryce Menzies Nick Meyers, Sound recordist................. Ben Osmo Assoc, producer....................................TimothyWhiteEditor............................NickBeauman m Sean O’Brien Prod, supervisor....................................... LyndaHouse DOT AND THE TREE Prod, designer............ Sally Campbell Scriptwriters.......................................... AndrewFrost, 1st asst director..........................Tony Mahood Music consultants......... Mark Moffiatt, _ _ Nick Meyers, Prod, company.........................................YoramGross Cast: Colin Friels (Pete).

Ricky Fataar Sean O’Brien Film Studio Pty Ltd Synopsis: Bored by their easy existence in Exec, producers.....Antony I. Ginnane, !§jM M Based on the novel by...............................FrankBirrellProducer..................................................YoramGross Melbourne, Rikki and her brother Pete set off Joseph Skrzynski Photography................Simon Von Wolkenstein Director....................................................YoramGross for Mt Isa and a questionable foray into the Assoc, producer..........Greg Ricketson Sound recordist.......... Simon Von Wolkenstein Scriptwriter.................................................GregFlynnhardened world of mining.

Prod, co-ordinator.. .Annette Patterson m J Editors................................................... AndrewFrost,Animation director......................................AtholHenry Prod, manager.............................. Julie Forster Nick Meyers, Assoc, producer..................................... SandraGross ROADWARS Unit manager............. Hugh Johnston Sean O’Brien Length.... ......................................... 75 minutes Location manager...............Leah Cocks W M Narrator.................................... David Capewell Gauge......................................................35 mm Prod, company......................Roadwars Pty Ltd Still photography...................Geoffry Boccalate Synopsis: Dot and Old Tom, the violin-maker, Dist. company......................................PremiereFilm Prod, accountants............. Catch 123, j& B p r .

Peter Hewitt, W Budget................................................... $8,000 find the spread of a big city threatens their Marketing Ltd Jenny Verdon . ‘a pr, Length.............................................................90minutes lifestyles.

Producer......................................................TomBroadbridge 1st asst director.............Mark Turnbull ¡jiS jjf) Gauge................................................... Super 8 Director......................... Brian Trenchard-Smith 2nd asst director........................... PeterVoeten Shooting stock...............................Kodachrome40 Scriptwriter.............................................

Patrick Edgeworth 8341: THE PYJAMA GIRL MURDER 3rd asst director............. Maria Phillips " “ Cast: Andrew Frost (The novelist), Nick Meyers Based on the original idea (Working title) Continuity......................Daphne Paris S H H p (The salesman), Sean O’Brien (The sailor), by......................................................... PatrickEdgeworth Director’s as s t.............Lyn Henderson W? Catherine K. Lowing (Mysterious being), Prod, company.......Ulladulla Picture Company Composer..................................Frank Strangio in association with Casting............................................. LizMullinar Roberta Lowing (Rob), Col. Rowan Woods Exec, producers........................................PeterBeilby, Casablanca Film Works Camera operator...............Russell Boyd " (The orderly), Catherine Hourihan (The girl­ Robert Le Tet Producers.................................... John Rogers, Focus puller...............Andrew McLean friend), Alexandra Higson (The other girl­ Length............................................................ 98minutes John Wall friend), Simon Von Wolkenstein (The poet), Clapper/loader..............................MarkSarfaty Gauge..................................................... 35mm Key g rip ........................................................RayBrown The Todd Family (Themselves).

Director........................................ John Rogers Synopsis: A story about modern gladiators set Asst grips....................................................... IanBird, Synopsis: There are three big guys: one Scriptwriters................................. Dee Brierley, in the near future.

Stuart Green happy, one sad, one just drifting — until they John Rogers Gaffer...................................... Brian Bansgrove meet her!

Based on the novel by............. Robert Coleman THE ROBOT STORY Electrician..................................................

ColinChase Prod, designer.............................Darrell Lass Prod, company.........................................YoramGrossBoom operator.......................................... GeoffCricks THE BIT PART Exec, producer.......................... Russell Keddie Film Studio Pty Ltd Art director.................................................... IanAllen Post-production.......................... Winning Post Prod, company............ ..................Comedia Ltd Producer................................................. YoramGross Art dept administrator...................Diane Wright Laboratory................................................. Atlab Producers...................................... John Gaud, Director....................................................YoramGross Costume designer..................................... TerryRyan Budget..........................................$2.75 million Peter Herbert Scriptwriter.................................................GregFlynnMake-up..............................Lesley Vanderwalt Length..........................................120 minutes Director..................................... Brendan Maher Assoc, producer..................................... SandraGross Hairdresser/make-up asst........ Francia Smeets Gauge......................................................35 mm Scriptwriter............................... Ian MacFayden Length..............................................75 minutes Wardrobe standby................. Louise Wakefield Shooting stock................................

9247, 5294 Photography.............................................. ElleryRyan Gauge.....................................................35 mm Wardrobe asst...........................Gabrielle Healy Synopsis: The film is based on the true story of Exec, producer.........................Stephen Vizard Synopsis: A boy and his robot pal are Props buyer/designer.................................. TimFerrier Prod, supervisor....................................... FrankBrownthe Pyjama Girl Murder. A girl’s body was Props buyer/dresser............................ BlossomFlint launched into space.

Budget......................................................... $1.1millionfound in Sydney in 1934 and kept in a formalin Standby props.............................. David Wilson bath at Sydney University, on view to Length.............................................................90minutes Set model maker.......................... Ross Wallas thousands of people, until the murder was SKIPPY AND THE CHALLENGER Gauge.......................................................35mm Choreography...............................David Atkins solved in 1944.

Synopsis: A comedy about a small-time actor.

Prod, company.........Skippy Industries Limited Art dept runner/dresser............... Peter Forbes Scriptwriter................................ William H. May Scenic artist..................................Ned McCann THE END OF INNOCENCE Based on the original idea BLIND FAITH Brush hand................................................. BlairWark Prod, company........................................AvalonFilms by............................................ William H. May Prod, company................... Chadwick/Douglas Carpenter.................................................. GarthCroft Exec, producers...................... William H. May, Producer...................................................... PhilAvalon Film & Television Set construction.........................................JohnRann Malcolm C. Cooke Director....................................................... AlanDickes Producer......................................Brian Douglas 1 st asst editor........................................ AndrewBarnes Assoc, producer........................................ BarbiTaylor Scriptwriter..................................................AlanDickes 2nd asst editor...................................... NicholasBreslin Director........................................ Brian Douglas Script editor..........................................

BarbaraBishop Based on the short story by..........................Phil Avalon, Dialogue editor................... Karen Whittington Scriptwriter..............................................RobertTaylor Alan Dickes Casting consultants............ Lee Larner Casting Based on the original idea Tutorer...................................... Sally Ainsworth Editor................................................ Alan Trott Publicity..................... Barbara James Publicity by..........................................................RobertTaylor Effects editor/ Budget.......................................... $2.79 million Assoc, producer........................... Kip Porteous Assoc, producer........................... Phillip Collins sound supervisor..................... Tim Geordan Length...........................................94 minutes Prod, secretary.......................................... AnnePryorLaboratory................................................. Atlab Still photography......................... David Parker Lab. liaison................................................... RayBeattie Gauge.......................................................35mm Length............................................................ 90minutes Surf instructor...................................... Vic Ford Budget.........................................................$1.2million Synopsis: The adult Sonny Hammond's two Gauge.......................................................35mm Best boy.......................................Paul Gantner Length.............................................................98minutes Synopsis: Rivalry between two parish sons, Tim, aged 16, Pete, 10, and their friends, Runner............................ Tom Churchill-Brown Gauge......................................................35mm churches escalates into a media event of Skippy The Bush Kangaroo and her baby joey, Unit publicist...............................Shelley Neller, Cast: Abigail (Mrs Gründlich), Christopher astronomic proportion — leaving Father get involved in an action-filled adventure with a The Write-On Group Pate (Policeman), Tony Barry (Mr Gründlich).

Brannigan attempting to undo what the miracle long-shot Australian entrant in the America’s Catering........................Kathy and Geoff Trout, Synopsis: A young man sets off on a journey Cup trials, with exciting and hilarious results. he needed has given him!

Kaos Catering to find his origins. Through a meeting with a Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm young Aboriginal, he discovers not only his Lab. liaison......................... Richard Piorkowski BUSINESS AS USUAL SOMETHING GREAT past but the murderers of his father and Budget............................................. $3,750,000 Prod, company........................Boulevard Films Prod, company................. Archer Films Pty Ltd grandfather.

Length........................................... 100 minutes Producer.................................... Frank Howson Producer...... .................................Henri Safran Gauge.......................................................

35mm Scriptwriters..............................Frank Howson, Director.................................. Anthony Bowman Shooting stock......................................... Kodak Jonathan Hardy Scriptwriter............................Anthony Bowman FEVER Cast: Judy Davis (Lilli), Jan Adele (Bet), Based on the original idea Exec, producer.............................. Peter Boyle Prod, company...............Genesis Films Pty Ltd Claudia Karavan (Ally), Colin Friels (Mick), by........................................Anthony Bowman Prod, accountant........................... Newell Lock Dist. company.......................... J.C. Williamson John Clayton (Col), Monica Trapaga (Tracey), Length.............................................................90minutes Budget..........................................$5.98 million Film Distributors Pty Ltd Frankie J. Holden (Lester).

Gauge.......................................................35mm Length.......................................... 120 minutes Producer.................................................... TerryJennings Synopsis: The story of love lost and found In a Cast: Ray Barrett (Geoff), Rowena Wallace Synopsis: The true story of the trials and Director............................................Craig Lahiff remote Australian coastal town.

(Nancy), Norman Kaye (Edward), Carol Raye triumphs of Australia’s golden boy of boxing Scriptwriters................................. John Emery, (Joan), Jeanie Drynan (Catherine), Brett Climo who fell from grace as a result of World War I ’s Craig Lahiff THE MARSUPIALS — (Ross), Robin Bowering (Alfred). conscription hysteria and was resurrected as a Exec, producer........................... Ron Saunders Synopsis: After the death of an elder in a THE HOWLING III hero, when he died in Memphis, lonely, Synopsis: A contemporary suspense thriller. family, a will reveals that all of the estate is tied bewildered and reviled at the age of 2 1 .

Prod, company................. Bancannia Holdings up in the ownership of a Darlinghurst guest Pty Limited LONG TAN house. The family, outraged by the deceased Producers........................Charles Waterstreet, SONS OF STEEL grandfather’s decision to leave them nothing, Prod, company.........Tesha Media Productions Philippe Mora inspect the establishment, only to discover that Producers....................................Don C. Philps, Prod, company....................Big Island Pictures Director........................................ Philippe Mora it is not an ordinary guest house! Perhaps Robert L. Allnutt Producer................................James M. Vernon Scriptwriter...................................Philippe Mora there’s money to be made after all?

Director........................................... Gary Keady Scriptwriter......................... David Anthony Hall Photography..............................................LouisIrving Exec, producer........................................RobertMacLeod Scriptwriter.................................... Gary Keady Sound recordist..............................Bob Clayton THE CRICKETER Length..........................................110 minutes Photography................................Joe Pickering Prod, designer............................................ RossMajor (Working title) Synopsis: A futuristic adventure set to power­ Gauge.......................................................35mm Co-producer...............................Gilda Baracchi ful heavy metal rock ’n’ roll music. Fantasy and Synopsis: The events before, during and Assoc, producer......................... Bob McCarron Prod, company.............................Monroe Stahr science fiction are bound together by a band of immediately after the Battle of Long Tan in Productions Ltd Prod, co-ordinator...............Rosslyn Abernathy likeable, old fashioned heroes.

Vietnam.

Producer................................Christopher Kiely Unit manager.................. Stephen Maccagnan i

j

A full listing of the features, telemovies, documentaries and shorts now in preproduction, production or post-production in Australia.

FEATURES

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 73

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Prod, accountant........................................TonyHulstrom Sound recordist............................Toivo Lember Prod, designer.................................. Tracy Watt 2nd standby props................ Michael Mercurio 1st asst director.........................................StuartWood Editor......................................... Andrew Prowse Prod, co-ordinator....................................Jennie Crowley Special effects............................Steve Courtley Continuity.....................................................SianFatouros Prod, designer.............................George Liddle Prod, manager.......................................... DarrylSheen Special effects assts............. Conrad Rothman, Casting................................................. ForecastCasting, Unit manager........................ Michael Batchelor Len Judd, Exec, producer....................Antony I. Ginnane Michael Lynch, Prod, co-ordinator........................ Barbara Ring Prod, secretary........................... Sandi Revelins Steve Volich, Rae Davidson Prod, manager...........................Stephen Jones Prod, accountant..........................Jim Hajicosta Marcus Gardiner, Focus puller......................................Derry Field Unit manager........................................... MasonCurtis Accounts asst......................................... Juanita Parker Bob Wenger Clapper/loader............................................PeterTerakes Prod, secretary........................................RoslynSmyth 1st asst director.......................................RobertKewley Scenic artist..................................... Ray Pedler Key g rip .................................... Paul Thompson 2nd asst director....................Michael McIntyre Prod, accountants........................... Catch 123, Set construction......................... Danny Burnett Gaffer............................................. Reg Garside Elizabeth Anderson Location manager........................................ NeilMcCart Art dept co-ordinator....................... Debra Cole Electrician............................................ Gary Hill 1st asst director.....................Philip Hearnshaw Continuity............................Joanne McLennan Art dept runner.................................Ian Jobson Boom operator........................................... GerryNucifora 2nd asst director..........................................Paul Healey Producer's assistant....................... Kiki Dimsey Carpenter foreman.......................Hugh Bateup Costume designer.......................................RossMajor 3rd asst director....................... Mark Chambers Key grip........................................ David Casser 2nd carpenter foreman................Walter Sperl SFX/prosthetic make-up.............Bob McCarron 2nd unit director........................Andrew Prowse Grip............................................Marcus McLeod Carpenters.................................Frank Phipps, Make-up artist............................................ Sonia Smuk Boom operator........................... Mark Wasiutak 2nd unit asst director................................... GusHoward Brendan Mullen, Hairdresser.................................................. PaulWilliams Costume designer............... .Alexandra Tyna Continuity........................................ Ann Walton Pat Carr, 2nd unit prod, co-ordinator.............Paula Smith Make-up......................................................Karla O’Keefe Wardrobe buyer.........................................AnnieMcCarthy Peter Hern, Special prosthetics......................................NickDoring, Casting........................... Maizels & Associates, Hairdresser................................................ Karla O’Keefe Ian Turpie, Suzie Maizels John Cox, Wardrobe supervisor....................................GailMayes John Parker, Calvin Lim, Camera operator........................................DavidForeman Andrew Gerber Art dept manager............... Keith Handscombe Focus puller.............................................. DarrinKeough Belinda Villani, Props buyer/set dresser...................... Jill Eden Painters’ a ssts.............................David Duffin, Clapper/loader...................................Jo Murphy Brian Bertram, David Lowry, Standby props............................................ JohnStabb Vivienne Macgillacuddy, Key grip......................................................BruceBarber Set construction....................................... Hi-riseFlats Graham Matthews Bill Perryman Asst grip......................................................KerryJackson M ixer..........................................................PeterFenton Vehicle maker.............. Walter van Veenendahl 2nd unit grip.................................................. JonGoldney Catering............................................. Bande Aid Asst vehicle maker.................... Alby Hastings Standby wardrobe.................................... Terrie Lamera 2nd unit camera operator........... Julian Penney Studios.......................... Melbourne Film Studio Model maker...................................................BillDennis Props buyer................................................ BrianEdmonds 2nd unit camera asst.................................. John Foster Mixed a t....................................................UnitedSound, Stunts co-ordinator.......................... Max Aspin Asst model makers...............Susan Mayberry, Gaffer.............................................................. IanPlummer Film Australia Wayne Truce Publicity..................................................... LionelMitford Armourer.................................................... BrianBurns1st electrician............................................ GrantAtkinson Laboratory..............................................Cinevex Catering....................Out To Lunch Catering, Electrics................................................. ReubenMilneLab. liaison.....................................................IanAnderson David Vaile Armourer asst.............................Robert Fischer Asst editor.................................. Peter Burgess Boom operator........................................... ScottRawlings Length........... ................................... 95 minutes Laboratory................................................ Atlab Art directors....................Tony Raes (Adelaide), 2nd asst editor...........................Melissah Clark Gauge........................................................35mm Gauge....................................................... 35mm Dubbing editors.........................Peter Burgess, Andrew Blaxland (Sydney) Shooting stock..........................................Kodak Shooting stock .............................. 5294, 5247 Craig Carter Art dept co-ordinator...............................WendyHuxford Cast: Wendy Hughes (The girl).

Synopsis: A trilie of marsupial werewolves Dialogue editor............ ............... Peter Burgess Art dept runner...................................... AndrewSmithSynopsis: A romantic thriller. lives secretly in the Outback. One of the young, Stunts co-ordinator................................... GrantPageMake-up......................................................JaneSurrich Jerboa, defies her elders and goes to Sydney, Safety officer...................................................BillStacey SFX make-up....................................... BeverleyFreeman unleashing an adventure of horror, comedy Safety report w riters.........Kurt Von Schneider, Hairdresser................................................. SashLamey and wonder.

Victorian Stunt Agency Wardrobe supervisor.................. Jean Turnbull Still photography...........................................Jim Sheldon Standby wardrobe.......................Andrea Burns THE LIGHTHORSEMEN Storyboard a rtist.................. Graeme Galloway Props buyer...................... Christopher Webster Prod, company......... Picture Show Pty Limited Nurse......................................... Maggie McKay Props buyer/set dresser.............................VickiNiehus for International Film Tech, adviser............................... Harold Booth Standby props.............................................LiamLiddle Management Limited Wranglers................................. Bill Willoughby, Special effects........................................Mirage, Dist. company...................... RKO Pictures Inc./ Ray Winslade, Andrew Mason, PO ST-PRO D U CTIO N Cinecom International Films/ Gerald Egan Tad Pride, Hoyts Distribution Pty Ltd Patrick Fitzgerald, Wrangler administrator............Jim Willoughby Producers.......................................................IanJones, Paul Farouly, Best boy....................................... Alan Dunstan Simon Wincer Chris Swinbanks, Publicity.......... . Michael Edgley International Director........................................ Simon Wincer Dan Andrews, C atering.......................................Alane Hunter CANDY REGENTAG Scriptwriter.......................................Ian Jones Adam Grace, Mixed a t................................................. HendonStudios Prod, company...................... Rainy Day Pty Ltd Photography................................Dean Semler Peter Wyborn Laboratory.................................................. Atlab Producer.................................... Graeme Isaac Sound recordist.......................... Lloyd Carrick Lab. liaison...................................Graham Keir, Special effects (pyros).................Chris Murray, Director................................. James Ricketson Editor............................................... Adrian Carr Peter Willard Bob Hicks, Scriptwriter................................. Don Catchlove Prod, designer............................Bernard Hides Alan Maxwell, Budget............................................ $10,500,000 Based on the original idea Exec, producer.................... Antony I. Ginnane John Bray, Length...........................................................120minutes b y ............................................ Don Catchlove Assoc, producers............................. David Lee, Gauge........................................................35mm Bernie Smith, Photography.................................... Mike Edols Jan Bladier Tom Briemus Shooting stock......................................... Kodak Editor ................................... Tony Stephens Prod, supervisor.............................. Phillip Corr Cast: Peter Phelps (Dave), Jon Blake (Scotty), Storyboard artist........................................SteveLyonsMusical director......................... Graeme Isaac Prod, co-ordinator........................... Dale Arthur John Walton (Tas), Tim McKenzie (Chiller), Scenic artists..................................................IanRichter, Exec, producer..........................

Don Catchlove Base office liaison........................... Rita Wilson Sigrid Thornton (Anne), Tony Bonner Peter Collias, Prod, co-ordinator...........................................Jo Rooney Unit manager............................... Donald Keyte (Bouchier), Bill Kerr (Chauvel), Ralph Cotterill Christou Reid Prod, manager........................................Brenda Pam Asst unit manager........................Tom Jannike (Von Kress), Gary Sweet (Frank).

Draughtsperson.......................... Steve Whiting Prod, accountant............................ RemarkableFilm Prod, secretary........................... Kerrie Barnhill Synopsis: The story of a group of young men Set construction..............................Lips Studio, Computers Prod, accountant...........Moneypenny Services, in an Australian Light Horse regiment in the six Wayne Allan, 1st asst director.......................................... JohnWarran Mandy Carter months leading up to the charge at Beersheba, John Whitfield-Moore 2nd asst director........................ Peter Kearney Asst accountant...........................Fran Lanigan the world’s last great cavalry charge.

Asst editors........................................ RosemaryLee, Continuity...................................Sian Fatouras 1st asst director........................ Bob Donaldson Lynne Williams, Casting consultants............................ Forecast 2nd asst director............................... Ian Kenny Liz Irwin Focus puller.................................... ChristopherCain 3rd asst director............................ Scott Bradley TERRA AUSTRALIS Stunts co-ordinator..................................... GlenBoswell Clapper/loader.......................................... PaulaSouth 4th asst director............................................ KenMahlab Nurse.................................................... JeanetteKelly Key grip .............................. Grahame Litchfield Prod, company.........................................Yoram Gross 5th asst director.........................................SteveCrockett Still photography.....................................RobbieGribble Film Studio Pty Ltd Art director.................................Rob Ricketson Continuity...........................................Linda Ray Producer..................................................YoramGrossBest bo y ..................................................... CraigBryant Costume designer...................................... SuzyCarter Casting.............................................. Jo Lamer Director.................................................... YoramGrossRunner............................................. David Field Make-up............................... Annie Heathcote Camera operators....................... Dean Semler, Catering........................................ Frank Manley Scriptwriter.................................................

Greg Flynn Wardrobe asst......................Winsome Bernard Richard Merriman Studios....................................................HendonStudios Based on the original idea b y .........Greg Flynn, Props buyer..............................

MargoLovich Focus puller........................................... RoydanJohnson Mixed a t................................................. HendonStudios Yoram Gross Set decorator.............................Fran Holloway Clapper/loader.........................................JamesBoland Laboratory..........................

Colorfilm Animation director...................Graham Sharpe Asst, editor..........................................Dominque Fusy Key grip................................ Marv McLaughlin Lab. liaison.................................................KerryJenkin Sound editor........................... Ashley Grenville Grip................................................................ PatNashAssoc, producer..................................... SandraGrossBudget..............................................$8,000,000 Length..............................................

75 minutes Catering.......................................Kaos Katering Asst g rip ......................................................... IanMcAlpine Length...........................................................100minutes Gauge......................................................35 mm Budget................................................$748,000 2 nd unit cameraman/ Gauge........................................................35mm Synopsis: An A ustra lia n B icentennial Length........................................................... 100minutes Stedicam operator........................ Ian Jones Shooting stock..........................................Kodak Authority endorsed animation feature set in G auge................................................. Super 16 2nd unit focus puller..........................John Platt Synopsis: A sci-fi action movie about a woman Australia about 40,000 years ago.

Shooting stock............................................. Fuji Camera mechanic..................................... DavidDunkley who encounters time travellers from the 24th Cast: Patsy Stephen (Candy), Gary Cooke Gaffer.......................................................... JohnMorton Century in Central Australia.

(Ian), Warwick Ross (Reg), Rainee Skinner Electrician...................... ............Adam Williams THE TIME GUARDIAN (Fleur), Maxine Klibingaitis (Bibi), Toni Scanlon Generator operator.................................. ....TexFoote (Gail), Jacqui Phillips (Wendy), Beth Child Prod, company........Jen-Diki Film Productions Boom operator......................... Chris Goldsmith WARM NIGHTS ON A SLOW MOVING (Lola), John Poison (Cyril), Francesca Raft Pty Limited for International Art director...........................Virginia Bieneman TRAIN (Fiona), Imogen Annesley (Sacha).

Film Management Limited and Asst art director.................................... CarolinePolin Synopsis: Candy works as a prostitute in Chateau Productions Prod, company...Western Pacific Films Limited Costume designer..................................... DavidRowe Bambi’s Massage Parlour and Health Studio in Investments Limited Producers.................................... Ross Dimsey, Make-up.................................................. FelicitySchoeffel Sydney’s Kings Cross.

She has been to art Patric Juillet Dist. company.........Hemdale Film Corporation Hairdresser...................................................PaulPattison school and she’s acquired a veneer of (excluding Australasia) Director................................................ Bob Ellis Asst wardrobe....................

Lyn London sophistication, but feels engulfed by the sheer Scriptwriter.......................................... Bob Ellis Producers............................Norman Wilkinson, Costumier/wardrobe............................... PhillipaEyers ordinariness of her own and others’ lives. As Robert Lagettie Based on the original idea Standby wardrobe....................................... JohnShea the story begins, Candy’s work in the parlour is b y ..................................................... Bob Ellis, Co-producer.............................................HarleyManners 2nd standby wardrobe............................... JohnWorth beginning to alter the tenor of her relationship Denny Lawrence Director.......................................................BrianHannant Wardrobe co-ordinator.............................Jenny Manias with Ian, the man she lives with. She meets Photography..................................... Yuri Sokol Scriptwriters...............................................BrianHannant, Props buyers.......................... Harvey Mawson, Reg, a laconic, enigmatic man, who becomes John Baxter Sound recordist.............................Gary Wilkins Mark Dawson the object of an obsession.

Editor.......................... .......................Tim Lewis Photography............ ......................Geoff Burton Standby props............................................. JohnDaniels

FEATURES

74 — N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

EFFECTS ENGINEERING Bottles- S

heetglass

S pecials M ade To O rder .

LOT 46 LAITOKI RD, TERREY HILLS, NSW 2084.

TELEPHONE: (02) 4501648

450 2956 Length.............................................. 75 minutes Mixed a t..................................... Sound On Film from a screenplay by CASSANDRA Gauge......................................................35 mm Laboratory...............................................Atlab Sonia Borg, Prod, company............ Cassandra Productions Length.............................................. 92 minutes Cast: Keith Scott, Robyn Moore.

Tony Morphett, Pty Ltd Synopsis: Dot and Neptune the dolphin battle Gauge...................................................... 35mm Stephen Cross Producer................................................... TrevorLucasBased on the novel, N u m u n w a r i, to save the life of a beached whale.

Cast: Robin Ramsay (Hec Harris), Jennifer Director.......................................................ColinEggleston Cluff (Aggie), Marion Chirgwin (Jo). b y .......................................... GrahameWebb Scriptwriters...............................................ColinEggleston, Synopsis: This is a story about a man who Photography..........................................Andrew Lesnie GREAT EXPECTATIONS — John Ruane, exceeds his limit on his credit card, so he takes Sound recordist..........................................GaryWilkins Chris Fitchett THE UNTOLD STORY Editor........................................................AdrianCarr out five more credit cards to pay off the first.

Photography.............................Gary Wapshott Prod, designer........................................... DavidCopping Prod, company........... Australian Broadcasting Sound recordists........................... Bob Clayton, DOGS IN SPACE Composer............................Danny Beckerman Corporation, Tony Buettel Prod, manager........................................ RenateWilson International Film Prod, company............................ EntertainmentMedia Editor...............................................................Jo Cooke Unit manager............................................. ChrisJones Management Ltd Pty Ltd in association with Prod, designer....................... Stewart Burnside Prod, secretary..........................................PaulaBennett Producers.................................... Tom Burstall, the Burrowes Film Group Composers.................................. T revor Lucas, Prod, accountant.......................................... LeaCollins Ray Alehin Producer......................................Glenys Rowe Ian Mason Accounts assts.........................................DebraCole,Director..............................Richard Lowenstein Director......................................................... TimBurstall Exec, producer............................................... PhilGerlach' Trish Griffith Scriptwriter....................................................TimBurstall Scriptwriter........................ Richard Lowenstein Assoc, producer........................................ SteveAmezdroz 1st asst director.........................................BarryHall Based on the original idea Based on the original idea by........Tom Burstall Data processor................................. Jenny Nell 2nd.asst director........................................ChrisOdgersb y ...................................Richard Lowenstein Sound recordist.............................Peter Barber Prod, co-ordinator.................................. RosslynAbernethy 3rd asst director............................................KenMoffat Editors.....................................

Tony Kavanagh, Photography...........................Andrew de Groot Prod, manager...........................................SteveAmezdroz Continuity.....................................................KayKennessy Lyn Solly Sound recordist..........................................DeanGawen Unit manager............................ Hugh Johnston Casting...................Martin Productions Pty Ltd Prod, designer...........................

Laurie Johnson Editor.............................................................. JillBilcock Prod, secretary............................................DaleEvans Casting consultants................................... FaithMartinExec, producer............................. Robert Le Tet Composer............................................... GeorgeDreyfus Prod, accountant........................... Sam Roberts Extras casting.............................Jan Kingsbury Exec, producer.................... Antony I. Ginnane Prod, manager.......................................... LyndaHouse 1 st asst director.......................Michael Faranda Focus puller............................................... ColinDeane Assoc, producer........................................SigridThornton Unit m anager................................................KimLewis 2nd asst director...................................NicholasReynolds 2nd focus puller...................................... FelicitySurtees Prod, supervisor...................................... DennisKiely Prod, secretaries......................................... SueStephens, 3rd asst director.............................Justin Orana Clapper/loader........................................... PeterTerakes Location manager..........................................ValWindon Jakki Mann Continuity..................................Kristin Voumard Key g rip.......................................................BrettMcDowell Prod, secretary.....................Maureen Charlton Prod, accountant..............................Anne Galt Casting.......................................... Trevor Lucas Asst g rip ......................................................JohnTate 1 st asst director..........................................RossHamilton Prod, accountant.........................Judy Murphy Camera operator....................................Andrew McLean Camera support system/ 2nd asst director..........................................PaulGrinder 1st asst director...........................Wayne Barry Steadicam operator................................... DavidWoodward armourer....................................Brian Bosisto 3rd asst director...................................... MargotSalomon 2nd asst director......................................... GaryStephens Focus p ulle r................................................MarkSarfaty Assistant................................................GeorgioLiverio Continuity.................................................. GaylePigalle Unit manager................................................DonPage Clapper/loader........................................... PhilipMurphy Gaffer.........................................................PeterO’Brien Casting consultants............................... Forcast Continuity.................................... Sian Fatouros Camera assistant.......................... Kim Jonsson 2nd electrics.............................................. SteveCarter Camera operator.............................. Paul Elliot Casting......................................................JennyAllen Key grip...................................... Brett McDowell 3rd electrics............................................. ShaunMackay Lighting cameraperson..............Peter Hendry Focus puller............................................... SteveMcDonald Asst g rip ............................................. John Tate Boom operator........................................... MarkWasiutak Clapper/loader.........................................MandyWalker Camera operator........................ Roger Lanser Gaffer....................................... Graham Mulder Art director................................................... RonHighfield Key g rip....................................................... NoelMcDonald Focus puller................................................. PaulPandoulis Electricians...............................Borris Sujdovic, Asst art director/ Asst g rip .................................................. WayneMarshall Clapper/loader............................ Robert Foster Dean Bryan scenic artist........................... Ro Bruen-Cook Gaffer........................................................... PaulO'Neill Key g rip............................................ Long John Boom operator........................................... GerryNucifora Art dept runner/assistant........................... TobyCopping Boom operator.......................................Stephen Vaughan Asst grip...................................................... GaryBurdett Art director....................................................MaxManton Make-up supervisor......................................BobMcCarron Art director.................................... Jody Borland Gaffer...............................................Tim Jones Art dept co-ordinator......................... Liz Hagan Make-up.....................................................SonjaSmukHair and make-up......................... Carolyn Nott, Electricians................................Ken Pettigrew, Costume designer................................ AnthonyJonesMake-up assistant................................ AnnabelBarton Troy Davies Ian Wickham Make-up.....................................................SonjaSmukHairdresser................................................. PaulWilliams Wardrobe........................ Lynne Marie Milburn, Boom operator........................................... DavidPearson Prosthetics make-up....................................BobMcCarron Wardrobe supervisor................................ AnnieBanjamin Karen Ansell Art directors......................... John Pryce-Jones, Hairdresser................................... Paul Williams Wardrobe assistant............ Lucinda McGuigan Props buyer...................... Steven Jones-Evans Ken Muggleston Wardrobe................................................ ShaunaFlenady Props maker...............................................JohnMurchStandby props.................................. MacgregorKnoxAsst art director.............................................ColRudder Props buyer...............................................JoyceMcFarlane Props buyer............................................ Derrick Chetwyn Special effects........................................... PeterStubbs Costume designer................................. Quentin Hole Standby props.............................................TonyHunt Standby props.............................................LiamLiddleSet construction....... .........................Ian McLay Make-up............................................... ChristineEhlert, Special effects........................................... BrianRollston, Special effects........................................... SteveCourtney Jiri Pavlin Asst editor...................Christina De Podolinsky LukeO'Halloran Set decorator.............................................JoyceMcFarlane Wardrobe.........................................Ron Dutton Music performed Scenic artist................................................. AlanCraftModel maker/special effects.... William Dennis by...........................Various Melbourne bands Wardrobe asst..................................Roily Cano Carpenters..................................................... IanDay, Assistant to Props........................................................... ClintWhite, Sound edito r................................ Dean Gawen Jono Enemarls (Sydney) model maker shop...............................WayneTruceStunts co-ordinator.......................Glen Boswell Russell Burton, Carpenter...............Andrew Whitney-Gardiner Set construction.........................................DenisDonnelly Chris Ryman Still photography........................................StevePyke Asst editor..............................................AnthonyGreyRigger................................................... BernardMartinBest b o y ..................................................... PeterScottProps buyers........................ Paddy McDonald, Construction manager................... John Parker Neg. matching............................................Atlab Runner............................................Jules Taylor Susan Glavich Asst construction manager......................... PaulMartinLaboratory.................................................... VFL Musical director........................... Trevor Lucas Special effects............................Brian McClure Assistant editor..........................................PhilipDixonLength............................................ 105 minutes Music performed by.................. Bluey and Curly Armourer..................................... Peter Leggett Editing assistant......................................AntonyGray Gauge..................... Super 35 mm Techniscope Sound editor...................................... Soundfirm Set decorator.......................Robert Hutchinson Stunts co-ordinator....................................ChrisAnderson M ixer......................................................... RogerSavage Shooting stock............................... Kodak 5294 Set construction....................................... LaurieDorn Stunts co-ordinator.......................................MaxAspinTransport manager....................................RalphClark Cast: Michael Hutchence (Sam), Saskia Post Asst editors.................................... Sandi Eyles, Assistant transport Stunts....................................................... RobertSimper, Wayne Pashley (Anna), Nique Needles (Tim), Andrew Claytonmanager......................... Jeremy Hutchinson Paul Lennan Jones (Nick), Tony Helou (Luchio), Martii Coles Neg. cu tte r.................................................. PamToose Still photography...........................................Jim Townley Safety adviser..........................................ClaudeLambert (Mark), Catherine Delaney (The girl), Peter Music performed b y..........The West Australian Boat master................................................ JohnBirrellWalsh (Anthony), Caroline Lee (Jenny), Gary Still photography............................. Vivian Zink Symphony Orchestra Best b o y ...............................Jonathan Hughes Opticals........................................................ PaulWhitbread Foley (Barry).

Sound editors......................... Peter Townend, Runner/trainee..............................Ffion Murphy Lawrie Silverstrin Title designer.............................................XTO? Synopsis: A fast and furious love story set Mechanic................................................... HarryWardAFTVS attachment during amid the comedy, chaos and crazy con­ Editing assistants.......................... Sandi Eyles, production.................................................. IvoBurum Best b o y ...................................................PatrickO’Farrel fusion of a typ ical inn e r-city shared Wayne Pashley Publicity..................The Rae Francis Company Runners................................................. RichardBradshaw, household as the indulgent years of the Mixer.............................................. Mark Walker Unit publicist...........................................RonnieGibson Peter Rive seventies give way to the harsher realities of Stunts co-ordinator................. Peter Armstrong Catering......................... MMK Services Pty Ltd life in the eighties.

Catering.......................................................Kaos Still photography........................ Gary Johnston Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm ‘ Mixed at..............................................Soundfirm Horse master.............................. Graham Ware Lab. liaison.........................Richard Piorkowski Laboratory.................................................. Atlab Liberty horses............................ Evanne Brand DOT AND THE SMUGGLERS Length.............................................. 90 minutes Lab. liaison.......................................... Gary Keir Publicity.........................

Georgie Brown (ABC) Prod, company.........................................YoramGross Gauge......................................................35 mm Length........................................................... 100minutes Catering......................................A & B Catering Filmstudio Pty Ltd Shooting stock......................................... Kodak Gauge........................................................ 35mm Studios................

ABC Frenchs Forest Studios Producer................................................. YoramGross Cast: John Jarratt (Steve Harris), Nikki Coghill Shooting stock.............................................A9fa Director....................................................YoramGrossMixed a t..............................ABC Forest Studios (Cathy Pope), Max Phipps (Besser), Burnham Cast: Shane Briant, Briony Behets, Kit Taylor, Scriptwriter................................................. GregFlynnLaboratory........................................... Colorfilm Burnham (Oondabund), David G u lpilil Length.............................120 minutes (feature), Lee James, Susan Barling, Tim Burns, Jeff Based on the original idea b y ........ Greg Flynn, (Adjaral), Ray Meagher (Garret), Jeff Ashby 6 x 50 minutes (miniseries) Truman, Tessa Humphries (Cassandra).

Yoram Gross (Mac Wilson).

Gauge........................................................35mm Animation director.....................Jacques Muller Synopsis: A huge rogue crocodile terrorises Synopsis: A young girl is haunted by horrifying Cast: John Stanton (Magwitch), Sigrid Thorn­ Assoc, producer.......................... Sandra Gross the inhabitants of Darwin. nightmares of suicide and murder . . . all are Prod, manager..................................... JeanetteTomston (Bridget), Robert Coleby (Compeyson), joined by one malevolent thread. Her dreams Noel Ferrier (Jaggers), Gerard Kennedy Length............................................ 75 minutes at first seem to be purely fantasy, and her (Tooth), Todd Boyce (Pip), Anne Louise Lam­ DEAR CARDHOLDER Gauge......................................................35 mm 'parents’ do their best to convince her of that. bert (Estella), Bruce Spence (Gargery), Ron Cast: Keith Scott, Robyn Moore.

Prod, company..................................... MermaidBeach But as the dreams reveal more of her family’s Haddrick (Tankerton), Jill Forster (Miss Synopsis: Dot and her bushland friends try to Productions Pty Ltd tragic secrets, they begin to echo a bloody Havisham). stop wildlife smugglers from capturing a Producer........................................................ BillBennett reality that is happening now.

Synopsis: G r e a t E x p e c t a t io n s — T h e U n t o ld Bunyip.

Director...........................................................BillBennett S to r y takes the character Abel Magwitch from Scriptwriter..................................................... BillBennett Charles Dickens’s novel G r e a t E x p e c t a t io n s , DARK AGE Photography...............................................TonyWilson DOT AND THE WHALE and builds a story around his life, from the time Editor........................................................DeniseHunter Prod com pany.................FG Film Productions Prod, company............................ Yoram Gross he was exiled in Australia as a convict, until he Composer...............................Michael Atkinson (Australia) Pty Limited for Filmstudio Pty Ltd made his fortune and returned to England.

Assoc, producer................................ Jenny Day International Film Management Limited Producer..................................... Yoram Gross Production exec........................................ ElaineWhiteDirector....................................... Yoram Gross Dist company.........RKO Pictures Inc. through GROUND ZERO Prod, co-ordinator...................Debbie Samuels Embassy Home Entertainment Scriptwriter.................................. John Palmer (Working title) Location manager........................................SueSeeary Producer.......................................Basil Appleby Animaton director....................... Ray Nowland Sound editor.............................................DannyCooper Director....................................../Vrch Nicholson Prod, company..................Ground Zero Pty Ltd Assoc, producer.......................... Sandra Gross M ixer............. ............................

Brett Robinson Written b y ........................................Sonia Borg, Producer............................... Michael Pattinson Prod, m anager.......................... Narelle Hopley

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 75

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P R O D U C T I O N

Production Survey continued

Hairdresser.................................... Willi Kenrick Directors...............................Michael Pattinson, Casting (South Australia).......................... AnnePeters Extras casting............................... Kate Ingham Wardrobe supervisor/standby........Jenny Miles Bruce Myles Location surveys........................ David Lightfoot Casting consultants...........Liz Mullinar Casting Assistant standby..................... Gabrielle Healy Scriptwriters..................................................JanSardi,Lighting cameraman............. Geoffrey Simpson Camera operator....................David Williamson Mac Gudgeon Wardrobe assistants.....................................LynHeal, Camera operator...................Geoffrey Simpson Focus p ulle r....................................Greg Ryan Collette Reynolds, Based on the original idea by............ Jan Sardi, Focus puller..............................................MartinTurner Clapper/loader...........................Terry Howells Mac Gudgeon, Clapper/loader................................................ JoMurphy Belinda Bourke Key g rip ............................................. Geoff Full Michael Pattinson Standby props......................Karan Monkhouse Key grip......................................Robin Morgan Gaffer......................................... Robbie Young Photography................................ Steve Dobson Art dept minion............Graham ’Grace’ Walker Electrician...................................Roy Pritchard Asst g rip s.................................. John Goldnev, Rod Bolton Draftsman................................................ MartinWale Sound recordist............................ Gary Wilkins Boom operator................................... Sue Kerr Modelmaker................................ Ross Wallace Editor......................................................... DavidPulbrook 2nd unit photography................ Roger Dowling, Costume designer........................ Anna Senior David Foreman Construction manager................Dennis Smith Prod, designer........................................... BrianThomson Make-up........................................Viv Mepham Slgnwriter.....................................Brian Hammlll 2nd unit focus puller................................... JohnFoster Exec, producer...............Burrowes Film Group Hairdresser..................................... Joan Petch Special effects.............................................. VicWilson, Scenic artist/set finisher...............Billy Malcolm Pty. Ltd. Wardrobe.............................................. HeatherWilliams Jon Armstrong Asst set finisher.........................Martin Bruveris Line producer............................................StuartFreeman Wardrobe a s s t.......................... Romola Jeffrey Gaffer............................................ T revor Toune Carpenters...................................... John Rann, Prod, co-ordinator.......................Christine Hart Props buyer............................................... HelenMacAskill Andy Chauvel, 3rd electrician/ Prod, m anager........................................Narelle Barsby Standby props......................Karan Monkhouse Marcus Smith, generator operator..............................WernerGerlach Unit manager..........................................MichaelBatchelor Special effects/props maker.... Richard Weight Larry Sandy Boom operator........................................... ScottRawlings Location manager.......................Stephen Saks Set decorator/props buyer........ Martin O’ Neill Asst editor..............................................

PamelaBarnetta Art director...............................................

Paddy Reardon Prod, secretary........................................SerenaGattuso Scenic artist............................... Billy Malcolm Dialogue editor............................ Liz Goldfinch Costume designer.............................. AphroditeKondos Prod, accountant.......................................... Jim Hajicosta Set construction........................ Dennis Smith Fx editor.......................................Annie Breslin Make-up/hairdresser.............................. KirstenVeysey Asst to accountant................................. Juanita Parker Asst editor........................................... JeannineChlalvo Asst dialogue editor.....................Dany Cooper Prod, assistant......................................... SusanBenfer Additional make-up/ Stunts co-ordinator....................................ChrisAnderson M ixer.......................................... Roger Savage hairdresser..............................................SashLamey 1st asst director........................................ StuartFreeman Animal trainer/wrangler............ Evanne Brand Stunts co-ordinator...................Chris Anderson Wardrobe buyer/standby...... Ruth de la Lande 2nd asst director............................................ IanFreeman Best boy..................................... Wayne Young Still photography...................... Carolyn Johns, Props buyer......................Christopher Webster 3rd asst director..................................... MichaelRumpf Production runner.....................John Meredith Oliver Strewe Standby props........................................... PeterDavies 2nd unit director............................David Eggby Unit runner................................. Antony Adare Best b o y ....................................Shaun Conway Animation effects...............Richard Chataway, Continuity............................................. Liz Perry Catering....................................................DannyPopper Runner.......................................................

JohnMeredith Michael Cusack Producer’s assistant................................GillianCampbell Budget............................................ $7.3 million Caterer............................................ Chris Smith Casting...................................................... BruceMylesCave paintings...............................................GilSaunders, Length.............................................95 minutes Asst caterer.................................................

BillyAllen Troy Allan, Camera operator............................................IanJones Gauge...................................................... 35mm Mixed a t............................................. Soundfirm Danny Allan Focus puller.................................................. RexNicholson Shooting stock........................................ Kodak Laboratory...........................................

Colorfilm Aboriginal adviser.............................Bob Maza 2nd unit focus puller...........................John Platt Cast: Barry Humphries (Sir Les Patterson, Lab. liaison......................... Richard Piorkowski Clapper/loader...........................................RosieCass Scenic artist..............................Guy Jean Allain Dame Edna), Pamela Stephenson, Andrew Budget.............................................$3.5 million Carpenter.................................... Paul Spencer 2nd unit clapper/loader............................. DavidLindsey Clarke, Thaao Penghalis, Betty Mclvor, Henry Length............................................. 90 minutes Key g rip ..........................................................IanBenallack Construction.....................................Lips Studio Szeps.

Gauge......................................................35 mm Set construction.............................. John Moore Asst grips........................... Arthur Manousakis, Synopsis: Les Patterson saves the world from Shooting stock......................................... Kodak Mark Chambers Asst editor.................................................SimonJames a shocking fate.

Cast: Rachel Ward (Marge Hills), Bryan Brown 2nd unit photography...................David Eggby 2nd asst editor............................... Sarah Abbey (Sonny Hills), Sam Neill (Neville Gifford), Gaffer............................................Ian Dewhurst Music co-ordinator..................................WayneYoung MARAUDERS Steven Vidler (Sugar), Jennifer Claire (Daisy), Boom operator........................................... MarkWasiutak Sound editors..............................................GlenNewnham, Peter Cummins (Ned), Carole Skinner (Mrs Glen Martin Prod, company......................... The Magic Men Art director..................................... Robert Dein Gibson), Clarissa Kaye-Mason (Mrs Jackson), Sound editing a ssts.............Yvonne Van Gyen, Producer.................................................... MarkSavage Asst art directors.......................................PhilipDrake, Susan Lyons (Margaret Fielding), Barry Hill Director...................................................... MarkSavage Graeme Duesbury Sarah-Jane Van Gyen (Richard Fielding).

Scriptwriter................................................. MarkSavage Mixers......................................................JamesCurrie, Costume designer.................. Margot Lindsay Synopsis: The film tells the story of a woman Peter Smith Photography.............................................. MarkSavage Make-up supervisor.................Fiona Campbell who breaks with convention and defies the Sound recordists.........................................PaulHarrington, Make-up artist.........................................AngelaConteStunts co-ordinators............................. Danny’sStunts, taboos of an era in the pursuit of selfRichard Wolstencroft Glen Boswell Standby wardrobe................................... Jeanle Cameron knowledge and sexual fulfilment.

Editors........................................................ MarkSavage, Wardrobe a sst........................ Sandra Cichello Safety officer.................................... Mike Read Paul Harrington Stunt asst.................................... John Hallyday Production designer asst...........................MarkWager Composers................................................ JohnMerakovsky, Stunt performers......................Liddy Van Gyen, SHADOWS OF THE PEACOCK Art dept co-ordinator.............................Rob Leo Mark Horpinitch Richard Boue, Props buyers/dressers........... Ro Bruen-Cook, Prod, company...............Laughing Kookaburra Exec, producers............ Richard Wolstencroft, Tony Lynch, Murray Kelly Productions Pty Ltd Colin Savage Dominico Spadavecchia Art dept asst............................................ AndreaJohnston Production agent............................ Great Scott Prod, accountant.......................................DavidWolstencroft Standby props............................................HarryZettelHelicopter pilo t................................... Terry Lee Productions Pty Ltd Prod, assistants.........................................ColinSavage, Still photography............................Suzy Wood, Asst standby props................................MichaelMercurio Producer.................................................... JaneScott Richard Wolstencroft, Corrie Ancone Special effects...................... Visual Effects and Director.........................................

Phillip Noyce Paul Harrington Effects Engineering Animals............................. Gorge Wildlife Park, Scriptwriter........................................Jan Sharp Casting..................................... The Magic Men Ted and Colin McKenchnie Foreman/carpenter.................................. RobinHartley Additional material..............

Anne Brooksbank Lighting cameraman..................................MarkSavage Construction manager........... Keni Hazelwood Reptiles..........................................Ted Mertons Based on the original Idea b y ........... Jan Sharp Camera assistant.............Richard Wolstencroft Horses....................................... Bill Willoughby Set finisher................................................. ColinBurchall Photography..............................................

PeterJames Key grip................................ Michael De Florio Cockatoo...................................................... GuyMarkey Asst editor..................................................DavidClarke Sound recordist............................................ TimLloyd Boom operator...........................Megan Napier T itle s.....................................Optical & Graphic Sound editors......................... Eugene Wilson, Editor..................................Frans Vandenburg Make-up.....................................Sonia Berton Roger Savage Aircraft liaison............................................ChrisSperou Prod, designer..........................................JudithRussell Special effects/make-up............................ ColinSavage Pilots..........................................John Crowther, Stunts co-ordinator..................................... GlenBoswell Composer...................................................... BillMotzing Musical director....................John Merakovsky Pat Crowther, Stunts.......................................................... GlenBoswell, Exec, producer.................................. Jan Sharp Stunts co-ordinator..................................

Shaun Sullivan Tony Schwertz Richard Boue, Base liaison..............................................PeggyWood Still photography........... Richard Wolstencroft, Zev Eleftherlou, Aircraft consultant...................................JimmyJenkins Prod, manager.......................................AntoniaBarnard Colin Savage Michael Read, Special aircraft rigs...............................KingsleyWhite Location manager..........................Bevin Childs Johnny Hallyday Aircraft transport............................................BillPopelLength.............................................. 80 minutes Prod, accountant.....................................RobinaOsborne Gauge........................................Highband BVU Flying rigs..................... Southern Steeplejacks Armourer.....................................................BrianHolmes 1 st asst director..........................................Chris Webb Rig consultant.............................................JohnPooleCast: Colin Savage (Emilio East), Zero Still photography........................................ GregNoakes, 2nd asst director.........Carolynne Cunningham Montana (J.D. Kruger), Megan Napier Joe Vittorio Best boy................................... Graeme Shelton 3rd asst director......................Henry Osborne (Rebecca Howards), Paul Harrington (David Runner.....................................

David Sorenson Storyboard a rtist..............................Alfred Borg Continuity...............................

Elizabeth Barton Fraser), Janie Feuron (wronged daughter), Nurse.......................................... Jeanette Kelly Glass matte artist....................................... MitchLovett Casting..........Liz Mullinar Casting Consultants Sonia Berton (Penny East), Michael De Florio Best b o y ........................................................ LexMartinPublicity........................................ Marian Page Lighting cameraman.................................

PeterJames (The mute), Kerri Harrington (Little girl), Sam Post-production secretary.............Diane Stuart 3rd electrics................................................. NickPayne Camera operator................. Danny Batterham Davies (Humphrey Pinkwhisle), John Smith (as Catering (Adelaide).................................. DannyPopper 4th electrics................................................ChrisJames Focus puller...............................................Anna Howard Catering (Blue Mountains)........Action Catering himself).

Unit runner.............................................DouglasGreen Clapper/loader........................................ JamesRickard Studios..................................... Hendon Studios Synopsis: In an attempt to avenge a brutal hit Publicity.......................... Suzie Howie Publicity Grips..................................................... BrendanShanley, and run, two psychotic youths roam the Studio manager..................................... MichaelRowan Mixed at............................................. Soundflrm Dave Nichols countryside leaving an abhorrent trail of Mixed a t...................................Hendon Studios Laboratory................................................. Atlab Gaffer........................................................SimonLee violence and destruction in their wake. The Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm Lab. liaison.................................... Peter Willard Boom operator..........................................

PhilipTipene members of a small, rural community, violated Lab. liaison........................ Richard Piorkowski Budget..............................................$7,000,000 Gennie operator................. Darren McLaughlin by the Marauders, become a third cog in the Completion guarantor................................. FilmFinances Length...........................................105 minutes Costume designer..............Clarrissa Patterson machinery of vengeance.

Budget................................................ $3 million Gauge.................................. 35mm anamorphic Make-up/hairdressers............................... JoanHills, Length........................................... 97 minutes Shooting stock......................................... Kodak Jenny Brown Gauge....................................................... 35mm Cast: Colin Friels (Harvey Denton), Donald Peter Kenna’s THE GOOD WIFE Wardrobe buyer......................................RosalieHood Shooting stock.........................................

Kodak Pleasence (Prosper), Jack Thompson (TrebilStandby wardrobe...................................

BarbraZusslno Prod, company................Laughing Kookaburra Cast: Bruno Lawrence (Nat), Rodney Harvey cock), Natalie Bate (Pat), Simon Chilvers Wardrobe asst./seamstress.......................KatieRoss Productions (Billy), Arna-Maria Winchester (Sal), Miranda (President).

Props buyer/set dresser...............................Sue Hoyle Dist. company...Atlantic Releasing Corporation Otto (Stevie), Bobby Smith (Kuly), Tony Barry Synopsis: G r o u n d Z e r o is a contemporary Asst to production designer...... Jane Johnston Producer....................................................... JanSharp (Pat), Luciano Catanacci (Carlo), Mladen thriller about one man’s search for the truth. A Standby props..............................................Paul Arnott Director....................................... Ken Cameron Mladenov (Bruno). film of mystery and Intrigue, suspense and Scenic artist................................................. AlanCraft Scriptwriter................................................ PeterKenna Synopsis: A high adventure story of a boy's action, all of which begins with a seemingly un­ Construction manager............

Alistair Thornton Photography............................................JamesBartle initiation into manhood through trial and ordeal related series of events.

Carpenter/set maker.................... Herman Bron Sound recordist........................................... BenOsmo after a plane crash in the remote Australian Carpenter................................................. GlennMitchel Editor................................................ John Scott rainforest.

It Is a life or death journey that INITIATION Asst editors.......................................... MargaretSixel, Prod, designer..........................

Sally Campbell involves magic and ritual.

Management company......... International Film Mandy Hanak Composer................................. Cameron Allan Management Ltd Still photography...................................... VivienZink Prod, consultant......................Greg Rlcketson LES PATTERSON SAVES THE Best b o y ................................................... JasonRogers Prod, company........................... Fllmbar Pty Ltd Assoc, producer........................................Helen Watts WORLD Production runner................. James McTeigue Dist. company....................................Worldwide Production manager.................................HelenWatts Prod, company............Humpstead Productions (excluding Australasia) Catering..................................... ‘Out to Lunch’, Prod, co-ordinator................... Elizabeth Symes Pty Ltd Goldfarb Distributors Inc. Cassie Vale Location manager....................................MaudeHeath Producer...................................... Sue Milliken Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm Producer.................................. Jane Ballantyne Unit manager.................Jean-Paul ‘Lon’ Lucini Director........................................ George Miller Lab. liaison.........................Richard Piorkowski Director...................................... Michael Pearce Prod, accountant..............Gemma Rawsthorne Scriptwriters............................Diane Millstead, Budget......................................................... $2.6million Scriptwriter.............................................. JamesBarton Prod, assistant.............................. Fran Lanigan Barry Humphries Length.............................................................90 minutes Based on the original idea 1 st asst director............................................ PhilRich by........................................................ MichaelPearce Gauge......................................................35 mm Based on the original Idea 2nd asst director........................................ CraigBolles b y.........................................Diane Millstead, Shooting stock............................................

Agfa Photography......................................... GeoffreySimpson 3rd asst director........................................ GrantLee Barry Humphries Cast: Wendy Hughes (Maria McEvoy), John Sound recordist..........................................ToivoLember Continuity................................Therese O'Leary Lone (Raka), Steven Jacobs (George McEvoy), Photography............................... David Connell Editor....................................................... DeniseHaratzis Producer’s assistant............................. GeorgiaMartin Peta Toppano (Judy), Marjorie Child (Maria’s Sound recordist............................................SydButterworth Prod, designer..............................................JonDowding Casting..................Liz Mullinar and Associates, mother), Gillian Jones (Mitty), Mathew Taylor Editor...........................................Tim Wellburn Exec, producer..................... Antony I. Ginnane Liz Mullinar (Simon McEvoy), Claudia Karvan (Julie Prod, designer............................Grace Walker Prod, co-ordinator....................................Jennie Crowley Camera operator.................. Peter Menzies Jnr McEvoy), Rebecca Smart (Tessa McEvoy).

Exec, producer......................................... DianeMillstead Prod, manager.........................................RobertKewley Focus p uller.............................................. GarryPhillips Prod, manager...............................Tony Winley Unit manager........................................... MasonCurtis Clapper/loader............................................ SuslStitt Synopsis: An exotic romance set in Sydney and Thailand.

Prod, co-ordinator.....................................FionaMcConaghy Asst unit manager.................................. ....JohnColias Key grip...................................Lester C. Bishop Prod, accountant............................. ChristopherHunnUnit manager...................................Tic Carroll Asst g rip .......................................Terry C. Cook SHAME Location manager.....................................DavidMalacari Asst accountants.................................. DanielleRobertson, G affer........................................................... PavGovind Alex Walker Prod, secretary............................Lesley Parker Gennie operator...................................... RobertBurrProd, company....................... Barron Films Ltd Prod, accountant...........Moneypenny Services 1 st asst director............................ Euan Keddie Boom operator...........................................GeoffKrix Dist. company....................................UAA Film 1 st asst director..........................................BrianGiddens 2nd asst director...........................Gus Howard Art dept co-ordinator................................... LeahCocks Management Ltd 2nd asst director.........Carolynne Cunningham 3rd asst director......................................... KevinTurner Art dept asst............................................... PeterForbes Producers...............................................DamienParer, Continuity........................................ Jenni Tosi Continuity................................................JoanneMcLennan Costume designer...........................Jennie Tate Paul Barron Producer’s assistant........................Fiona King Casting (United States).............Leonard Finger Make-up...................................................... Sally Gordon Director...................................................... SteveJodrell

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 77

P R O D U

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Production Survey continue £/

the original subjects — and Australia — have Asst art director.........................................Sarah Tooth Peter Watson (Studio) Scriptwriters...........................................MichaelBrindley, Costume designer.................................... RogerFoordchanged over the last twenty years.

Beverly Blankenship Asst editors..................................... John Kubik, Make-up..................................................RobernPickering Alicia Gauvin Based on the original idea b y ........................................................MichaelBrindley, Musical director......................................... PeterMillerHairdresser............................................ Yvonne Savage AUSTRALIAN WILDERNESS SERIES Beverly Blankenship Sound editor.............................................. CraigWoodWardrobe standby/buyers............Fiona Nicolls, Prod, com pany.............................. Kestrel Film Lyn Askew Editing assistant........................................ JohnKubik Photography........................................... JosephPickering Productions Pty Ltd Standby props............................................ ColinGibson Still photography......................Hugh Hamilton, Sound recordist.........................................DavidGlasser Dist. company................................ Kestrel Film Special effects........................................... SteveCourtney Wendy McDougall, Editor......................................................... KerryRegan Productions Pty Ltd Choreography........................................... RobinMoase Mathu Anderson Prod, designer................................. Phil Peters Directors....................................................DavidMorgan, Runners................ Alision Pickup (Broken Hill), Set decorator............................. Brian Edmonds Composer........................................ Mario Millo David Greig Bryn Whittie (Studio) Asst editor................................................LouiseInnesScriptwriters..............................................DavidGreig, Exec, producer........................... UAA Films Ltd Catering..........The Happy Carrot (Broken Hill), Stunts co-ordinator......................................GuyNorris Prod, co-ordinator................... Susie Campbell David Morgan Alision Pickup (Studio) Still photography......................................VivianZinckPhotography........................... Kevin Anderson, Prod, m anager........................Debbie Copland Studios................................... Supreme Studios Best boy.................................................. RobbieVerkirk Location manager....................... Ross Reading Alex McPhee Laboratory...........................................Colorfilm Runner......................................................NaomiEnfield Unit manager..................................... Tim Hall Editors........................................................DavidGreig, Lab. liaison................................. Simon Wicks, Publicity.............................Lyn Quayle Publicity Prod, secretary................Amanda Etherington Rebecca Grubelich Warren Catering........................................Out To Lunch Prod, accountant..........................................EricSankey Exec, producer....................... John Richardson Length.............................................. 8 6 minutes Laboratory..................................................Atlab Asst prod, accountant................................. AnnMcFarlane Prod, m anager.......................Karen Alexander Lab. liaison..........................................Gary Keir 1st asst director.........................................StuartWoodGauge......................................................16 mm Prod, secretary...................................... BabetteAngell Shooting sto ck........................................... 7291 Gauge............................................Super 16mm 2nd asst director.........................................PeterKearney Prod, accountant................... David Butterfield Shooting s to ck........................................... 7291 3rd asst director......................................... ChrisLynchCast: Michael Lake (Felix), Melissa Davis Camera assistants..................................RomanBaska, (Betty), The Norm (Smith).

Cast: Garry McDonald (Max), Pamela Continuity................................................... ChrisO’Connell Elvira Piantoni Stephenson (Marilyn), Marian Dworkowski Casting........................................................JohnRapsey Synopsis: A crippled man and his fanatically Sound editor...........................................Virginia Murray (Richard), Su Cruickshank (Norda), John Casting consultants.........Maizels & Associates religious sister live in a shack in the middle of a Mixed a t................................

Film Sound Track Clarke (Jerry), Ignatius Jones (Phil), Graeme Camera operator.....................................JosephPickering vast desert. The man dreams of leaving in a Laboratory.................................................... VFL Blundell (Dr Howie), Patrick Cook (Stage F-ocus puller..................................................NeilCervin flying machine of his own invention. A comedy Budget.................................................$800,000 manager), Jonathon Biggins (Steve), Antonia Clapper/loader........................................... MarkZagarof the ironic.

Length.........................................3 x 50 minutes Murphy (Phoebe).

Key grip.......................................................KarelAkkerman Gauge........................................................16mm Synopsis: Max Falcon, superstar of stage and THE TALE OF RUBY ROSE Asst grip.......................................... David Cross Shooting stock....................Eastmancolor Neg. screen, is murdered by his wife Marilyn.

They 2nd unit photography...............................SimonAkkerman Prod, company.................................. Seon Film Synopsis: Three programmes from a six-part find love again when he returns to haunt her.

Gaffer................................. Guy Bessell-Brown Productions Pty Ltd series looking at the Kimberleys, the Simpson Boom operator................................... Gary Carr Dist. company................................... Worldwide Desert and Kosciusko. The concept of the pro­ Costume designer....................................... NoelHowell excluding Australasia TO MARKET TO MARKET grammes is based on making the audience Make-up.................................................. MarilynSmits Film and General Holdings, aware of the relatively few remaining wilder­ Prod, company.......................................GooseyLimited Special effects make-up............Liddy Reynolds Hemdale ness areas in Australia.

Dist. company..........................................Village Roadshow Wardrobe................................................. DeniseNapier Producers................................................. BryceMenzies, Producer................................................ Virginia Rouse Props buyer..............................................KelvinSexton Andrew Wiseman Director..................................................

Virginia Rouse BALI TRIPTYCH Standby props...........................................KelvinSexton Director.......................................Roger Scholes Scriptwriter.............................................Virginia Rouse Vehicle co-ordinator.................................. PeterMarlow Prod, company.......................... Bozado Pty Ltd Scriptwriter................................. Roger Scholes Based on the original idea Special effects........................................... PeterMarlow Dist. company........................... ABC Marketing Project development............ Katherine Scholes b y ....................................................... Virginia Rouse Set decorator..................................... JulieanneMills Based on the original idea Producer..................................... John McLean Photography........................................... JaemsGrantDirector................................. John A.C. Darling Carpenters.......................................Alex Dixon, b y ............................................Roger Scholes Sound recordist....................... Laurie Robinson Tony Van Druska Scriptwriter.......................... John A.C. Darling Photography............................................. SteveMason Editor..........................................................TonyPaterson Construction manager...............................PeterCarman Photography.........................David Sanderson Sound recordist............................. Bob Cutcher Assoc, producer.........................................TrishCarney Asst editor............................................. Therese O’Leary Sound recordist.......................... Max Hennser Composer.................................................... PaulSchutze Prod, manager........................................... TrishCarney Neg. matching................ Neg Cutting Services Mixed a t...............................................Transfilm Exec, producer.......................................... BasiaPuszka Prod, accountant......................................JennyPaterson Post-prod, supervisor................................KerryRegan Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm Assoc, producer............................................ IanPringle 1st asst director...........................................KathHayden Editing asst........................................... Therese O’ Leary Budget.................................................$500,000 Prod, manager..................Christine Gallagher Continuity............................................... JoanneMcLennan Mixers.................................................... MichaelThomas, Length.........................................3 x 50 minutes Prod, base supervisor..................................KenDawes Focus puller................................................GregHarrington Julian Ellingworth Gauge.......................................................

16mm Unit manager............................................PhillipHealyClapper/loader.................................. Mark Lane Stunts co-ordinator.......................... Peter West Shooting stock.......................... 7291 and 7294 Helicopter supervisor.................................RussJackson Key grip...................................................... PeterKershaw Stunts............... Rob Greenough Stunt Agency Synopsis: A definitive view of Balinese life­ Prod, secretary....................... Terri Goldsmith Gaffer.......................................................... RoryTimoney Still photography........................................ColinMedlicott style, history and culture.

Prod, doctor.......................Jeannie Ledingham Boom operator................................Chris Rollin Safety officer..................................................ArtThompson Prod, accountant..........................Jenny Davies Art director.............................................Virginia Rouse Unit nurse..........................Johann Akkgrmann 1st asst director........................................JamieLegge BLACK FUTURES 2: Make-up.....................................................AnnaKarpinski Mechanic............................................ David Fry 2nd asst director................................. KatherineScholes BUILDING DREAMS Wardrobe..............................................Michelle Leonard Best boy.....................................................PhillipGolumbic Continuity............................... Robyn Crawford Prod, company...................... Corroboree Films Props...................................................... AntonyShepard Runner.............................................Nic Sadler Casting.............................. Liz Mullinar Casting Producer........................... Michael Le Moignan Catering.................................................... Griffin Caterers Focus puller................................................ JohnPlatt Catering..................................................... PeterBailey Directors.........................Michael Le Moignan, Laboratory............................................. Cinevex Mixed at...................................................... Atlab Gaffers....................................................WarrenMearns, Yuri Sokol Budget................................................ $600,000 Laboratory.................................................. Atlab Alleyn Mearns Scriptwriters...................

Michael Le Moignan, Length............................................................ 90minutes Lab. liaison....................................... David Cole Boom operator...........................................CraigBeggs Bob Merritt Gauge..................................................

35mm Budget............................................. $1 -8 million Art directors.............................................. BrycePerrin, Script editor.....................................Larry Lucas Shooting stock..............................................Fuji Length...........................................................110minutes Harold Riley Photography......................................Yuri Sokol Gauge.................................................Super 16 Make-up......................................................Jane ByrneCast: Phillip Quast (Edward), Katie Reid Sound recordist.......................................... RuthBerry (Jackie), Tony Llewellyn-Jones (Richard), Shooting sto ck ........................................... 7291 Wardrobe...................................................HelenPoynder Editor.....................................................MatthewTucker Genevieve Picot (Susanna), Noel Trevarthen Cast: Deborra-Lee Furness (Asta), Simone Wardrobe assistant............... Maryanne Whyte Asst editor........................... Annette McLennon Buchanan (Lizzie), Tony Barry (Tim), David Props buyer............................................... PeterWoof(William Snr), Wayne Cull (William Jnr).

Assoc, producer......................................... LarryLucas Synopsis: Deals with familial expectations Franklin (Danny), Gillian Jones (Tina), Peter Standby props...........................................AdeleFlere Prod, supervisor......................... Bee Reynolds Aanensen (Cuddy), Margaret Ford (Norma), Set construction..................................... AshleyDuff, within an establishment family.

Research..................................................

CaseyRyan Bill McCluskey (Ross), Graeme (Stig) Wemyss Glen Marshall, Unit manager............................................. SusieAboud (Bobby), Douglas Walker (Andrew).

Geoff Fenton Prod, secretary.........................................Casey Ryan Synopsis: Asta, a lone motorcycle rider, is a Still photography....................................... PeterWhyte, Prod, accountant............................... MganchenGlover D O CU M EN TA R IES lawyer taking the time out to come to terms Jan Dallas 1st asst director..............Lesley Lamont-Fisher with her disillusionment and cynicism towards Runner..............................................Julian Ball Focus puller............................................... DavidDunkley the law. A minor accident forces her to stop for Catering......................Rod Thorpe — Raffertys Prod, trainees............................................ AnnePratten, repairs in an isolated country town known as Mixed a t................................................... SoundFirm Ray Eastwood AUSTRALIA REVISITED Ginborak, where gang rape and intimidation Laboratory.............................................Cinevex Length.......................................

56 minutes breed in a conspiracy of silence.

Lab. liaison................................... Ian Anderson Prod, company................... Triad Films Pty Ltd Gauge........................ ..............................

16mm Budget............................................$1,200,000 Dist. company..................... ABC TV Australia, Cast: Bob Merritt (Presenter).

SPIRITS OF THE AIR/GREMLINS OF Length............................................................ 95minutes Central TV UK Synopsis: A home is more than a house.

This Gauge......................................................35 mm THE CLOUDS Series producer...................................... RobertKitts Shooting stock............... Kodak 5247 and 5294 Directors....................................................... MaiRead,film looks at how Aborigines are building their Prod, company..........................Meaningful Eye own houses and the effect that this is having Cast: Melita Jurisic (Ruby Rose), Chris Hay­ Robert Kitts, Contact Pty Ltd upon their lives, their communities and their wood (Henry Rose), Rod Zuanic (Gem), Martyn Richard Guthrie, Producers...................................... Alex Proyas, dreams.

Sanderson (Bennett), Sheila Florance Louise Meek Andrew McPhail (Grandma).

Scriptwriters/research.................Mark Manion, Director......................................... Alex Proyas Synopsis: Located among the haunting peaks Marlene Abrams, Scriptwriters..................................Alex Proyas, BLACK FUTURES 3: and brooding mists of Tasmania's Central Mai Read, Peter Smalley GETTING BETTER Highlands, T h e T a le o f R u b y R o s e is the story Robert Kitts, Based on the original idea b y.........Alex Proyas Prod, company.....................

Corroboree Films of a woman overcoming an intense fear of the Richard Guthrie, Photography...................................David Knaus Producer........................... Michael Le Moignan dark.

Louise Meek Sound recordist........David White (attachment) Directors.....................................................Larry Lucas, Based on the original idea b y ......... Robert Kitts Editor......................................................... CraigWood Yuri Sokol THOSE DEAR DEPARTED Photography.............................. Craig Watkins, Prod, designer............................Sean Callinan Scriptwriters...................................Bob Merritt, Mike Atkinson, Composer.................................................. PeterMillerProd, company..........................................PhillipEmanuel Casey Ryan, Garry Rhodes, Exec, producers.........................................MMAFilms, Productions Limited Michael Le Moignan Ian Marden, AFC Dist. company......Roadshow Village Corporate Script editor................................................Larry Lucas Eric Lomas Prod, manager....................... Andrew McPhail Producer................................................... PhillipEmanuel Photography......................................Yuri Sokol Sound recordists....................... George Weiss, Prod, accountants........................................LynJones, Director.........................................................TedRobinson Sound recordist.................................Ruth Berry John Easter, David Burns Scriptwriter.............................. Steve J. Spears Editor.....................................................MatthewTucker Tony Morath, Prod, assistant................................................ KitQuarry Based on the original idea Asst editor........................... Annette McLennon Richard Hill 1st asst director!..................... Andrew McPhail by.......................................... Steve J. Spears Supervising editor..................................... DavidStiven Editors........................................................

Russ Herman, 2nd asst director.............................................KitQuarry Photography..................................

DavidBurr Assoc, producer.............................. Larry Lucas Douglas Howard Casting consultants...............................Forcast Sound recordist.............................

PhilKeros Prod, supervisor......................... Bee Reynolds Composer...................

Andrew Thomas-Wilson Lighting cameraman.....................David Knaus Editor.........................................Robert Gibson Research........................................ Casey Ryan Camera operator........................... David Knaus Prod, designer..........................................RogerFordExec, producer................................... Mai Read Unit manager............................................. SusieAboud Assoc, producers..................................Marlene Abrams, Focus puller.................................. Lisa Sharkey Composer..................................................... PhilScott Prod, secretary...............................Casey Ryan Mark Manion Clapper/loader.Alison Maxwell (attachment) Prod, co-ordinator..................... Edwina Nicolls Prod, manager.....................Marian Macgowan Prod, accountant................................MganchenGlover Key g rip ......................................... Steve Miller Prod, manager........ Rosanne Andrews-Baxter 1st asst director.............. Lesley Lamont-Fisher Prod, accountant................. Viera and Bennell Special fx photography................. Alex Proyas Unit manager........................................... RockyDelbarre Continuity.............................................. MarleneAbrams, Focus puller........... „ „ ................ David Dunkley Gaffers.......................................... Steve Miller, Prod, accountant........................................ PaulHopkins, Mark Manion Prod, trainees............................. Anne Pratten, David Knaus Catch 1-2-3 Ray Eastwood Still photography.......................... Mark Manion Boom operator...........................................CraigWood1st asst director......................................... SteveAndrews Title designer.................................. Robert Kitts Length.............................................. 56 minutes Art director................................................. PeterMiller2nd asst director...........................................PhilPatterson Publicity.............................. -...Marlene Abrams Gauge......................................................:16mm Costume designers....................Angela Tonks, 3rd asst director...........................................LisaMann Mathu Anderson Budget...............................$40,000 per episode Cast: Bob Merritt (Presenter).

Continuity.................................................... PamWillis Synopsis: More than one in 40 Aboriginal Make-up..................................Mathu Anderson Length.......................................12 x 30 minutes Producer’s assistant............... Rebecca Marks babies die within a year of birth. More than one Hairdresser............................. Mathu Anderson Gauge..............................Vfe" tape to 1" master Casting...............................Liz Mullinar Casting in two Aboriginal men over sixty suffer from the Standby props............................................PeterMillerFocus puller....................Ian ‘Thistle’ Thorburn Shooting sto ck.................................... Betacam eye disease, trachoma. This film looks at a Cast: Charles Perkins, Colonel Joe Mann, Alan Special effects...........Meaningful Eye Contact, Clapper/loader...............................Frank Hruby movement towards radical improvements in Ticehurst, Peno and Livia Bosi, Lillian Frank, Lewis Morley Key g rip ................................... Paul Thompson Aboriginal health care. We meet the Aboriginal Lang and Rose Hancock.

Scenic artist......................... Nick Stathopoulos Asst grip...................................George Tsoutas health workers of the 21st century. The- film Carpenters................................Danny Herring, Synopsis: A u s tr a lia R e v is it e d is a sequel to an Gaffer............................................. Reg Garside also provides an intriguing look into traditional David Thompson original twelve-part series made by the BBC Electrician............................................ Gary Hill Aboriginal methods of healing.

Set construction....Derek Wyness (Broken Hill), during 1966. The new programmes look at how Boom operator................................... David Lee

78 — N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

WARDROBE • MAKE-UP VANS • CAMERA TRUCKS • CAST VANS • PROPS VANS • UNIT VEHICLES • TRACKING VEHICLES

FOR THE SUPPLY OF ALL FILM PRODUCTION TRANSPORT CONTACT DAVID SUTTOR ON (02) 439 4590

» 318 WILLOUGHBY ROAD, NAREMBURN, SYDNEY

PROUD TO BE SUPPLYING: • Ground Zero • Army Wives • Willing and Able • Promises to Keep • Vietnam • Harp in the South

STATION WAGONS • SEDANS • HI-ACE VANS • 4 X 4 TOYOTA LANDCRUISERS • ACTION VEHICLES • TRAY TOPS • BUSES

Synopsis: The first in a series of films on Aus­ began to question their lot with the help of liners in the US Army’s massive manoeuvre COURAGEOUS white prospector, Don McLeod. In 1942, tralian artists and their work. Lloyd Rees was called 'Operation War Bride’ to join their sweet­ Prod, company..................... Garden City Films McLeod met with hundreds of Aboriginals from born in Brisbane in 1895, and his work is repre­ hearts on the other side of the world.

Forty Producer.................................... Janet McLeod the Pilbara region and, after six weeks of sentational in an age of non-figurative art. The years later they talk about their experiences.

Director......................Georgia Wallace-Crabbe meetings it was decided the only way to achieve artist’s preoccupation in painting is with giving Scriptwriters............. Georgia Wallace-Crabbe, justice was to strike, after WWII. This is the associations to familiar environments.

GILLIES Janet McLeod story of their struggle as told by those who lived Photography.............................. Graham Wood Prod, company............................... Curtis Levy it.

LOUDER THAN WORDS Sound recordist........ Georgia Wallace-Crabbe Productions Pty Ltd Editor.........................Georgia Wallace-Crabbe Dist. company................................. Curtis Levy Prod, com pany.................................. Pen Films JACK PIZZEY IN AUSTRALIA Still photography.......................................JanetMcLeod Productions Pty Ltd Producers.................................. Jenny Harding, Prod, company......................... Phillip Emanuel Laboratory.................................................... VFL Andrew Scollo Producer.........................................Curtis Levy Productions Ltd I ah liaison.................................... Bruce Braun Director.....................................................JennyHarding Director........................................... Curtis Levy Producer.................................Peter Thompson Length........................................... 50 minutes Scriptwriter......................................Curtis Levy Scriptwriter...............................................

JennyHarding Exec, producer.........................Phillip Emanuel Gauge........................................................ 16mm Based on the original idea by......... Curtis Levy Photography...................Gaetano N. Martinetti Length........................................ 3 x 5 0 minutes Shooting sto ck..............................................Fuji Photography..............................................TerryCarlyon Prod, manager..........................................Sarah Coward Gauge.......................................................16mm Synopsis: A documentary film set in the fish­ Sound recordist............................ Sean Meltzer Budget.................................................. $40,000 Cast: Jack Pizzey (Presenter). ing grounds of Northern Australia. The film Length.............................................................25minutes Editor......................................................StewartYoung Synopsis: A look at the Australian way of life follows the crew of a prawn boat on a six-week Prod, manager.................................... ChristineOlsenas seen by an 'outsider'.

Gauge....................................................... 16mm fishing trip. At sea, the personal drama of the Laboratory............................................. Cinevex Cast: Ania Walwicz, TTO, Eric Beach. young men's lives evolves. Relations are Synopsis: A documentary presenting perform­ Budget............................................... $206,500 stretched to the limit as they work around the ance poetry.

THE LIFE IN A DAY OF BARRY Length............................................. 50 minutes clock, a schedule dictated by the drive to catch Gauge......................................................16mm HUMPHRIES prawns, to strike gold.

Shooting stock................................ 7291,7292 (working title) Synopsis: A film about Max Gillies and his MAKE WAY FOR THE MACHINES Prod, company...................Brad Robinson and work as a comic actor.

ECHO OF A DISTANT DRUM Prod, company.........Independent Productions Empress Road Production Dist. company.......... Independent Distributors Producers................................................... BradRobinson, Prod, company...................Orana Films Pty Ltd Producer............................................Peter Butt Mark Joffe Producer......................................................DickDennisonTHE GREENLAND EXPEDITION Director..............................................Peter Butt Director.............................................Mark Joffe Directors................................................ MichaelBalson, Prod, company............. Pickwood River Pty Ltd Exec, producer...................................... GrahamFord Matthew Flanagan Producer.............................................SanthanaNaiduPhotography..........................................MichaelWilliams, Length.............................................................

50minutes Ellery Ryan, Scriptwriter..............................Patrick O ’Farrell Director.........................................Mike Boland Synopsis: Investigates the effect of new Dave Connell Photography............................... Michael Ewers Photography................................. Mike Boland technology on work and leisure in capitalist Sound recordist..........................................AndyRamage Sound recordist........................................... MaxHennser Sound recordist....................... Greg Burgmann society.

Editor......................................................... RalphStrasser Editor........................................ Michael Balson Editor........................................ Tony Patterson Assoc, producer.......................................SimonFenner Music..........................................RTE Orchestra Prod, accountant...................Antony Shepherd Prod, m anager.......................................... Craig Griffin METAL MEN Laboratory............................................ Cinefilm Length.............................................60 minutes Prod, assistants...................................... AbigailJones, Length....................................................... 3 x 6 0 minutes Gauge..................................................... 16 mm Prod, company........................... ABC/Comalco Sarah de Teliga Shooting sto ck.....................................Eastman Gauge........................................................16mm Dist. company........................................ABC TV Research assistant................................. NatalieGrosby Synopsis: An alternative history of Australia.

Synopsis: A documentary about four kayakers Producer.................................................... RobinJames Camera assistants.................................. KattinaBowell, led by Earle Bloomfield to the east coast of Director..................................................... RobinJames Robin Plunkett Greenland retracing the 1200 km journey of Scriptwriter................................................Robin James DRIFTERS AND ANGELS Still photography.....................................KimbalBakerSound recordist..................................... Quentin Black English explorer Gino Watkins.

Prod, company.............. Sixpence Productions Cast: Brad Robinson, Barry Humphries.

Editor........................................... David Halliday Dist. company................................ Ronin Films Synopsis: A chat and a stroll with Barry Exec, producer........................................HarveyShore HILLARY INDIA PROJECT Humphries from St. Kilda pier to Hanging Producer....................................... Alec Morgan Unit manager................................... David Palm (Working title) Director......................................... Alec Morgan Rock.

Producer's assistant..................Carol Johnson Scriptwriters................................................ AlecMorgan, Prod, company............................ Michael Dillon Lighting cameraperson..............................PeterCooke Mary Callaghan Film Enterprises Camera operator........................ Colin Hertzog LINK-UP DIARY Based on the original idea by..... Alec Morgan Producer...................................... Michael Dillon Asst editor.............................Bradley McCrystal (working title) Photography............................... Martha Ansara Director........................................ Michael Dillon Sound editor............................... David Halliday Composer.............................. Ralph Schneider Prod, company......................... AIAS Film Unit, Scriptwriter...................................Michael Dillon Mixer...................................................... Quentin Black Laboratory............................................Colorfilm Australian Institute of Photography................................ Michael Dillon Mixed a t................................ABC TV, Brisbane Budget................................................. $895,000 Aboriginal Studies Sound recordists........................... Peter Hillary, Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm Length......................................... 6 x 30 minutes Producer.............................. David MacDougall Shaju Joseph Budget................................................... $25,000 Gauge........................................................ 16mm Director.................................David MacDougall Editor............................................. Rod Hibberd Length.............................................................20minutes Shooting stock............................... 7294, 7291 Scriptwriter.......................... David MacDougall Laboratory............................................ Cinefilm Gauge.............................. 16mm, 1 " videotape, Synopsis: An entertaining and thoughtPhotography........................David MacDougall BVU %" off-line time code Budget................................................... $70,000 provoking television series about the history Sound recordist................... David MacDougall Shooting stock................................. 7291,7294 Length............................................................ 50minutes and lives of travelling showpeople in Australia.

Editor............. ...................... David MacDougall Synopsis: A documentary about the people Gauge........................................................16mm It will explore the development of the travelling Synopsis: A vérité-style account of a week on and the processes appertaining to the manu­ Shooting sto ck..................................... Eastman entertainments through to the 'last' travelling the road with the workers of Link-Up, who facture of aluminium products. It is the first pro­ Synopsis: Sir Edmund Hillary and a group of search for missing persons from Aboriginal duction of the ABC in Brisbane to be ‘postshows today. friends set out to climb India and come face to families broken up by the policies and the face with its sheer size and diversity. produced’ off-line. activities of the NSW Aborigines Protection FOR THE LOVE OF A SOLDIER and Welfare Boards between 1883 and 1967.

MYSTERIES DOWN UNDER Prod, company...............................Tony Wilson HOW THE WEST WAS LOST Productions Pty Limited Prod, company........Channel Communications Prod, company..........Frends Film Productions LLOYD REES — Producers................................................... TonyWilson, (Film Investments) Ltd Producer.................................Heather Williams Lucinda Strauss Dist. company............... EVP Television Pty Ltd Director......................................................DavidNoakes REFLECTIONS OF AUSTRALIA Director....................................................... TonyWilson Producer..................................................WayneGroom Scriptwriters..............................................DavidNoakes, Prod, company.................... Australian Art Film Scriptwriter............................. Anne Whitehead Scriptwriter................................................. BarryGroom Partnership Pty Ltd Paul Roberts Based on the original idea b y ...... Tony Wilson, Exec, producer..........................................KevinMoore Based on the book b y...................................DonMcLeod Producers................................... Don Bennetts, Lucinda Strauss Length........................................ 6 x 60 minutes Photography..............................

Phillip Bull Jeremy Hogarth Photography...............................................TonyWilson Gauge....................................................... Video Directors................................. Jeremy Hogarth, Sound recordist..................................... MichaelRaynes Sound recordist.............................................LeoSullivan Editor..........................................................FrankRijavec Synopsis: Australian ‘Ripley’s Believe It or Don Bennetts Editor............................................ Tim Litchfield Not’ — little known facts about Australia.

Researcher/consultant............................... PaulRoberts Scriptwriter...................... Christopher Leonard Exec, producer........Channel Communications Additional research.................................MarionBenjamin Photography............................... Ray Henman, Prod, m anager.......................................LucindaStrauss Prod, co-ordinator................................. HeatherWilliams Terry Carlyon, Research............................................... LucindaStrauss Prod, secretary....................Film Type Services Tony Wilson, NATURE OF AUSTRALIA Consulting historian...............................AnnettePottsLighting cameraman................................ PhillipBull Malcolm Ludgate (Working title) Prod, accountant.............. Stuart Lloyd and Co. Camera operator.......................................PhillipBull Sound recordists.........................John Franks, Neg. m atching..................................... Negthink Camera assistant....................................... AnneBenzie Prod, company..........ABC Natural History Unit George Weis, Music performed by.................Darrel Gene and 2nd unit photography.................................AnneBenzie Producers..................................Dione Gilmour, Ron Brown, The Piney River Group Props........................................................ MarionBenjamin David Parer Rob Stalder Sound editors.............................. Tim Litchfield, Neg. matching............................ Tang Thien Tai Directors.................................... Dione Gilmour, Editor..................................................Tim Lewis Robin Judge Still photography........................................ Crew David Parer Exec, producer............................Don Bennetts Editing assistant.......................... Danny Cooper Publicity..................................................HeatherWilliams Scriptwriter................................................. JohnVandenbeld Prod, manager................................................ JoStewart Mixer ....................... Alasdair MacFarlane Laboratory............................................Colorfilm Exec, producer........................................... JohnVandenbeld Neg. matching............................................. MegKoenig Narrator...................................Sally MacKenzie Lab. liaison................................................. KerryJenkin Length......................................... 6 x 55 minutes Opticals.................................................. Cinevex Budget................................................. $130,000 Still photography........................................ TonyWilson Gauge....................................................... 16mm Laboratory..............................................Cinevex Opticals.................................................. ...AcmeOpticals Length.............................................................72minutes Shooting stock............................ Eastman neg.

Lab. liaison..................................Ian Anderson Gauge..............................................................16mm Length.............................................................50minutes Title designer................... Optical and Graphic Synopsis: The evolution of the Australian Mixed a t ...................................................... PalmStudios Shooting sto ck ...........Eastman 7291 and 7294 continent — animals and plants.

Gauge........................................................16mm Cast: Jacob Oberdoo, Crow Nyangumarda, Laboratory.............................................Cinefilm Shooting stock..............................................Fuji Snowy Judamai, Don McLeod, the Strelley B u d ge t................................................$185,490 NOMADS OF INDIA community.

Length............................................................. 58minutes (working title) Synopsis: H o w th e Wesf Was L o s t is the Gauge........................................................ 16mm Prod, company.................................. Mediacast Please help us keep this survey story of the Aboriginal pastoral workers' strike Shooting stock......................Eastman negative Dist. company.........................Pahlaj Bajaj and of 1946-49 told through a combination of Synopsis: F o r t h e L o v e o f a S o l d ie r is the story accurate. Phone Kathy Bail on Company, Bombay documentary and dramatic reconstruction. of some of the 15,000 Australian women who (03) 329 5983 with any errors or Producer.............................................. Jim Dale Aboriginals in the north-west were virtually married American servicemen during World Editor......................................

Peter Somerville slaves to the large pastoral operators until they omissions.

War II. They were transported by Matson

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Exec, producers...........................Kevin Moore, Channel Communications Prod, co-ordinator........................ Hazel Joyner Prod, accountant................................ Riva Dale Mixed a t .......................................Palm Studios Laboratory...........................................Colorfilm Lab. liaison.................................... Kerry Jenkin Length.............................................. 50 minutes Gauge....................................................... 16mm Shooting stock.........................Eastman Kodak Synopsis: Shot entirely on location in India, this documentary features the last nomadic tribe of India, the Rabari, who are among the most distinctive of the traditional cultures of Gujarat, India.

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Based on the original idea HOWARD b y ........................................................ GeorgeGittoes Producer.........................................Roger Monk Photography........................................... GeorgeGittoes Director........................................... Roger Monk Sound recordist...................... Chris Thompson Scriptwriter.................................... Roger Monk E ditor...................................Dereck Wenderski Photography.................................. Rey Carlson Prod, secretary................................. Lynn Teda Sound recordist.....................................BrendonYoung Prod, accountant ......................David Barnes, Editor......................................................

PamelaPage THE ANNIVERSARY Remarkable Film Computers Composer...............................Johnny Bachelor Prod, assistant....................................... PatriciaWaites Prod, company.......... Shadowplay Productions Prod, co-ordinator.................................Deborah Hoare Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm Producer..................................... Rod Wayman Prod, assistant....................................... MaggieLake Budget.................................................$217,000 Director....................................... Rod Wayman 1st asst director....................................

Deborah Hoare Length.............................................. 58 minutes Scriptwriter.................................. Rod Wayman Lighting cameraperson...,............. Rey Carlson Gauge........................................................16mm Photography...............................Terry Carlyon Camera operator............................Rey Carlson Shooting s to ck........................................... 7291 Sound recordist..........................Sean Meltzer Focus puller...............................Philip Learoyd Synopsis: Women writers on the frontline. This Editor........................ Edward McQueen-Mason Gaffer.........................................Stephen Monk film features five Nicaraguan women, who Prod, assistant...................................... RhondaBark-Shannon Art director..............................................Andrew Short combine their skills and talents as writers, and Continuity.............................................. RhondaBark-Shannon A PALETTE FOR A SWORD Sound editor.......................................... StephenBest journalists, with daring acts of bravery — fight­ Camera operator........................ Terry Carlyon Prod, company.............................. Yarra Bank Laboratory.............................................Cinefilm ing on the frontline, running outlawed radio Camera assistant..............................Keith Platt Films Pty Ltd Length............................................................. 12minutes stations and flying aircraft, as part of the Boom operator.............................Patrick Slater Dist. company................................ Ronin Films Gauge........................................................16mm struggle for the liberation of their people. A Art director.................................. Dianne Giulieri Producer......................................... Ned Lander Shooting sto c k........................................... 7294 film with exclusive new footage on the Nicar­ Make-up..................................................AndreaCadzow Director.................................... Trevor Graham Cast: Hairdresser............................................. AndreaCadzow Tyler Coppin (Howard), Susie Dougherty aguan situation.

Scriptwriter.....................Charles Mereweather (Girl).

Wardrobe.................................... Dianne Giulieri Photography..............................John Whitteron Synopsis: Howard, newcomer to the city, is Neg. matching................................. Meg Koenig Sound recordist.......................... George Craig shocked to find himself locked inside his Editing assistant.......................................... AlanWoodruff THE WHITE MONKEY Editor........................................... Tony Stevens bedsit.

M ixer.........................................................

David Harrison Prod, company............................... Curtis Levy Prod, m anager............................Daniel Scharf Title designer.................................. Ray Strong Productions Pty Ltd THE MAGIC PORTAL Prod, accountants................ Natalie Rothman, Still photography........................................

Tibor Hegedis Dist. company................................. Curtis Levy Helen Gailbraith Producer................................................LindsayFleay Opticals............................................Ian Sheath Productions Pty Ltd Camera assistant.......................Mandy Walker Director.................................................. LindsayFleay Catering....................................................

Flirtys Producer..........................................Curtis Levy Runner........................................... Chris Hunter Based on the original idea Mixed at....................Film Soundtrack Australia Director............................................ Curtis Levy Laboratories........................................Cinevex, b y ....................................................... LindsayFleay Laboratory..............................................Cinevex Scriptwriter...................................... Curtis Levy Colorfilm Production advice..........George Borzyskowski Lab. liaison.....................................................Ian Anderson Based on the original idea b y ..........Curtis Levy Length.............................................. 60 minutes Laboratory.............................................

Cinevex Length.............................................25 minutes Photography.................................. David Knaus Gauge....................................................... 16mm Budget....................................$7,800 (approx.)

Gauge....................Super 16 for 35 mm release Sound recordist.............................Leo Sullivan Shooting stock.................................... Fuji 8521 Length.............................................................

11minutes Shooting stock............................. Eastmancolor Editor........................................ Stewart Young Cast: Yosl Bergner, Jim Wigley, Ruth Bergner, Gauge........................................................16mm Cast: Lloyd Cunnington (Nigel), Maureen Prod, manager.........................Christine Olsen George Luke.

Synopsis: Three Lego characters in a Lego Edwards (Cynthia), Robyn Gibbes (Carmel), Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm Synopsis: A P a le t t e f o r a S w o r d is a documen­ spaceship discover the Magic Portal, which Paul Young (Eric), Rowena Mohr (Candy), Lab. liaison.................................... Kerry Jenkin tary about art and artists, ideals and commit­ can transport them to other animated realms.

Michael Duffield (Wilbur), Rebecca Gibney Budget.................................................$216,600 ment, culture and politics. It is the story of However, as the film progresses, it also (Jilly), John Larking (McPherson), Fion Keane Length........................................... 50 minutes painter Yosl Bergner and his sister, Ruth, a transports them to reality and also into the (Arthur).

Gauge........................................................16mm dancer, who came to Australia to escape the animation set they are being filmed in. Film and Synopsis: Nigel and Cynthia Hamilton hold a Shooting stock.................................7291,7292 growing dangers of anti-semitism and fascism real world collide with interesting results. dinner-party to celebrate 25 years of marriage, Synopsis: This is a film about the Third World in their Polish homeland. In Melbourne, they with disastrous results. A madcap comedy. become part of a vital artistic movement and one man’s fight against oppression. Father MIDDRIFFINI searching for an art to reflect the great social Brian Gore, the Australian priest charged with Producer................................................SabrinaSchmid multiple murder and imprisoned by the Marcos upheavals of the thirties and forties.

FEATHERS Director.................................................. SabrinaSchmid regime, returns to Negros. Through his eyes, Scriptwriters.......................................... SabrinaSchmid, we see how people robbed of their self-respect Producer.....................................Timothy White PARROTS OF AUSTRALIA Gregory Pryor are able to rescue their dignity and their rights.

Director.......................................... John Ruane Based on the original idea Prod, company........Channel Communications Scriptwriter.................................... John Ruane b y ....................................................... SabrinaSchmid (Film Investments) Ltd Based on the short story by....Raymond Carver SFX, atmos.............................Jon McCormack Dist. company....................... Documentaries of WITCH HUNT Photography................................... Ellery Ryan Australasia Pty Ltd Editor..................................................... SabrinaSchmid Sound recordist.........................Russell Hurley Prod, company..... Documentary Films Limited Producer........................................ Grant Young Composer.............................................. Ian Cox Editor..............................................Ken Sallows Pre-sale..................................... SBS Television Exec, producer.............................. Kevin Moore Assoc, producer............................

Ken Sallows Animation/rostrum Producers......................Barbara A. Chobocky, Length.........................................6 x 60 minutes camera operator................................ SabrinaSchmid Prod, supervisor.....................Denise Patience Chris Oliver Gauge........................................................16mm Neg. matching.....................

WarwickDriscoll Prod, accountant...............................Joan Blair Director........................... Barbara A. Chobocky Synopsis: A documentary about the parrots of 1st asst director......................... .....Ric Lappas Music performed b y ............................... Ian Cox Scriptwriters.................. Barbara A. Chobocky, Australia.

Camera operator............................Ellery Ryan Sound editors........................................SabrinaSchmid, SueCastrique, David Atkinson Camera assistant...................... Kattina Bowell Jeffrey Bruer Character voices........................ Gregory Pryor, Photography........................................... JeffreyBruerKey grip...........................................Ric Lappas VICTORIA’S CHILDREN Merryn Gates Gaffer..........................................

John Brennan Sound recordist................................Steve Best Animation...............................................SabrinaSchmid Art director................................Chris Kennedy Prod, company...................................Mediacast Editor.............................................Jeffrey Bruer Make-up....................................Vicki Friedman Title designer.........................................

SabrinaSchmid Producer....................................Bethwyn Serow Prod, manager..............................Anna Grieve Wardrobe...................................Vicki Friedman Sound recording Director...................................... Bethwyn Serow Prod, accountants............Cathy Montgomery, Set dresser................................

Hugh Marchant studios.................

Film Soundtrack Australia Scriptwriter......................................John Baxter Mjanchen Glover Asst editor.................................Aileen Solowiej Mixed at............................................. Soundfirm Based on the original idea Prod, assistant.........................................LesleyJenkins Laboratory............................................. Cinevex Neg. matching.......................................Cinevex b y .................................................John Baxter 1st asst director...................Rodney Freedman Edge numbering.......................Oliver Streeton Budget...................................................$30,965 Photography................................Colin Purnell, 2nd asst director......................................... MarkWard Best boy..................................Hayden Brennan Length.............................................. 16 minutes Graeme Ross Continuity..............................................MelanieBrown Runner........................................... Ken Mahlab Gauge........................................................16mm Exec, producer............................................. Jim Dale Camera operator......................... Joel Peterson Catering.................................

Tracy McGovan, Shooting stock....................................7291 ECN Prod, co-ordinator..................................... HazelJoyner Camera assistant................................... MichaelKelly Anne Dreshel Synopsis: “ Hmmm . . . when you close your Prod, accountant.........................................RivaDale Gaffer..................................................... GeorgeNicolau eyes . . speculates Nobody-Else, thus Laboratory............................................. Cinevex Studios............................................ Kookaburra Boom operator............................................ PaulBolger evoking a dream in Rebecca’s mind, where Lab. liaison..................................Ian Anderson Length.............................................. 50 minutes Art director................................................ KerrieBrown Length............................................ 50 minutes unfolds the story of Grosmond, supposedly a Gauge................................................... Betacam Asst art director.........................................KathyMoyes Shooting stock........................................... 7291 bunyip, and his whacking tail and many teeth.

Shooting stock........................................... Sony Asst editor........................................ JacquelineMunro Cast: Rebecca Gilling (Fran), James Laurie Grosmond laments the loss of Middriffini, the Synopsis: Episode one of the documentary Still photography........................................ TiborHegedis (Jack), Julie Forsythe (Olla), Neil Melville cause of his greatest toothache. Middriffini’s series, Our Second Century, on the impact of Tech, adviser.................... Charles Waterstreet (Bert). mysterious identity is eventually revealed, and various social and technological developments Runner................................................... AndrewIsaacs Synopsis: Four people, an unusual baby and her spectacular return delights Grosmond. An during the last century. V ictoria’s Children Catering.....................:Shoot Through Caterers a peacock spend a night together. animated tragicomedy. shows the effect on the social order of the Attachment................................................... KayPavlou moral changes stimulated by the rise of the Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm popular press, the mass media and the ONE HUNDRED PER CENT WOOL Lab. liaison................................................ KerryJenkin development of sociology and psychiatry.

GOOD CLEAN FUN Length.............................................................90minutes Prod, company..... Kooroocheang Productions Producer................................................ MerileeBennett Gauge........................................................16mm Producers................................................. LyndaHouse, Director...................................................MerileeBennett Shooting stock.............................................ECN Tony Mahood VINCENT, THE LIFE AND DEATH OF Scriptwriter............................................. MerileeBennett Cast: George Donikian.

Director....................................................... TonyMahood VINCENT VAN GOGH Based on the original idea Synopsis: W itc h H u n t is a story of trial and Scriptwriter................................................ TonyMahood Prod, company.................................IlluminationFilmserror, innocence and guilt. It was an attempt to b y ........................................................ MerileeBennett Based on the original idea Producers...................... Tony Llewellyn-Jones, Photography................ Maria Rita Barbargallo, find a crime — the so-called ‘Greek Con­ by.............................................................TonyMahood Will Davies Merilee Bennett spiracy’ — but it turned into a massive error in Photography................................. David Parker Director.........................................................PaulCox judgement that was revealed as a conspiracy Sound recordist......................................... Vince Agostino Sound recordist........................Steve Haggerty Based on the original idea b y ..................... PaulCox of a far larger order. Elements of this con­ Editor...................................................... MerileeBennett Editor........................................Aileen Solowiej Composer.............................Douglas Knehans Prod, designer...........................................AsherBilu spiracy are still unfolding.

Prod, co-ordinator.......................................... LizMeyers Prod, manager........................................... JaneKarslake Prod, assistant.......................................... FionaEagger Prod, accountant..............................Anne Galt Camera operator........... Maria Rita Barbargallo Prod, accountant....................Santhana Naidu 1 st asst director......................................... Chris Odgers A WORLD OF FESTIVALS Neg. matching............................... Ursula Jung Camera operator......................................... PaulCox 2nd asst director............................. Jakki Mann Music performed by............. Douglas Knehans Camera assistant................... Brendan Lavelle Prod, company............... Barinder Productions Continuity...............................Sally Engelander Sound editor........................................... MerileeBennett Pty Ltd Key g rip .................................. Paul Ammitzboll Focus puller..................................................RexNicholson Editing assistants.................Maria Barbargallo, Costume designer................................... Jennie Tate Producer..........................................Joy Barrow Key g rip.................................. Michael Madigan Vince Agostino Gaffer.............................................. Paul O ’Neil Costume construction......................... BeverleyBoydDirectors..................................... David Barrow, Narrator................................................... MerileeBennett Barry Sloane Catering................................ Timbale Catering, Carpenters...............................Kosta Kostoski, Still photography.................................... MerileeBennett, Scriptwriters................................David Barrow, Rod Murphy Walter Sperl Maria Barbargallo Barry Sloane Boom operator...........................................DavidHawke Mixed a t................................... Hendon Studios Puppeteer............................................. Michelle Spooner Editor.............................................. Colin Greive Art director.................

Marion Rennie Laboratory............................................ Cinevex Opticals.................................................. Cinevex Exec, producer................................. Bob Plasto Make-up...................................................... RikeKullack Gauge..............................................................35mm Length...................................... 12 x 30 minutes Title designer.......................................... MerileeBennett Hairdresser...................

Rike Kullack Shooting stock..............................................Fuji Mixed a t..........................................Sound Firm Synopsis: A documentary series featuring Wardrobe..................................................... RikeKullack Synopsis: A film about the life and work of Laboratory..............................................Cinevex twelve European festivals. Each episode uses Standby props...................................Ian McLay Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890).

Lab. liaison.................................................. JaneKarslake the present-day people engaged in celebration Set construction............................... Ian McLay Budget................................................... $23,300 to reflect the saga of events and changes that Laboratory..............................................Cinevex WHERE SHE DARES Length.............................................................30minutes have modified and shaped their society Lab. liaison.....................................................IanAnderson Gauge........................................................16mm through time.

Prod, company........................ Gittoes & Dalton Budget...................................................$87,600 Shooting stock.............................................ECN Productions Limited Length.............................................55 minutes Cast: The Bennett family (as themselves).

Dist. company..........................Gittoes & Dalton Gauge........................................................16mm Synopsis: An autobiographical portrait of a Productions Limited Shooting stock............................ 7291 and 7292 father/daughter relationship, using home Please help us keep this survey Producers............................................ Gabrielle Dalton, Cast: Rowena Mohr (Ida), James Cox (Monty), movie footage dating from 1956. A portrayal of Nick Giannos (Rudi), Paul McDermott George Gittoes accurate. Phone Kathy Bail on the emotional complexity between the (Frogsley), Gina Riley (Therese), Reg Evans D irector.................................... George Gittoes (03) 329 5983 with any errors or patriarch and the young woman. A daughter’s (Charlie), Bruce Knappett (Taxi driver).

Scriptwriters...........................................GeorgeGittoes, omissions. story.

Synopsis: A country girl comes to the city.

Gabrielle Dalton

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Feature tilt, swivel, built-in rain and fog. (1 0 machines).

Rain Tow ers - Studio models and outdoor models. T h ro w a precise pattern - tan k e r and ^'9^ pressure pumps. . « f t Fog M ach ines - Designed for film use - reliable and quiet. "M in ifo g ” "P ortafog» "G asfog" "M e g a fo g " for large output.

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Flying Rigs — 3 dimensional m ovem ent for models or people to simulate weightlessness.

M od el M akin g - vacuum forming - camera protection - m echanical devices — engineering workshop.

Prod, accountant......................... Stephen Kain Catering......................Shoot Through Catering Continuity......................................Justin Pooley RECYCLED FOR DESTRUCTION Synopsis: In 1943, the Imperial Japanese Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm Lighting cameraperson.................. John Pacitto Prod, company....................Moshi Productions Army Secret Service and a group of Australian Lab. liaison.................................... Kerry Jenkin Camera operator........................... Brian Perrett Producers...................................................EnzoVecchio, servicemen collaborated on a film, to show the Budget...................................................$55,000 Camera assistant................................... RichardKuipers Danica Dana ‘exemplary conditions’ under which prisoners Key g rip ......................................Patricia Waites Length........................................... 20 minutes Directors..................................................... EnzoVecchio, of war were treated by Nippon, and also to Asst g rip ..................................................... John O’Brien Gauge....................................................... 16mm Danica Dana soften up the Australian public for the antici­ Art director.............................Andrew Goulding Shooting stock................................. 7291,7292 Scriptwriters............................................... EnzoVecchio, pated occupation of their country by Japanese Cast: Zoe Carides(Magda), Dio Demure (Jiki), Neg. matching.................Clodaugh Ashburner Danica Dana forces. For 40 years, the making of this film Angela Toohey(Bette),Rhondda Fingleton Music performed by.......................... ThompsonTwins, Length...........................................40 minutes remained a mystery. This documentary tells (Lissette), Meg Rodgers (Anna).

David Byrne, Gauge......................................................16 mm why the film was made, and how it has come to Synopsis: A black comedy about five inner-city Bill Nelson Synopsis: The story looks at the existence of be forgotten. girls exploring their attitudes to life and work.

Mixer.................................... Alisdair McFarlane multiple personalities. It is about a man who Opticals................................................Colorfilm kills himself in a most unusual way, illustrating Title designer.............................................. FranBurke COMMUNITY SERVICES FOR THE that hell isn’t such a bad place in comparison Mixed a t ......................................................PalmStudios ELDERLY with the way we live. Events reveal that reality Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm can sometimes imitate fiction.

Prod, company.............................Film Australia Lab. liaison.................................................KerryJenkin Producer.......................................................RonSaunders Budget..................................................... $8,500 SPAVENTAPASSERI Director.................................................... SusanCornwell Length.............................................................15minutes Scriptwriter...............................................SusanCornwell Prod, company................. Swinburne Film and Gauge....................................................... 16mm Photography............................. John Hosking Television School Shooting stock......................................... Kodak Sound recordist..........................................MarkLewis Dist. company............ Australian Film Institute Cast: Tim Burnes (Donald Byrd), Ian Nimmo Editor.........................................Lindsey Fraser Producer..................................... Luigi Acquisto (Supervisor).

FILM A U STR A LIA Exec, producer............................................. RonSaunders Director....................................... Luigi Acquisto Synopsis: Donald Byrd is a computer investi­ Prod, manager........................................ GeraldLetts Scriptwriter.................................. Luigi Acquisto gator who’s sent on a job to find money that’s Prod, secretary....................................... MaggieLake Photography.................................Jaems Grant gone missing. His search culminates in a Prod, accountant...................... Geoff Appleby AUSTRALIAN INNOVATION Sound recordist........................ Marcus Bennet bizarre encounter with a computer.

Camera assistant........................................JohnScott Editor...........................................Luigi Acquisto Prod, company............................ Film Australia Asst editor...................................... Katie James Exec, producer............................Peter Tammer Dist. company............................. Film Australia THE TRAVELLER’S TALE Mixer.................................................. Geoff Stitt Prod, manager...........................Jane Landman Producer..........................................John Shaw Length............................................20 minutes Prod, company............Snow Gum Productions 1st asst director...........................Wayne Fimeri Director............................................Ian Munro Synopsis: A documentary for the Department Producers..............................................MichaelBates, Continuity........................... Robyn DeCrispigny Scriptwriters..................................... Ian Munro, of Community Services on the range of care, Graham Binding Producer’s assistants...............Jane Landman, Con Anemogiannis community services and accommodation avail­ Director....................................... Michael Bates Peter Ziras Based on the original idea able for the very elderly. It looks at the assess­ Based on the story by..................Michael Bates Camera assistant.............................. Mark Lane by........................................... Harry Bardwell ment of work done by a geriatric unit at Photography...........................

Graham Binding Key g rip .............................................Peter Ziras Photography.............................. Andrew Fraser Hornsby District Hospital.

Sound recordist..........................Jennifer Scott Asst grip................................Andrew Cochrane Sound recordist.................... Rodney Simmons Editor...........................................Michael Bates Boom operator........................Stephen Boscutti Editor........................................... Robin Archer Composer................................... Philip Powers ELECTORAL INFORMATION VIDEOS Art director.................................. Luigi Acquisto Exec, producer............................ Geoff Barnes Visual effects........................................ GrahamBinding Costume designer...................... Sue McMeikin Prod, manager..............................Ron Hannam Prod, company............................. Film Australia Music performed by.............. The ABC Sinfonia Wardrobe.................................... Sue McMeikin Unit manager......................Con Anemogiannis Dist. company.............................. Film Australia Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm Stunts......................................... Jane Landman Prod, secretary.....................Margaret Crewes Producer....................................... Alistair Innes Lab. liaison...........................................Glen Ely Still photography.............................. Peter Ziras Prod, accountant.........................Stephen Kain Director.......................................................GregReading Length..............................................17 minutes Wrangler...................................Kathryn Hughes Asst editor...........Mary Jane St. Vincent Welsh Scriptwriter..................................................GregReading Gauge........................................................16mm Laboratory.................................................... VFL Studios........................................ Film Australia Photography..............................................PeterViskovich, Shooting s to ck........................................... 7291 Budget..................................................... $9,534 Laboratory..................................................Atlab Bruce Hogan Cast: Barrington Davis (Traveller), Franc Saule Lab. liaison......................................... Bill Inglis Length..............................................30 minutes Sound recordist.................................... BronwynMurphy (Stranger).

Length........................................ 5 x 29 minutes Gauge........................................................16mm Editors..........................................

Anna Whyte, Synopsis: A traveller in the Snowy Mountains Shooting stock................................ Kodak Tri x, Gauge....................................................... 16mm Nancy Allen has an encounter with the supernatural.

Reversal 7278 Shooting stock............................. Eastmancolor Exec, producer..................................Janet Bell Cast: Manuella Cannata (Nicolino), Osvaldo S ynopsis: A u s t r a lia n I n n o v a t io n is an Prod, manager....................... Virginia Pridham incisive and informative look at innovation in Maione (Giovanni Siroli), Gaetano Scollo VIOLET Unit manager......................... Marguerite Grey Australia. It examines past and present (Luciano), Patrizia Stringa (Marta), Gianni Prod, accountant......................................... NeilCousins Prod, company..............................ChippendaleFilmsachievements and the importance that innova­ Cannata (Antonio), Stephen Boscutti (Carlo), Prod, assistant..........................................SusanDietrich Producer................................................ MichaelCordell tion has in shaping Australia’s future.

Bruno Borghetto (Bruno), Lucia Nemaric Camera assistant...............................Jim Ward Director.................................................. MichaelCordell (Lucia), Marcello D’Amico (A baker), Claire Electrician......................................................IanBosman Scriptwriter............................................MichaelCordell Bordas (Suzie).

BYLINES Boom operator................................ Kate Gunn Based on the original idea Synopsis: S p a v e n t a p a s s e r i is an Italian Art director......................................Jane Norris by........................................................MichaelCordell Prod, company........................... Film Australia language drama set in inner suburban Mel­ Wardrobe....................................

Angela Knight Director......................................Graham Chase Photography....................................John Brock bourne in the sixties. It describes the lives of Mixed a t.......................................Film Australia Scriptwriter................................ Graham Chase Prod, manager................................ Kylie Burke two families. Nicolino, a six-year-old boy, is the Length.........................................

6 x 10 minutes Based on the original idea Casting......................................................HilaryLinstead central character and it is through his eyes, or Gauge.................................................. Betacam b y ........................................... Graham Chase Budget...................................................$45,000 narration, that we are given a perspective on Synopsis: Programmes for school children on Photography...................................Kerry Brown Length..............................................22 minutes the film’s action. government and the people.

Sound recordist................................ Bob Hayes Gauge....................................................... 16mm Editor.........................................Graham Chase Synopsis: A story about a sweet old woman THE SPELL MISSPELT FILM AUSTRALIA’S AUSTRALIA Exec, producer.........................................

Geoff Barnes with a sour twist.

Prod, managers.......................... Ron Hannam, Director............................................Robin Gold F ilm A u s t r a lia 's A u s tr a lia is a series of twelve Ian Adkins Scriptwriters................................ Simon Daley, WITH INERTIA video programmes with supporting discussion Prod, secretary.....................Margaret Crewes Peter Morgan, notes.

Prod, company...........With Inertia Productions Prod, accountants......................Stephen Kain, Robin Gold Producers...................................Jasmine Hirst, Neil Cousins Photography................................Kriv Stenders WORK Margie Medlin Camera assistant..........................................JimWard Sound recordist....................Nicholas Housego Directors..................................... Jasmine Hirst, Prod, company.............................................FilmAustralia/ Neg. matching............................ Tom Stevens, Editor.............................................. Ross Wilson Margie Medlin Australian Bicentennial Authority Carol Parsons, Composers................................................PeterMorgan, Scriptwriters................................Jasmine Hirst, Dist. company.............................Film Australia Mary Paz-Noble Simon Daley Margie Medlin Producer.......................................................JanPunch Sound editor.............................. Graham Chase Prod, manager............................ Kimbel Hann Photography............................................... ErikaAddisM ixer............................................. George Hart Director............................................. Stan Dalby Costume design.......................... Judy Morgan Sound recordists.................. Bronwyn Murphy, Educational consultant..................... Ted Myers Narrator.............................................Jill McKay Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm Katy Gunn Research.................................................... JudyAdamson Opticals..................................................Cinevex Budget................................................... $13,178 Editor.......................................................MargotNashTitle designer.................... Optical and Graphic Based on the original idea Length..............................................................11minutes Composer..................................Cherise Jettner by.........................................................SunnarIsaacson, Studios........................................ Film Australia Gauge....................................................... 16mm Exec, producer......................................... GillianLeahy Norman Baker Mixed a t.......................................

Film Australia Synopsis: Dashing songster, The Fabulous Prod, assistant.............................. Debbie Saffir Photography....................Mick von Bornemann Laboratory............................................ Cinefilm Georgie, is agog to find his stage show inter­ Prod, manager.................................Chris Wyld Sound recordist......................................Howard Spry Lab. liaison....................................................Bill Inglis rupted by the appearance of a messenger from 1st asst director..........................................VickiSugars Gauge....................................................... 16mm Dubbing editor.............................................. RonTaylor the Angel of Death who has come to beg a Continuity.......................... Stephanie Richards Shooting stock.............................

Eastmancolor Exec, producer............................

Geoff Barnes favour from a mortal.

Camera assistant.....................Miriana Marusic Synopsis: The film is an inside story of life at Prod, manager............................. Ron Hannam Key grip........................ Jessica Douglas-Henry The S y d n e y M o r n in g H e ra ld . The film looks at Prod, secretary..................... Margaret Crewes TERMINAL SIX Gaffer................................... Bronwyn Nicholas the daily process from the editorial decision­ Prod, accountant.................................. StephenKain Art director..................................................Jane Norris Prod, company................Something Else Films making, the news gathering and the meetings, Narrator...............................Annette Shun Wah Asst art director.....................................JasmineHirstto the late night rolling of the presses.

Dist. company................. Something Else Films Film archivist.............................. Judy Adamson Producer...........................................Peta Spear Make-up................................................. CarolynLette Research asst.................................... GeraldineCrown Neg. matching........................................... ChrisRowell Directors...................................................DannyGentile, Synopsis: A programme showing how dif­ CALLING AUSTRALIA Brian Perrett Editing assistant....................................... Tania Brown ferent types of work have evolved in Australia.

Prod, company.............................................Film Australia Scriptwriter................................................. BrianPerrett Trainees...................................................TraceyWiley, Attitudes to work are examined, as well as the Dist. company..............................................FilmAustralia Sally Geshmay, Based on the original idea by........Brian Perrett issues of unionism, industrial disease, job Director..................................................

Graham Shirley Chae Ritz, Photography............................................... BrianPerrett retraining and unemployment.

Scriptwriter............................................GrahamShirley Linda Dement, Sound recordist.......................................MargotFitzpatrick Photography............................................... RossKing Di Cohen, Editors...................................................... DannyGentile, LAND Sound recordist.................... Rodney Simmons Maree Delosski Kate Muir, Exec, producer..........................................GeoffBarnes Prod, company........................... Film Australia/ Brian Perrett Still photography........................................ Jane Parkes Prod, manager.............................................

Ron Hannam Australian Bicentennial Authority Runner.........................................Linda Spence Prod, supervisor............................... Peta Spear Prod, secretary.................................... MargaretCrewes Dist. company.............................................. FilmAustralia 1 st asst director.......................Marianne Bryant Catering................................Nancy Wahlquist,

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Production Survey, continued

Producer....................................................... JanPunch Jean Fontaine Sound.recordist......................Bronwyn Murphy Based on the original idea Director............................Paul Woolston-Smith Exec, producer.............................Geoff Barnes Editor.............................................. Ruth Cullen by............................................. John Merson Educational consultant................................ TedMyers Prod, manager....................... Virginia Pridham Exec, producer.................................. Janet Bell Exec, producer........................... Geoff Barnes Photography................... Mick von Bornemann Prod, secretary......................Margaret Crewes Prod, manager......................... Nigel Saunders Prod, manager............................ Ron Hannam Sound recordist...................................... HowardSpry Prod, accountant........................ Stephen Kain Unit manager....................... Corrie Soeterboek Prod, secretary..................... Margaret Crewes Video editor................................................. PaulHumfress Length.............................................. 24 minutes Prod, secretary............... Amanda Etherington Prod, accountant........................ Stephen Kain Dubbing editor.............................................. RonTaylor Synopsis: As part of Australia’s drive to in­ Prod, accountant..........................................NeilCousins Synopsis: A four-part series for television that Exec, producer........................... Geoff Barnes crease our share in the world export market, Length.............................................. 30 minutes takes a new look at the dynamic Interchange Prod, manager............................ Ron Hannam AUSTRADE is mounting a campaign to alert Gauge.............. ........................................ 16mm between Asia and Europe in the modern world.

Prod, secretary.................................... MargaretCrewes the public, manufacturers and exporters to Cast: Emily Cannon, Patricia Kennedy.

The conventional views about the relationship Prod, accountant.................................. StephenKain their targets. These 16 videos provide profiles Synopsis: The first of a series of documen­ between science, technology and society, of some of those who have succeeded. They Make-up.......................................................BrltaKingsbury which continue to shape our perceptions of taries on well-known Australian children’s Sound m ixer...................................... Geoff Stitt will be screened on Channel 9's T o d a y writers. progress, are scrutinized and re-evaluated.

Narrator............................... Annette Shun Wah {B u s in e s s ) programme.

Research asst.........................Geraldine Crown SUBMARINE ROCK ART Film archivist...............................................JudyAdamson REAL LIFE SERIES 1 Prod, company.............................................FilmAustralia Prod, company............................Film Australia Synopsis: A look at Australia's physical land­ Dist. company.............................................. FilmAustralia Dist. company.............................Film Australia scape. The programme examines flora and GETTING STRAIGHT Researcher/scriptwriter..............................June Henman Producer........................................... Janet Bell fauna and uses some excellent early footage.

Prod, company.............................................FilmAustralia Exec, producer............................ Geoff Barnes Director....................................... David Roberts Dist. company..............................................FilmAustralia Prod, manager............................ Ron Hannam Scriptwriter.... ............................ David Roberts POLITICS Producer..................................................MacekRubetzki Prod, secretary..................... Margaret Crewes Photography................................ Andy Fraser Director..................................Phillip Robertson Prod, company.............................................FilmAustralia/ Prod, accountant........................ Stephen Kain Sound recordist............................ Howard Spry Photography................................. Tony Wilson Australian Bicentennial Authority Synopsis: A film about the multiple attacks, by Editor............................................ Ray Thomas Sound recordist...................... Bronwyn Murphy Dist. company............................. Film Australia air and sea, on Australia by the Japanese Exec, producer..................................Janet Bell Editor..............................

Ray Thomas Producer.......................................................JanPunch armed forces during World War II, culminating Prod, m anager......................... Nigel Saunders Exec, producer................

Tom Haydon Director.......................................................... IanWalker in the midget submarine raid on Sydney Prod, secretary................ Amanda Etherington Assoc, producer................................Ian Adkins Educational consultant................................ TedMyers Harbour. It uses archival footage (much pre­ Prod, accountant...........................Neil Cousins Length............................................................ 75minutes Research.................................................... JudyAdamson Camera assistant................................... RodneyHindsviously unseen by the public) and reminis­ Gauge.......................................................16mm Based on the original Idea cences of Australian and Japanese partici­ Asst editor...................................Gary O'Grady Synopsis: The film follows a group of patients by.........................................................SunnarIsaacson pants.

Length............................................................ 30minutes from a drug and alcohol treatment clinic during Exec, producer........................... Geoff Barnes Gauge.......................................................35mm their last days in the clinic and the first few Prod, manager............................ Ron Hannam TECHNOLOGY AND BUSINESS Synopsis: Billy Harney, son of famous weeks of their return to the community.

Prod, secretary.................................... MargaretCrewes author/raconteur Bill Harney, takes us 200km EFFICIENCY Prod, accountant.........................Stephen Kaln west of Katherine In the Northern Territory Prod, company............................ Film Australia Narrator............................... Annette Shun Wah KIDS IN TROUBLE through Wardaman country, to visit the Dist. company.............................

Film Australia Synopsis: Anexamination of Australian poli­ magnificent rock painting sites associated with Prod, company.............................................FilmAustralia Producer......................................Alistair Innés tical historybeginning with Federation. The the mythology of the Lightning Brothers. Cere­ Dist. company..............................................FilmAustralia Director........................................................ PaulHumfress programme looks at forms of government, the monies related to these paintings, which have Producer.................................................. MacekRubetzki Scriptwriter...................................................PaulHumfress electoral system, democracy at work, govern­ not been performed for 40 years, have been Director........................................................ SueCornwell Photography...................................... Ross King ment services, and how public attitudes to recorded in this film which underlines the Photography.............................................. TonyWilson Prod, manager....................................... Virginia Pridham government have changed. importance of the preservation of these paint­ Sound recordist............................................ LeoSullivan Prod, secretary....................................MargaretCrewes ings,’ as part of both Australian and world Editor............................................................. LesMcLaren Prod, accountant.........................Stephen Kain heritage.

Exec, producer............................................TomHaydon Synopsis: Two packages of quality multiFITNESS — MAKE IT YOUR Assoc, producer.............................................IanAdkins media training materials for small business Asst director................................................ LisaNoonan BUSINESS 2 management education and training pro­ SIX O’CLOCK SHOCK Length.............................................................65minutes Prod, company............................Film Australia grammes.

Prod, company............................Film Australia Gauge.................................................. 1" video Dist. company.............................Film Australia Dist. company.............................Film Australia Synopsis: The film is about the criminal justice Director................................................. Ian Host THE WAVES THAT SHAPED Director.........................................................KarlZwicky system and its treatment of juvenile offenders.

Exec, producer...........................Geoff Barnes AUSTRALIA Scriptwriter............................. Christopher Lee The film includes, for the first time, footage Prod, manager............................ Ron Hannam Photography....................Mick von Bornemann shot In the Australian court while cases are Prod, company............................ Film Australia Prod, secretary....................................MargaretCrewes Sound recordist......................................HowardSpryDist. company............................. Film Australia being heard.

Prod, accountant....................... ..Stephen Kain Editor........................................................... RoyMason Director............................ Paul Woolston-Smith Synopsis: A follow-up to the successful F itn e s s Exec, producer..................................Janet Bell Scriptwriter...................... Paul Woolston-Smith SINGLES — M a k e I t Y o u r B u s in e s s video produced for Prod, manager....................................... Virginia Pridham Photography...............................John Hosking, the Department of Health, Recreation and Prod, company.............................................FilmAustralia Prod, accountant...........................Neil Cousins Mick von Bornemann Tourism.

Dist. company..............................................FilmAustralia 1 st asst director.......................... Peter Warman Sound recordist........................... Howard Spry Producers............................... Macek Rubetzki, 2nd asst director.......................................... LoriFlekser Editors.........................................................PaulHumfress, Ian Adkins THE HAVEN Continuity................................... Tracey Padula Ron Taylor Director.......................................... Karl McPhee Camera assistant............................... Jim Ward Prod, company............................Film Australia Exec, producer............................Geoff Barnes Photography.................................

Tony Wilson Key grip..................................Merv McLaughlin Dist. company.............................Film Australia Prod, manager....................................... VirginiaPridham Sound recordist............................. Leo Sullivan Asst g rip ..................................................... TonyBosch Producer...........................................John Shaw Prod, secretary....................................MargaretCrewes Editor......................................................LindsayFraser Gaffer............................................................LeeBosman Director................................James Richardson Prod, accountant.........................Stephen Kain Exec, producer............................................TomHaydon Electrician......................................................IanBosman Photography................................. Kerry Brown Sound mixer................................... George Hart Length.............................................................75minutes Boom operator............................Paul Hancock Sound recordist......................Bronwyn Murphy Synopsis: The story of the waves of Immi­ Gauge.......................................................16mm Make-up..................................... Jenni Boehme Editor..................................... Martha Babineau grants who have come to Australia over the Synopsis: A foray into the world of the un­ Wardrobe....................................Angela Knight Prod, manager...........................................NeneMorgan past two hundred years. attached.

Props.......................................Nigel Devenport Length.............................................................82minutes Asst editor......................................Cary Hamlyn Gauge....................................................... 16mm THE VISIT Length.............................................................15minutes Synopsis: Observational film about the jour­ Gauge.......................................................16mm ney through the rehabilitation process of Prod, company.............................................FilmAustralia FILM V IC T O R IA Cast: Gary McDonald (Doug), Christine Totos alcoholic Aboriginals at Bennelong’s Haven.

Dist. company..............................................FilmAustralia (Louise), Noeline Brown (Patricia), David KersProducer...................................Macek Rubetzki lake (Leonard), Peter Fisher (Don), Lyn CollingDirector...................................................... TonyWheeler HOMELESS wood (Eileen).

Photography................................. Tony Wilson Prod, company............................Film Australia AIDS Synopsis: The proper procedures for counting Sound recordist............................................

Leo Sullivan Dist. company............................. Film Australia of ballot papers.

Producer................................... Sally Semmens Producer................................................... JanetBell Editor............................................................ SueHorsley Scriptwriter..................................Sally Ingleton Exec, producer............................................TomHaydon Director...................................Philip Robertson Exec, producer....................Vincent O’Donnell Assoc, producer........................................ ClareEdwardsSOUNDS LIKE AUSTRALIA . . .

Scriptwriter............................. Philip Robertson Length.............................................. 15 minutes Gauge.......................................................

16mm NATURALLY Photography................................. Andy Fraser Gauge....................................................... 16mm Synopsis: A moving film about a Vietnamese Sound recordist.................... Rodney Simmons Prod, company............................ Film Australia Synopsis: A film explaining to 14-16 year olds refugee family and the visit to Australia of a son Exec, producer..........................................JanetBell Dist. company..............................Film Australia why AIDS Is an important issue, how it is trans­ they haven’t seen for four years.

Prod, m anager......................... Nigel Saunders Producer...................................... Tristram Miall mitted, and where they can get proper informa­ Unit manager................................................... DlHenry Director......................................................JamieRobertson tion.

Prod, secretary.................Amanda Etherington Scriptwriter............................................... JamieRobertson REGARDLESS OF SEX Prod, accountant........................... Neil Cousins Photography..............................................SteveWindon, Length............................................................. 25minutes Prod, company............................ Film Australia Jim Frazier BICYCLE SAFETY Gauge....................................................... 16mm Dist. company............................. Film Australia Sound recordist...........................Max Hennser Producer.................................................VincentO’Donnell Synopsis: Documentary programme made for Producer..................................... DanielaTorsh Editor.........................................................JamieRobertson Scriptwriter...................................................

JonStephens the International Year of Shelter for the Home­ Director....................................Cynthia Connop Composers..................................... Kevin Peek, Photography................................................. JanKenny less.

Exec, producer.......................................VincentO’Donnell Mars Lasar Sound recordists.........................Howard Spry, Exec, producer.............................Aviva Ziegler Budget.................................................. $15,000 Geoff Wilson Assoc, producer................................Ian Adkins Length.............................................. 20 minutes A LONG NIGHT WITH LETHAL Editor.............................................. Fiona Strain Gauge.......................................................16mm Unit manager.............................Debbie Sidore GUESTS (MALARIA) Composer................................ Sharon Calcraft Prod, secretary............................

Sharon Miller Synopsis: A bicycle safety film for late primary (Working title) and junior secondary children.

Asst producers....................Rosalind Gillespie, Prod, accountant......................... John Russell Prod, company............................ Film Australia Camera assistant........................ Lisa Sharkey Virginia Pridham Dist. company............................. Film Australia Asst editor.................................... Cary Hamlyn Prod, co-ordinator....................... Sharon Miller Director..................................................... OliverHowes Prod, manager............................ Nene Morgan Neg. matching............................Film Australia CROSS COUNTRY SKIING Scriptwriter................................................OliverHowes Music performed b y ..................................KevinPeek, Unit managers............................................ Jane Griffin, Producer...............................Vincent O’Donnell Editor............................................................RayThomas Marguerite Grey, Mars Lasar Scriptwriter..........................

Garrie Hutchinson Exec, producer..........................................GeoffBarnes Elizabeth Lovell Mixed a t.......................................Film Australia Exec, producer.....................Vincent O’Donnell Prod, manager.............................Ron Hannam Laboratory..................................................Atlab Prod, assistant........................................DebbieSidore Budget.................................................. $67,000 Prod, secretary.................................... MargaretCrewes Budget.................................................$250,000 Camera assistant..................................... RobynPetersen Length.............................................. 25 minutes Prod, accountant.........................Stephen Kain Length.............................................................50minutes 2nd unit photography.................................EricaAddis, Gauge.......................................................

16mm Length......................................... L..48 minutes Gauge....................................................... 16mm Kevin Anderson, Synopsis: A film looking at the commonsense Gauge........................................ 16mm to video Synopsis: S o u n d s L ik e A u s t r a lia . . . N a tu r ­ Andy Fraser and safety needed for cross country skiing and Synopsis: Research into malaria, especially a lly is a music film/video featuring Australian Asst editor...................................................KatieJames day ski trips. musicians Mars Lasar and Kevin Peek, who finding a vaccine, is of great importance to Sound editors............................. Cathy Chase, Australia. Apart from considerations of world create music by recording natural sounds and Rosemary Lee then ‘sampling’ them into an Australian health, it involves our standing as a nation in Mixed a t.......................................Film Australia FREE CLIMBING designed computerised musical instrument — this region, and it should be the genesis of an Length.............................................................53minutes Producer..................................Vince O’Donnell. the Fairlight. Using the Fairlight, they bend expanding biotechnology industry, with poten­ Gauge....................................................... 16mm Director...................................................

NatalieGreèn them tonally and rhythmically into musical tial for Australia and its exports.

Synopsis: The history of women’s fight for Scriptwriter............................. Louise Shepard compositions. equal pay.

Photography............................................Natalie Green NATIONAL EXPORT DRIVE Exec, producer.....................Vincent O'Donnell CAMPAIGN STORYMAKERS ROADS TO XANADU Exec, assistant.................... Mary Gustavsson Prod, company............................Film Australia Prod, company............................Film Australia Prod, company............................ Film Australia Length.............................................................20minutes Dist. company............................. Film Australia Producer.......................................... Don Murray Gauge........................................... Super 16 mm Dist. company............................. Film Australia Producer............................................ Janet Bell D irector.................................................Bob Hill Shooting s to c k.................................... Eastman Producer......................................John Merson Researcher/scriptwriter........................Bob Hill Director......................... David Haythornthwaite Synopsis: A film that promotes rock climbing Director...................................................... DavidRoberts Scriptwriter....................David Haythornthwaite Photography............................... John Hosklng and encourages others to try the sport. The film Scriptwriters................................................John Merson, Photography..............................................KerryBrown will feature experienced women climbers.

Sound recordists........................ Howard Spry, David Roberts

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A GAME TO PLAY Producer................................... Sally Semmens Scriptwriters.......................................Jill Morris, Mary Lancaster Exec, producer.................... Vincent O’Donnell Budget.................................................. $25,000 Gauge....................................................... 16mm Synopsis: A G a m e to P la y aims to show child­ ren that sport has rewards other than just play­ ing to win. It presents the case for modifying rules in sport to better suit the physical and emotional needs of children.

the benefits of the long service leave scheme to construction workers, and explains why it is compulsory.

NEW SOUTH W A LES FILM CO RPO RATIO N ADULT LITERACY

Prod, company.....................Summer Hill Films Director.........................................Tony Wickert Photography................................... Ron Hurrell Producer..................................................... SallySemmens Editor..................................... John Mandelberg Scriptwriters..............................................KirstyGrantLength.............................................78 minutes Exec, producer.......................................VincentO'Donnell Gauge...................................................Betacam Length.............................................................25minutes Synopsis: A series of six trigger films to create Gauge..........................................................BVU discussion among teachers/tutors on the Synopsis: A film demonstrating women work­ methodology used in adult literacy courses. ing in the technical areas of the media.

GIRLS IN CONTROL

CHOICES FROM THE INSIDE

Synopsis: A profile of Eamon Burke, cam­ paigner for peace, who, at the age of eleven, has gained notoriety around the world.

FLU VACCINE Prod, company...................Promotion Australia Producer....................................... Sandi Logan Director................................Robert Hargreaves Gauge.......................................................Video Synopsis: Researchers continue to work on a vaccine to overcome the common flu.

GIPPSLAND WORMS Prod, company...................Promotion Australia Producer....................................... Sandi Logan Director................................Robert Hargreaves Photography.................................Peter Warren Gauge.......................................................Video Synopsis: Giant worms have offered both scientists and tourists alike the chance to pursue an interesting aspect of nature.

CLOSE-Uf*)

SHELTERED WOOL WORKSHOP Prod, company...................Promotion Australia Producer....................................... Sandi Logan Director..............................................C. Hindes Gauge.......................................................Video Synopsis: Ultra-fine fleece developed within a sheltered workshop proves a success.

STRATOS ULTRALIGHT Prod, company...................Promotion Australia Producer...................................... Sandi Logan Director................................Robert Hargreaves Photography................................. Peter Warren Gauge.......................................................Video Synopsis: A new ultralight design is taking amateur and professional flyers by storm.

SUPERANIMALS Prod, company...................Promotion Australia Producer....................................... Sandi Logan Director................................Robert Hargreaves Gauge....................................................... Video Synopsis: Australian scientists are using genetic engineering and hormone treatment to breed a new super animal.

KIDS AND SPORT Prod. Company................................. PLH Films Producer..................................................... Sally Semmens D irector.....................Peter Livingstone-Horton HAND MADE MUSICAL Scriptwriter............Greater Glider Productions Photography.............................................. CraigWatkins INSTRUMENTS Exec, producer.......................................VincentO’Donnell Sound recordist.......................................... JackO’Brien Prod, company.................. Promotion Australia Budget...................................................$30,000 Editor...................................... Bernie Pokrzywa Producer....................................... Sandi Logan Length.............................................................20minutes Length.............................................................19minutes Directors......................................... E. Kenning, Gauge.................................................. %" BVU TAPESTRIES FOR NEW C. Hindes Synopsis: This programme shows the end of a MARINE ARCHEOLOGY PARLIAMENT HOUSE Gauge.......................................................Video three-month therapeutic community course of Producer.................................................VincentO'Donnell Synopsis: A look at the fine craftsmanship that Prod, company...................Promotion Australia Director.....................................................RobertGranteight volunteer inmates in Parklea maximum goes into the making of Australian harps, Producer....................................... Sandi Logan Scriptwriter.............................................. RobertGrantsecurity gaol. violins, pianos and guitars.

Director................................Robert Hargreaves Exec, producer.......................................VincentO’Donnell Gauge.......................................................Video SAFETY IN THE WORKPLACE Budget................................................... $20,000 Synopsis: Tapestry makers around Australia Length.............................................................25minutes Prod, company............... Taylor Australia Films KELPIE EXPORTS are contributing towards the artistic beauty of Gauge................................................... Betacam Director.......................................................DougTaylor the interiors of the new Parliament House.

Prod, company...................Promotion Australia Synopsis: Maritime wrecks are both a scien­ Photography..............................................DougTaylor Producer....................................... Sandi Logan tific and recreational resource. The film Sound recordist.......................... Dave Kirkness Director..............................................C. Hindes presents the case for preserving those wrecks Editor..........................................................DougTaylor Gauge.......................................................Video around the Victorian coast.

Length.............................................................12minutes Synopsis: One of Australia's unique exports is Gauge.................................Super 8 to 1" video chasing herds world-wide.

Synopsis: A demonstration of the safety ORDINARY STREETS methods to be used by the cleaning staff em­ Prod, company............................. Kestrel Films MURRAY PRINCESS ployed by the Government Supply Department.

Dist. company............. Focal Communications, Prod, company..................Promotion Australia Film Victoria PRE-PRO D U CTIO N SPEAKING OUT Producer................................................... SandiLogan Producer.............................. Vincent O'Donnell Director................................Robert Hargreaves Director......................................... Eddie Moses Producer....................................... Margot Nash Photography.............................................. JohnEllson Scriptwriter.......................................David Tiley Director......................................... Margot Nash Gauge......................................................Video Photography................................Terry Carlyon Photography............................... Sally Bongers AT ARMS LENGTH Synopsis: A new riverboat now works the Sound recordist............................Geoff Wilson Sound recordists.................. Venita Lagzdina, Prod, company..................................... KuranyaPictures Murray River, in a similar style to Deep South Editor...........................................Tom Palankay Ruth Berry Pty Limited riverboats of the United States.

Exec, producer.................... Vincent O’Donnell Editor..................................... Melanie Sandford Producer........................................................ BillHughes 2nd unit photography....................... Tim Smart, Length..............................................23 minutes Scriptwriters.............................Susan Haworth, Martin McGrath Gauge.................................................. Betacam NATIONAL PARKS Sally Webb Budget.................................................. $68,500 Synopsis: Produced for the Women’s Co­ Prod, company.................. Promotion Australia Based on the original idea Length.............................................. 25 minutes ordination Unit and the Department of Youth b y ..........................................................Susan Haworth Producer................................................... SandiLogan Gauge....................................................... 16mm and Community Services, this video examines Assoc, producer...................................... SusanHaworth Director...................................... R. Hargreaves Synopsis: Made for the Ministry of Housing, the needs of girls in institutions, foster care, Budget.................................$1 million (approx.)

Gauge...................................................... Video this is the second part of a trilogy addressing family group homes, non-government care and Length.............................................................95minutes Synopsis: A video about the flora and wildlife questions about public housing. Specifically, it girls at risk.

Gauge.......................................................16mm that are protected in Australia’s unique is about the planning processes of the William Cast: Susan Haworth (Kate Morris). national parks.

Angliss site in Footscray and examines the Synopsis: A contemporary story of a woman’s range of conflicting opinions as to what should relationship wth the delinquent girl in her care.

OPSITE HAND APPLICATOR happen and why.

PROMOTION A U STR A LIA Prod, company.................. Promotion Australia BLACK BEAUTY SMOKO Producer.......................................Sandi Logan Director................................Robert Hargreaves ..... Burbank Films Prod, company...........

Producer................................... Sally Semmens Promotion Australia is part of the Depart­ Photography...................................John Ellson Producer..................... ...........Roz Phillips Scriptwriter.......................................Mark Little ment of Sport, Recreation and Tourism.

Gauge......................................................Video Scriptwriter................ .............. J.L. Kane Exec, producer.................... Vincent O'Donnell Synopsis: A new treatment for burns and ..........Anna Sewell Based on the novel by Budget.................................................. $20,000 ....Peter Jennings, ASIAN CUISINE tissue wounds pioneered in Adelaide.

Editors........................

Length.............................................. 10 minutes Caroline Neave Gauge....................................................... 16mm Prod, company.................. Promotion Australia Exec, producer.......... ..........Tom Stacey Synopsis: A humourous video which illustrates PADDY’S MARKET Producer....................................... Sandi Logan Prod, co-ordinator..... ............ Joy Craste Director................................Robert Hargreaves Prod, company.................. Promotion Australia Prod, manager........... ............ Roddy Lee Photography.................................Peter Warren Producer.......................................Sandi Logan ......Andrew Young Prod, accountant.......

Gauge....................................................... Video Director........................................... C. Hindes ............ Joy Craste Casting.......................

Synopsis: Australians' are now not only dining Gauge...................................................... Video Camera operators..... ........... Gary Page, out, with Asian restaurants their favourite, but Synopsis: A look at one of Australia’s unique Tanya Viskich are also cooking many different types of Asian ‘open air' city markets. .........Bob Fosbery Storyboard................ dishes at home. ............. Jean Tycn Tim ing........................ ....Warwick Gilbert Animation director......

QUESTACON Help us make this Production Director, Studio 2...... .........Geoff Collins CONSERVATION VOLUNTEERS Prod, company...................Promotion Australia Survey as complete as poss­ Painting supervisor.... ......

Jenny Schowe Prod, company...................Promotion Australia Producer.......................................Sandi Logan Colour styling............. ible. If you have something ....... Angela Bodini Producer....................................... Sandi Logan Director.............................................E. Kenning Animation checkers... ................Liz Lane, which is about to go into preDirector.............................................. C. Hindes Gauge.......................................................Video Kim Craste, production, let us know and we Gauge.......................................................Video Synopsis: A new science centre travelling Kathryn deKnock, Synopsis: A group of committed young and old will make sure it is included. show.

Carla Daley people rebuild bush paths, fences and national Call Kathy ' Bail on (03) Pre-production.... ........Alex Nicholas parks, all as volunteers.

SCALZO CVS ENGINE 329 5983, or write to her at Layout supervisor ........... Glen Lovett Prod, company...................Promotion Australia Layout artists...... ........... Yosh Barry, Cinema Papers, 644 Victoria Producer....................................... Sandi Logan Joanne Beresford, Street, North Melbourne, EAMON BURKE Director................................Robert Hargreaves David Cook, Victoria 3051.

Prod, company...................Promotion Australia Yaroslav Horak, Gauge.......................................................Video Producer.......................................Sandi Logan Steve Lyons, Synopsis: A new continuously variable stroke Director......................................... E. Kenning engine could put the Melbourne invention in Neil Graham Gauge.......................................................Video Background layouts ........David Skinner ► motor cars worldwide.

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Background artists.......... Beverley McNamara, Producers................................... Nick Hildyard, Prod, manager........................... Carol Hughes MIKE WILLESEE’S AUSTRALIANS Ray Edmondson Paul Pattie Casting....................................... Susie Maizels, Prod, company........Roadshow Coote & Carroll Director.............................. Christina Hunniford Neg. matching........................................... ChrisRowell Maizels & Associates Pty Ltd (Transmedia Pty Ltd), Scriptwriter............................................GrahamShirley No. of shots................................................... 600 Camera operator....................David Williamson Film Australia Voice-track director.......... George Stephenson Sound recordist....................Bradley Headland Costume designer..........................David Rowe Dist. company........Roadshow Coote & Carroll/ Title designer..............................Neil Graham Editors..................................................... StevenBillett, Budget........................................... $3.8 million Film Australia Mark Kelly, Laboratory.................................................. Atlab Length.........................................4 x 60 minutes Executive producers.....................Greg Coote, Greg Evans Lab. liaison.........................................Gary Keir Gauge...................................................... 16mm Matt Carroll, Exec, producer..................

Christina Hunniford Budget.................................................$760,000 Shooting stock............................................ Agfa Robyn Hughes, Prod, co-ordinator............................... Vicki Pini Length.............................................................50minutes Cast: Anne Phelan, Martin Sanderson, Kaaren Mike Wlllesee Prod, secretary......................................... SusanMinchin Gauge........................................................16mm Fairfax, Anna Hruby, Shane Connor.

Budget.......................................... $9.75 million Producer’s assistant............................... RachelMasters Shooting sto ck........................................... 7291 Synopsis: Based on the best-selling novel Length...................................... 13 x 48 minutes Lighting cameraperson...................Steve Isaac Synopsis: The autobiography of a horse, fol­ P o o r M a n 's O r a n g e by Ruth Park and the Gauge....................................................... 16mm Camera operator..................................... RobertWalker lowing the life of Black Beauty through a series sequel to T h e H a rp in th e S o u th .

Synopsis: M ik e W ille s e e ’s A u s tr a lia n s is a Camera assistant........................................AlanGilvear of different owners, grooms and companions, drama series of momentous events, unsung and the changing circumstances of his life.

Narrator.......................................................... BillHunter heroes and buried surprises of history from TALL SHIPS Studios.............................. Capital 7, Canberra Australia’s penal beginnings to the present Mixed a t............................. Capital 7, Canberra Prod, company............Kuranya Bradley Lucas THE BREEZE day.

Laboratory........................................ Colorfilm Producer........................................................ BillHughes Prod, company......................................... MoshiProductions Lab. liaison................................................ KerryJenkins Scriptwriter................................ Denise Morgan NANCY WAKE Producers...................................Enzo Vecchio, Length...................................... 13 x 30 minutes Based on the original idea by...........Bill Hughes Danica Dana Shooting stock...................................Videotape Prod, company...... Simpson LeMesurier Films Exec, producer.............................................. IanBradley Directors..................................................... EnzoVecchio, Cast: Bill Hunter (Presenter).

Dist. company............Pre-sale Seven Network Budget............................. $2.7 million (approx.)

Danica Dana Synopsis: The series highlights the work of the Producers.................................................RogerSimpson, Length................................ .....13 x 30 minutes Scriptwriter...............................................SherylClark National Film and Sound Archive and stresses Roger LeMesurier Synopsis: An adventure series encompassing the importance of the preservation of our film Length.............................................................75minutes Director..........................................Pino Amenta an epic voyage aboard a barquentine sailing and sound recording heritage. It explores our ship. Contemporary adolescents sail from Gauge......................................................16 mm Scriptwriter................................................RogerSimpson national character as expressed through our Based on the novel b y .............Russell Braddon Broome to Sydney to arrive in time for the Synopsis: The story of a group of friends who films and sound recordings.

Photography...............................................DaveConnell become involved in something over the top of ‘Grand Parade of Sail’ In January 1988. their heads. They find themselves drawn Into a Sound recordist..................................... AndrewRamage vicious circle.

Editor.............................................................PhilReid AUSTRALIA . . . TAKE A BOW Prod, designer.................................... Tel Stolfo TREASURE ISLAND Prod, company......................Soundsense Film Exec, producers..........................................Alan Bateman, THE COLOURIST Productions Pty Ltd Prod, company...........................Burbank Films John Sturzaker Producer........................................ Brian Morris Prod, company.........................Gittoes & Dalton Producer..........................................Roz Phillips Assoc, producer.................... Margot McDonald Director.......................................... Brian Morris Productions Limited Scriptwriter..........................Stephen MacLean Prod, supervisor...................................... MargotMcDonald Based on the original idea Dist. company..........................Gittoes & Dalton Prod, secretary......................................... JennyGrayBased on the novel by................................................Brian Morris Productions Limited 1st asst director..........................................JohnWild b y ............................ Robert Louis Stevenson Photography.................................. Paul Warren Producers............................................ Gabrielle Dalton, Editors...................................... Peter Jennings, 2nd asst director......................................... BrettPopplewell Sound recordist..................................... MichaelGissing George Gittoes Caroline Neave Continuity.................................................. JenniTosi Editor................................................. Tim Street Directors................................................. GeorgeGittoes, Exec, producer............................................TomStacey Script e dito r..............................Barbara Bishop Prod, manager.............................. Fiona Aaron Andrew Steuart Prod, co-ordinator............................ Joy Craste Casting........................................................... LizMullinar Prod, secretary...........................Linda Hopkins Scriptwriters...........................................GeorgeGittoes, Prod, manager..................................

Roddy Lee Focus pulle r.....................................Greg Ryan Asst editor.................................. Linda Goddard Justin Fleming Prod, accountant................................... AndrewYoung Costume designer........................ Jane Hyland Music performed Based on the original idea Post-prod, supervisor.................................. PhilReidCasting.......................................................... JoyCraste b y ....................... Australian Youth Orchestra b y ................................

GeorgeGittoes Camera operators...................................... GaryPage, Unit publicist................................ Marian Page Sound editor...........................................MichaelGissing Tanya Viskich Photography................................. Russell Boyd Length......................................... 4 x 60 minutes Mixer...................................................... MichaelGissing Storyboard................................................ SteveLyons, Exec, producer.......................................GeorgeGittoes Gauge.......................................................16mm Still photography..........Wildlight Photo Agency Alex Nicholas Prod, accountant...................................... DavidBarnes, Synopsis: The story of Nancy Wake, Austra­ Publicity............................

The Write On Group Remarkable Film Computers Tim ing.............................................. Jean Tych lian heroine of the French Resistance in World Unit publicist.............................. Sherry Stumm Animation director................................ WarwickGilbert Special fx photography...........................GeorgeGittoes War 2.

Laboratory..................................................Atlab Cast: Doc Neeson, Bill Kerr.

Director, Studio 2.......................................GeoffCollins Lab. liaison.............................Bruce Williamson Synopsis: An eccentric old artist is pestered Painting supervisor................... Jenny Schowe Budget.................................................$922,500 by an alien anthropologist from another uni­ Colour styling.......................................... Angela Bodinl PIGS WILL FLY verse about the meaning of art. In the world of Animation checkers....................................... LizLane,Length........................................ 7 x 28 minutes Gauge....................................................... 16mm the alien there are plenty of ancient master­ Kim Craste, Prod, company............................Somerset Film Shooting stock................... Agfa XT 125, XT320 pieces, but no living artists.

Kathryn deKnock, Productions Pty Limited Synopsis: A contemporary look at life In each Carla Daley Dist. company.................. Tambarle AB Limited Australian state and territory. Pictures, music Pre-production.......................... Alex Nicholas Producers....................James Michael Vernon, and sound effects will tell the story — there will FIRST KANGAROOS Layout supervisor....................................... GlenLovett Jan Tyrrell be no dialogue or narration. The series is Layout artists............................................. YoshBarry, Director.................................................... SophiaTurkiewicz Prod, company.......Roadshow, Coote & Carroll endorsed as a Bicentennial project and is Joanne Beresford, Scriptwriter....................................Craig Cronin' Dist. company............... Film Four International sponsored by IBM Australia.

David Cook, Sound recordist.................................. Tim Lloyd Producer.................................................... MoyaIceton Yaroslav Horak, Prod, supervisor............................. Penny Wall Director................................ Frank Cvitanovich FIELDS OF FIRE Steve Lyons, Prod, co-ordinator/manager...... Paula Bennett Scriptwriter.................................Nigel Williams Nell Graham Location manager.......................Craig Sinclair Based on the original Idea Prod, company........................................... PalmBeach b y ......................................Frank Cvitanovich Unit manager......................................... RichardMontgomery Background layouts.................................. DavidSkinner Entertainment 2 Pty Ltd Background artists..........Beverley McNamara, Prod, accountant.......................................Catch1-2-3Prod, secretary...................................... SandraThompson Dist. company............... Zenith Productions Ltd Paul Pattie Prod, accountant.......................................... LeaCollins Producers.................................................. DavidElfick, Accounts asst..........................................TraceyHydeNeg. matching...............................Chris Rowell Steve Knapman FUTURETROUPERS Continuity................................. Kristin Voumard No. of shots................................................... 600 Director.....................................Rob Marchand Voice track director......... George Stephenson Casting........................................Suzie Maizels Scriptwriters.......................... Miranda Downes, Prod, company....................Chadwick/Douglas Title designer................................................NeilGraham Casting consultants.... Maizels and Associates Rob'Marchand Film and Television Key grip..................................... Brett McDowell Laboratory..................................................Atlab Photography............................. Ross Berryman Producer..................................... Brian Douglas Lab. liaison..........................................Gary Keir Gaffer............................................

Derek Jones Sound recordist.......................................... NoelQuinn Scriptwriter..................................Brian Douglas Art director..................................................... IanGrade Budget.................................................$760,000 Editor.......................................................... SaraBennett Based on the original idea Costume designer.......................Helen Hooper Length............................................................ 50minutes Prod, designer........................... David Copping b y .............................................Brian Douglas Make-up....................................

Brita Kingsbury Gauge........................................................16mm Composer................................................... MarkMoffatt Prod, associate............................Phillip Collins Shooting sto ck........................................... 7291 Exec, producer.................. Margaret Matheson Prod, secretary.......................................... AnnePryorHairdresser...............................Brita Kingsbury Wardrobe supervisor................. Rosalea Hood Synopsis: The classic adventure story of Prod, supervisor...............................Irene Korol Script editor......................... Patrick Edgeworth Standby wardrobe.....................Barbra Zussino pirates and buried treasure.

Prod, co-ordinator............. Susan Pemberton Length.......................................13 x 30 minutes Props master.............................

Richard Hobbs Location manager......................................DavidClarke Gauge............................................................. 1"video Props buyer..................................................LisaBoyd-Graham Unit manager................................................ PhilUrquart Synopsis: In the near future, an out-of-work Asst props buyer.......................

Murray Gosson Prod, accountant...........................................ValWilliams, theatre troupe inadvertently prevent the piracy PRO DUCTIO N Standby props............................................JohnOsmond Moneypenny Services of Australia’s underground power source by a Art dept runner..........................................AdamHammond Accounts asst................................. Michele Day most devious and deadly organization.

Best boy....................................................... PaulBooth Prod, assistant............................ Sharon Cleary Runner...................................................MichaelLavigne 1 st asst director.............................. Bob Howard ALTERATIONS LONG TAN Catering...................................................... John Faithfull 2nd asst director............................................ IanKenny Prod, com pany........................................... ABC Gauge.......................................................

16mm 3rd asst director........................................ RobinNewell Prod, company............. The Long Tan Film Co. Dist. company.............................................

ABC Synopsis: Lawson, an eccentric adventurer Continuity................................................ JackieSullivan (proposed) Producer....................... ...............Julian Pringle and famous writer, with the help of Man, his off­ Producer’s secretary.................................BasiaPlachecki Scriptwriters............................ David Horsfield, Director....................................... Julian Pringle beat manservant, create a fiasco of comedy Casting co-ordinator........................... ChristineKing Lex McAulay, Scriptwriter.................................................. CoryTaylor and duplicity as they set about convincing the Camera operator........................................RossBerryman Bruce Horsfield, Based on the original idea by.......... Cory Taylor world that Lawson has “ gone off the deep Focus puller............................................... AnnaHoward Jullanne Horsfield Photography.................................................JeffMalouf end” .

Clapper/loader.............................................. PhilMurphy Based on the original Idea Sound recordist..........................................ChrisAlderton Camera assistant........................................GlenCogan by..........................................Bruce Horsfield Editor.......................................................... MikeHoney Key g rip ........................................ Pip Shapiera Exec, producer........................ Bruce Horsfield Prod, designer........................... Leigh Tierney PIPEDREAMS Asst g rip........................................Jason Harris Prod, accountant.........Manfred and McCallum Exec, producer............................Julian Pringle Gaffer......................................................LindsayFoote Prod, company......................Kuranya Pictures Length............................................ 110 minutes Prod, manager............................Carol Chirlian Generator operator..................................... TomRobinson Pty Limited Gauge...................................................... 35 mm Unit manager..............................Sally Gjedsted Boom operators..........................................JohnDodds, Producer......................................... Bill Hughes Synopsis: A recreation of the Battle of Long Prod, secretary...................................... AnnabelJeffery Gary Carr Scriptwriter..................................... Mary Gage Tan, when an Australian patrol of 108 men 1st asst director.......................... Graham Millar Art Based on the original Idea by......... Bill Hughes fought off more than 1000 experienced Viet 2nd asst director....................................... LanceMellor directors..................................................KenJames, Ron Highfield Assoc, producer...................... Susan Haworth Cong. Based on the survivors own gripping Continuity.............................................. RhondaMcAvoy Art directors’ assts..................................... TobyCopping, Budget..............................$1.5 million (approx.) accounts, the story illustrates the thesis that Casting........................................Jennifer Allen Jennifer Kernke Length.............................................95 minutes the war in Vietnam was won militarily, but lost Casting asst................................................ IreneGaskell Assts to art dep t..........................................FfionMurphy, Gauge.......................................................16mm politically.

Lighting cameraperson................................ JeffMalouf Glen Flecknoe Synopsis: Based on the tragic story of the Camera operator.................................... RussellBacon Costume designer ................Ann Benjamin pioneering engineer, C.Y.O’Connor, the man Make-up................................................ChrjstineBalfour MESMERISED Make-up/hair supervisor................Jose Perez who brought water to the Kalgoorlie goldfields.

Prod, com pany........... Abacus Pictures Pty Ltd Standby make-up..ZZr............. Anna Karpinksi Props buyer................................ Mervyn Asher Director..............................Daniel A. McGowen Hairdresser.................................... Diane Biggs Publicity................................................. GeorgleBrown POOR MAN’S ORANGE Scriptwriter...................................... John Nash Wardrobe supervisor...........Lucinda McGuigan Mixed a t......................................................

ABC Studios Prod, company...................... Anthony Buckley Stand Based on the story b y ........Daniel A. McGowen Length............................................................ 90minutes by wa rd robe...................... <.Rita C roue h Productions Pty Ltd Editor........................................... Bob Bladsdall Wardrobe construction..:....Annemaree Dalziel Gauge........................................................16mm Producer............................................... AnthonyBuckley Exec, producer.... Filmtec Productions Pty Ltd, Props buyer............................................ DerrickChetwyn Cast: Richard Moir (Richard), Angela Punch Director......................................George Whaley Howard M. Gardener Standby props.......................... George Zammit McGregor (Ann).

Scriptwriter............................... George Whaley Assoc, producer............. Rodi Wells-McGowen Special effects................................... Brian Cox Synopsis: An original play for television.

Based on the novel b y ...................... Ruth Park Prod, manager................................ Penny Wall Scenic artist............................. Gillian Nicholas Photography.................................. Paul Murphy Length............................................. 90 minutes Carpenters................................... Austin Nolan, THE AUSTRALIAN IMAGE Sound recordist....................... Sid Butterworth Gauge....................................................... 16mm David Stenning, Editor.......................................... Wayne Le Clos Prod, company...................................AustralianCapital Synopsis: A raunchy but tasteful comedy Gary McLaughlin, Prod, designer...........................Bernard Hides Television Pty Ltd about an up-and-coming barrister who Geoffrey Retch, Composer..........................................Peter Best Dist. company.................................... AustralianCapital becomes mesmerised by the sight of beautiful Nicholas King, Television Pty Ltd Exec, producer...................... Robert Mercieca women.

Torry Saunderson

84 — N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

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Scriptwriters................................ Lissa Benyon Construction manager..................................PhilWorth Prod, manager.......................... Roslyn Tatarka HEY DAD Sound recordists......................... Ray Mitchell, Stage hand................................................ StuartSimpson Floor managers....................... Peter O’Connor, Prod, company............ Jacaranda Productions Noel Cantrill, Editing assistant............................. Emma May Alan Williamson, Dist. company............Pre-sale Seven Network Dave Dundas Dubbing editor............................................AnneBreslin Peter Hinde Producer..........................................Gary Reilly Editors........................................Nola O’Malley, Dubbing editor’s asst................................LauraZusters Directors’ a ssts...................................MarianneGray, Director....................................... Kevin Burston Trevor Miller Stunts co-ordinator..........................Max Aspin Linda Wilson, Scriptwriter......................................Gary Reilly Prod, designer...........................

Geoff Wedlock Safety officer............................Claude Lambert Rhonda Bark-Shannon Based on the original idea b y ......... Gary Reilly Composer.................................. Martin Armlger Storyboard consultant............................. RobertAlcock Casting................................................ Jan Russ Executlve-in-charge of Technical producers....................................

JeffBrown, Still photography........................................ BrianMcKenzie Casting asst................................................Jane Daniels production.............................. Alan Bateman Tony Verhey, Wrangler..................................................... John Hitchcock Art director.................................... Steve Keller Studios........................ATN-7 Studios, Sydney John Nixon, Horse master..............................................FrankMcNamara Make-up................................... Lois Jorgensen, Length...................................... 12 x 30 minutes Peter Knevltt Transport/armourer................................. RobertParson David Henderson, Gauge................................................ Videotape Prod, manager.................... Stephen O’Rourke Asst transport.............................................BarryCockinos Bill Mclldandy Cast: Robert Hughes (Martin Kelly), Julie Mc­ Unit managers.................Scott Hartford-Davis, Best boy................................................Jim Hunt Hairdressers..................................

Julie Corbet, Gregor (Betty Wilson), Paul Smith (Simon Bev Powers Runner..........................................................GuyCampbell Sue Warhurst Kelly), Simone Buchanan (Debbie Kelly), Sarah Prod, secretary........................................ SusanWells Nurse.............................................................LeaShapiera Wardrobe.................................................. IsobelCarter, Monahan (Jenny Kelly), Christopher Truswell Prod, accountant.................................. StephenO’Rourke Publicity.....................................Write On Group Jessie Fountain, (Nudge).

Prod, assistants.........................................JanetArgali, Catering........................ David and Cassie Vale Korrina Glen Rhonda McAvoy, Catering asst..................... Juliana Zimmerman Props buyer................................... Mark Grivas MELBA Anthea Dean, Sound post-production......................Soundfirm Standby props...................Richard Williamson, Liz Steptoe, Laboratory............................................Colorfilm Rosemary Gearon Prod, company................................. CB Seven Vicki Bridgland Lab. liaison............................................. RichardPiorkowski Lighting supervisor..................Keith Ferguson Productions Pty Ltd 1 st asst directors........................................ GaryStephens, Budget....................................................... $3.75million Producers.................................... Errol Sullivan, Off-line editing................. The Editing Machine Scott Feeney, Length....................................... 2 x 1 20 minutes Music editor............................................WarrenPearson Pom Oliver Scott Hartford-Davis, Gauge........................................................ 16mm Director...................................... Rodney Fisher Vision switcher..........................................JennyWilliams Vld McClelland, Shooting sto ck......................................... Kodak Tech, directors.............................. Barry Shaw, Scriptwriter............................ Roger McDonald Graham Millar Peter Merino, Photography.............................................. DeanSemler, Cast: Todd Boyce (Bluey), Kris McQuade 2nd asst directors..................................... SteveStannard, Howard Simons Andrew Lesnie (Mum), Melissa Docker (Dusty), Anna Hruby Deborah Klika, Catering........................................................

Trio Catering Sound recordist.............................Paul Brincat (Kate), Ollie Hall (Tiny), Bill Young (Lofty), Ken Karen Kreicers, Post-production.................ATV-10, Melbourne Editor...................................... Marc van Buuren Radley (Dave), Phil Quast (Albie), John Jarratt Lance Mellor Prod, designer.................................. Roger Kirk Cast: Gary Files (Tom Ramsay), Geoff Paine (Jacko), Jack Mayers (Red), Harold Hopkins Casting.........................................Jennifer Alien (Clive Gibbons), Peter O’Brien (Shane Assoc, producer........................... Julie Monton (Whacker), Peter Albert Sardi (Agostini), Terrie Casting assistant......................... Irene Gaskell Ramsay), Alan Dale (Jim Robinson), Anne Prod, co-ordinator.................. Susanne Darcey Serio (Franco), Joss McWilliam (Bill), Patrick Lighting cameramen.................... Barry Quick, Haddy (Helen Daniels), Stefan Dennis (Paul Unit manager................................ Chris Jones Ward (Chook).

Jeff Brown, Robinson), Kylie Flinker (Lucy Robinson), Prod, secretary..............................Susie Jarvis Synopsis: F ie ld s o f F ir e is a stormy saga of a Roy Jeffrey Elaine Smith (Daphne Clarke), Paul Keane Prod, accountant..........................

Catch 1-2-3, sensuous young Englishman’s journey to man­ Camera operators........................... Dick Bond, (Des Clarke), Myra De Groot (Eileen Clarke).

Jenny Verdon hood in the brutal and intensely physical world Peter Robson, Synopsis: Love ’em or hate ’em, but every­ Prod, assistant..........................................Martin Caheigh of sugar-cane cutting in north Australia.

Mick Walter, 1 st asst director......................................MichaelBourchier one’s got ’em: neighbours. Ramsay Street . . .

Jeff Clegg, 2nd asst director...........................Julie Forster the stage for an exciting drama se ria l. . . draw­ Greg Hilton, ing back the curtain to reveal the intrigue and 3rd asst director............ Toby Churchill-Brown THE HENDERSON KIDS II Neil Maude, passions of Australian families . . . and their Continuity..........................................

Jo Weeks Prod, company...............Crawford Productions • Denis Ghatt, neighbours.

Producer's assistant......................... Sue Hunt Video Pty Ltd Mike Osborne, Casting.......................... Ann Churchill-Brown Producer........................................... Alan Hardy Glen Traynor, Focus p uller..................................

Colin Deane 1986 AFI AWARDS ON LOCATION Directors.................................................... ChrisLangman, Geoff McGarvey, Clapper/loader.........................................TracieGriffiths Paul Moloney Prod, company.......................................RichardSattler Murray Tonkin Key grip.......................................................Merv McLaughlin Scriptwriters............................................... PeterHepworth, Productions Pty Ltd Costume designer................... Jolanta Nejman Asst g rip .............................................Pat Nash Roger Moulton, Producer.................................................RichardSattler Make-up................................................Michelle Myers, Gaffer............................................ John Morion Galia Hardy, Director...................................................... BrianPhillis Hannah Fiserova Electrician.....................................Dean Bryant John Reeves, Exec, asst.................................. Margo Pulsford Wardrobe................................... Wendy Chuck, Boom operator.............................................Paul Gleeson David Phillips, Assoc, producer.......................................... PaulFraser Wendy Falconer Art director...........................................ChristineDunstan Andrew Kennedy Prod, co-ordinator................................Liz Tilley Props..............................................Peter Branch Asst art directors.......................................... KimDarby, Photography............................................... BrettAnderson Art director...............................Doug Kingsman Props buyer.................................................TonyCronin Jenny Carseldine Sound recordist.......................................... JohnMcKerrow Researcher.................................Simon Murphy Neg. matching...................... Alfred E. Newman Costume designer........................................JanHurley Editor..........................................Lindsay Parker Publicity...................................................... DaleEvansEditing assistant....................................GrahamTickle Make-up................................................. WendySainsbury, Composers.............................Garry McDonald, OB facilities.........................................Videopac Unit publicist..........................................GeorgieBrown Sally Gordon Laurie Stone Synopsis: A fully Independent, live production Catering.....................K-K-K Katering Company Hairdresser.............................................. CherylWilliams Exec, producers..................... Hector Crawford, of the 1986 AFI Awards.

Studios..................Studio 22, ABC TV Gore Hill Wardrobe supervisor............................

Heather McLaren Ian Crawford, Mixed a t........................ Necam Suite, Gore Hill Cutters...................................................... HelenDykes, PALS Terry Stapleton Length.....................................

10 x 50 minutes Marcia Lidden, Assoc producer...................... C. Ewan Burnett Prod, company................................ Pals Pty Ltd Shooting stock.......................................... Video Annie McCarthy, Production executive............................ MichaelLake Dist. company........................

J.C. Williamsons Cast: Odile Le Clezio (Sarah), Madeleine Sheryl Pilkington, Prod, co-ordinator....................................... GinaBlack Producers..................................... Jim George, Blackwell (Kath), Brendan Higgins (Paul), Jean Turnbull Prod, manager...........................Ray Hennesy Wayne Groom Robert Fraser (Joe).

Location m anager.....................................RalphPrice Wardrobe assistant...............................AmandaLovejoy Director............................... Mario Andreacchio Synopsis: A series which follows a sequence Prod, accountant.......................................... RonSinni Props buyers................................................. BillBooth, Scriptwriters.................................. Rob George, of events during three months in the life of Sandy Wingrove 1st asst director.................Richard Clendinnan John Patterson 25-year-old Sarah Russell, an arts journalist.

Standby props............................................

Colin Gibson 2nd asst director.........................Michael White Based on the original idea When we meet her, she Is living with Paul Special effects make-up............Bob McCarron 3rd asst director......................... Maurice Burns b y ............................................... Rob George, Urbacek, a junior private secretary to the Immi­ Set designer..........................................Igor Nay Continuity................................... Lesley Forsyth Ron Saunders, gration Minister in Canberra.

Scenic artist............................................. GillianNicholas Script editor......................................Jutta Goetz John Patterson Carpenters.................................................Andy Tickner, Casting.....................................Kimlarn Frecker Photography............................................. RogerDowling THE RED CRESCENT David Scott, Focus puller.................................. Craig Barden Sound recordist............................ Rob Cutcher Rory Forest, (Working title) Clapper/loader....................... Garry Bottomley Editor.............................................

Andrew Ellis Bronwyn Parry Key g rip........................................................ RobHansford Prod, co-ordinator..................................MichaelDavisProd, company.................................... SomersetFilm Set construction.......................................... AlanFleming Productions Pty Limited Asst grip..........................................................IanPhillips Prod, manager.............................................Gay Dennis Asst editor.................................................JennyHicks Gaffer......................................David Parkinson Dist. company.................Tambarle AB Limited Location manager...................... Ron Stigwood Musical director..............................................BillMotzing Boom operator............................................ GregNelson Producers....................James Michael Vernon, Editing assistant........................................ NigelTraillFinancial supervisor................... David Barnes, Art director................................. Andrew Reese Jan Tyrrell Remarkable Films Asst art director...........................................GregEllis Wrangler............................................... GrahamWareProd, accountant........................Chris Robson Director...................................................... HenriSafran Runner............................ Tom Churchill-Brown Costume designer..........................Clare Griffin Scriptwriter............................................ RichardCassidy 1 st asst director....................

David Wolfe-Berry Make-up...................................................... BradSmithCatering........................................ Out-to-Lunch Photography..................................... Peter Levy 2nd asst director........................................LindaCernigoi Studios.................................................. PyramidStudios Hairdresser............................ Elizabeth Harper Editor......................................... Lindsey Fraser Continuity...............................Kristin Witcombe Wardrobe................................................... KeelyEllis Mixed a t...............................................SpectrumFilmsClapper/loader....................Michael Bambacas Prod, designer.......................... Michael Ralph Standby wardrobe................................... MarionBoyceLaboratory..................................................Atlab Prod, supervisor...................................... PennyWall Camera assistant....................................... MarkEvans Wardrobe a s s t..............................................AnnWentLab. liaison.................................... Peter Willard Prod, co-ordinator/ Key g rip ....................................................

Devon Amber Gary Kier Props buyer...................................................LenBarratt manager............................ Rosemary Probyn Gaffer.....................................................

Richard Parkhill Standby props........................................RollandPike Budget............................................. $6,050,000 Location manager...................................... CraigSinclair Electrician...........................Robert Van Amstell Length.........................................4 x 96 minutes Set decorators........................... Souli Livaditis, Unit manager...................Richard Montgomery Boom operator........................................... ScottHysen Gauge....................................................... 1 6 mm Leigh Eichler Prod, secretary....................Sandra Thompson Art director................................................. ChrisKennedy Shooting stock.............................................ECN Scenic artist................................................... IanRichter Prod, Art dept co-ordinator...................................LucyMcLaren accountant...........................................LeaCollins Cast: Linda Cropper (Melba), Hugo Weaving Carpenters............................................. MichaelShadbolt, Accounts asst................................ Tracey Hyde Costume designer..........................Jenny Miles (Charles Armstrong), Peter Carrol (David Jams Ermanls Make-up..................................................... EgonDahmContinuity..................................................KristinVoumard Set construction..................................... GordonWhiteMitchell), Tom Burllnson (Syd Meredith), June Casting....................................................... SuzieMaizels Standby wardrobe.....................................CathyHerreen Bronhill (Annis Montague), Julie Haseier Asst edito r................................................... AvrilNicholl Casting consultants.... Maizels and Associates Standby props............................................ MarkAbbott (Annie Mitchell), Nell Schofield (Belle Mitchell), Construction foreman................... Peter McNee Key grip..................................... Brett McDowell Stunts co-ordinator........................................ VicWilson Andrew Tighe (Tom Chataway), Robert Gard Still photography........................... Bill Bachman Gaffer.........................................................DerekJones Mechanic............................Truck Humphries (Charles Turner), Judi Farr (Amy Davidson).

Dialogue coach............................. Peter Tulloch R unner..................................................StephenBurnsArt director..................................................... IanGracie Best b o y ......................................................GregRobinson Synopsis: A miniseries on the life of Nellie Costume designer.......................Helen Hooper Catering............................. Cheese Plus Cellars Runner..........................................................ConMancuso Make-up.......................................................BritaKingsbury Melba.

Post-prod, facilities..................................... EVP,Adelaide Unit publicist..................................Susan Wood Hairdresser................................................. BritaKingsbury Post-prod, liaison........................... Ross Wurst NEIGHBOURS Catering...........................................Bande-Aide, Budget........................................... $1.25 million Wardrobe supervisor................. Rosalea Hood Richard Rogues Length...................................... 10 x 30 minutes Standby wardrobe.....................Barbra Zussino Prod, company.....................Grundy Television Studios..................................................... HSV 7 Gauge...................................................Betacam Props master.............................Richard Hobbs Pty Ltd Mixed at..........................Crawford Productions Synopsis: Sammy is thirteen. He runs away Standby props............................................ JohnOsmond Producer ......................................... Philip East Laboratory..........................................

VFL and joins his father, a stuntman. Oscar does Best boy....................................................... PaulBooth Directors...................................Richard Sarrell, Length.......................................12 x 60 minutes not have the heart to take the boy back even Runner................................................... MichaelLavigne Mark Callan, Gauge........................................................ 16mm though he realizes trouble is brewing. The two Catering...................................................... JohnFaithfull Peter Andrikidis, Shooting stock..................................5291,5292 pals end up on the run together.

Gauge....................................................... 16mm Andrew Friedman Synopsis: Steele, an American energy tycoon, Scriptwriters........................................... Various Cast: Nadine Gamer, Paul Smith, Michael and Mueller, an Australian geologist, are two Script supervisor................................Ray Kolle Aitkens, Bradley Kilpatrick,Alex Papps, Anita PHOENIX men linked by an irrevocable past. In a climatic Script editors............................ Ysabelle Dean, Cerdic, Marieke Hardy,Nathan Croft, Paul (Working title) and horrifying conflict, Mueller must face his Wayne Doyle Hall, Elizabeth Rule, Louise Howitt. past, the past that threatens an entire world; Prod, com pany........................ ABC TV Drama Based on the original idea Synopsis: The further adventures of Steve and Producer.................................. Martin Williams the spectre of the Third Reich. by................................................ Reg Watson Tamara Henderson and their friends coming to Directors...................................... Colin Englert, Sound recordists......................Dave Shellard, grips with life in a tough suburban environ­ ROB ROY Grant Vogler, Kate Woods, ment.

David Muir, Peter Fisk, Prod, company............................Burbank Films Keith Harper, Graham Thorburn, Producer..........................................Roz Phillips Rob Saunders Ron Elliott Scriptwriter.................................. Rob Mowbray Prod, designer............................... Steve Keller Scriptwriters.............................. Debra Oswald, Based on the novel by............. Sir Walter Scott ’ lease help us keep this survey Terry Larsen, Composer.......................... Tony Hatch (theme) Editors......................................Peter Jennings, iccurate. Phone Kathy Bail on Sara Dowse, Exec, producer.............................. Reg Watson Caroline Neave 03) 329 5983 with any errors or Jane Oehr, Assoc, producer.............................Peter Askew Exec, producer.............................. Tom Stacey Michael Cove, Prod, co-ordinator...................... Jayne Russell Prod, co-ordinator.......................... Joy Craste >missions.

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Production Survey continued

champion is Robby Mason. Robby accidentally Prod, manager.................................. Roddy Lee Producers .................................... Colin J. South SONS AND DAUGHTERS sees something he would have given his life Prod, accountant................................... AndrewYoung Director....................................................... JohnTatoulis Prod, company.....................Grundy Television not to. What follows is the most deadly-serious Casting.......................................................... JoyCraste Scriptwriter..................................................John Tatoulis Pty Ltd playing out of The Game’ Robby has ever Camera operators...................................... GaryPage, Research................................................... KarenBoncyzk Producer....................................... Posie Jacobs known, for now someone is breaking all the Tanya Viskich Photography..............Gaetano (Nino) Martinetti Directors..................................................RussellWebb, rules in an effort to silence him.

Storyboard................................... Bob Fosbery Sound recordist............................Sean Meltzer Alister Smart, Tim ing.......................................... Geoff Collins Editor...........................................................MarcGracie WILLING AND ABEL Chris Shiel, Animation director................... Warwick Gilbert Assoc, producer......................Daniel Chambon Clive Fleury Prod, company................ The Willing and Abel Director, Studio 2.......................... Geoff Collins Prod, supervisor....................... Yvonne Collins Scriptwriters........................................... Various Company Pty Ltd Prod, manager.......................................GeorgiaHewson Painting supervisor................... Jenny Schowe Script edito r................................................GregStevens Producer..................................... Lynn Bayonas Prod, secretary.....................Tania Paternostro Colour styling...........................................AngelaBodiniStory editor............................................... AlisonNisselle Directors....................................... John Power, Animation checkers...................................... LizKane,Based on the original idea Prod, accountant....................................... ChrisSpathis Ric Pellizzeri, Kim Craste, Lighting by................................................ Reg Watson Gary Conway, Kathryn deKnock, cameraperson....... Gaetano (Nino) Martinetti Sound recordists.........Zbyszek Krzuszkowiak, Kevin Dobson Camera operator...................... Peter Zakharov Carla Daley Noel Cunnington, Scriptwriters..................................Ted Roberts, Key grip...........................................Ken Connor Pre-production.......................... Alex Nicholas Nick Buchner Peter Schreck, Asst grip.......................................Patrick Slater Layout supervisor....................................... GlenLovettEditor...................................................... MichaelHagen David Boutland, Gaffer.......................................Steve Flounders Layout artists............................................. YoshBarry,Prod, designer..........................Ken Goodman Sheila Sibley, Joanne Beresford, Boom operator..........................Chris Rowland Composers......................................Don Battye, Peter Kinlock, Art director............................... Stan Antoinades David Cook, Peter Pinne (theme) Michael Aikens, Yaroslav Horak, Make-up.....................................................KerynCarter Exec, producer.................................Don Battye Leon Saunders, Steve Lyons, Wrangler.................................................EvanneBrand Assoc, producer...................... Graham Murray Luis Bayonas Catering.......................................................PamKeating Neil Graham Prod, manager..................................... MargaretSlarke Photography............................................DannyBatterham Length.............................................................60minutes Background layouts.................................. DavidSkinner Unit manager................................................RayWalsh Sound recordist............................................ KenHammond Gauge...................................................... 1 " C Background artists......... Beverley McNamara, Prod, secretary.........................Lisa Fitzpatrick Editor........................................................ StuartArmstrong Shooting stock.........................................Kodak Paul Pattie Floor managers.........................................SorenJensen, Prod, designer............................Michael Ralph Neg. matching...............................Chris Rowell Synopsis: A documentary-drama on the plight David Watts, Composer...................................... Ashley Irwin No. of shots................................................... 600 of the Afghan cameleers brought to Australia to Jamie Crooks Exec, producers........................ Lynn Bayonas, Voice track director.........George Stephenson open up the Outback.

Directors’ assts............................. Jeffrey Gale, Ted Roberts Title designer................................................ NeilGraham Sally Flynn, Assoc, producer...........................................RodAllan Laboratory.................................................. Atlab Lesia Hruby Prod, co-ordinators.....................................Julia Ritchie, CODA Lab. liaison..........................................Gary Keir Staging supervisor................................GuntherNeszpor Sharon Miller Budget.................................................$760,000 Prod, company...........................Genesis Films Casting......................................................... SueManger Location manager....................................

Bevan Childs Length.............................................................50minutes Casting a sst...........................Jenny O’Donnell Prod, accountant...................................... Catch1-2-3,Dist. company.............................Premiere Film Gauge....................................................... 16mm Marketing Ltd Make-up................................. Joanne Stevens, Therese Tran Shooting sto ck........................................... 7291 Producer.....................................................TerryJennings Catherine Malik Prod, assistant........................... Emma Gordon Director.......................................................CraigLahiff Voices: Phillip Hinton (MacDonald, King Hairdresser........................ Warren Hanneman, 1st asst directors........................Craig Bolles, Scriptwriters............................................... TerryJennings, George), Simon Hinton (Young Colin), Jane Gail Edmonds Peter Fitzgerald Craig Laniff Harders (Oina, Mrs Stewart), Bruce Spence Wardrobe supervisor............................... RobeyBuckley 2nd asst director.........................................NickiLongBased on the original idea (Duncan), Nick Tate (Rob Roy), Andrew Lewis Wardrobe assts..................Margarita Tassone, 3rd asst director....................Andrew Merrifield by............................................................TerryJennings, (Hamish), Ron Haddrick (Killearn), Andrew Norma Tunbridge, 4th asst director........................................ SarahLewis Craig Lahiff Inglis (James Stewart), Bill Kerr (Duke of Madelaine Cullen Continuity.................................................. TracyPadula, Photography.............................................. DavidForeman Montrose), Tim Elliott (Duke of Argyle).

Props..................................Andrew Barrance, Nicola Moors Sound recordist...........................................

RobCutcher Russell O’Brien, Synopsis: Rob Roy MacGregor is the Scottish C asting...................Natalie Wentworth-Shields Editor.................................................. CatherineMurphy Richard McGrath version of Robin Hood, who cleverly tricks the Lighting cameraperson......... Danny Batterham Prod, designer.............................................Anni Browning Set dresser..................................... Peter Morris evil Duke of Montrose out of the taxes collected Focus puller................................................ChrisCole Exec, producer......................Tom Broadbridge Lighting directors.......................................PeterRussell, from the villagers. He is declared an outlaw Clapper/loader........................................ JamesRickard Prod, co-ordinator...................................Angela Heesom Mitch Lane, and has many exciting escapades before he Key grip................................................. BrendanShanley Prod, m anager.......................................ElspethBaird David Morgan can clear his name.

G affer.........................................................ChrisFleetProd, accountant.............................ChristopherHunn Set designer.................................... Leore Rose Electrician................................................. DavidScandol Accounting asst.................Danielle Robertson Music editor................................Gary Hardman Asst electrics.....................................John Lee THE SHIRALEE 1st asst director..............................Gus Howard Vision switcher............................ Sarah Wilson Boom operator ..................Graham McKinney 2nd asst directors......................Lindsay Smith, Prod, company............... South Australian Film Technical directors.......................... Pat Barter, Art dept co-ordinator...............................AlanahO’Sullivan David Wolfe-Barry Corporation Productions Ltd Keith Cartwright, Costume designer......................................KerryThompson Continuity............................ Heather Oxenham Dist. company......................... South Australian Graham Manion, Make-up...................................Michelle Barber Casting......................................................... JanKillen, Film Corporation Paul Rematy Hairdresser.................................................TrishNewton SA Casting Producer....................................................BruceMoir Catering......................................Taste Buddies Standby wardrobe.................................HeatherLaurie Focus puller.................................................... Jo Murphy Director...................................... George Ogilvie Post-production......................... Custom Video Wardrobe asst......................................... ShonaFlett Key g rip ........................................................ RodBolton Cast: Leila Hayes (Beryl Palmer), Pat Mc­ Scriptwriter................................Tony Morphett Props buyer............................................. RowanMcKenzie Gaffer.................................................... GraemeShelton Based on the ribvel b y .............................D’ArcyNiland Donald (Fiona Thompson), Ian Rawlings Asst props buyer..........................................SamRickard Boom operator........................................... ScottHeysen (Wayne Hamilton), Abigail (Caroline Morrell), Photography............................................. GeoffSimpson Standby props.............................. Eugene Intas Make-up......................................... Helen Evans Belinda Giblin (Alison Carr), Oriana Panozzo Sound team...................................................PhilKeros, Art dept runner.................................. Judy Kelly Wardrobe.............................

HelenEvans (Susan Hamilton), Brian Blain (Gordon Hamil­ David Lee Scenic artist............................................... ChrisReadWardrobe asst..........................................RobynBunting ton), Sarah Kemp (Charlie), Danny Roberts Editor.......................................................DeniseHaratzis Set construction....................................GraemeGilligan Props buyer............................................Kristine Kozlovic (Andy Green), Jared Robinson (Craig Maxwell).

Prod, designer.................... Kristian Fredrikson Asst edito r..............................................MelissaBlanche Standby props........................................... PeterDavies Composer...................................................ChrisNeal Synopsis: They were born twins, separated at Musical director.......................................AshleyIrwinConstruction m anager........... Peter Templeton Exec, producer........................................... JockBlairbirth, and reunited 2 0 years later without know­ Sound director...........................................SteveSmithEdge numberer..........................................AnitaSeiler ing their relationship, and that was just the Prod, manager.......................................AntoniaBarnard Music editor................................Gary Hardman Asst editor.....................................Tania Nehme beginning of the intrigue and drama! One of Prod, secretary................................... CatherineBishop M ixers........................................................ John Dennison, Stunts co-ordinator........................Glen Boswell Australia's most popular and successful drama Prod, consultant......................................RobinaOsborne, TonyVaccher Safety officer.............................. Micheale Read serials.

Moneypenny Services Stunts co-ordinator....................Bernie Ledger Best b oy................................................. WernerGerlach 1st asst director............................. Chris Webb Runner.......................................Linda Pavilack Runners...............................Kristin Sanderson, 2nd asst director....................................... HenryOsborneWATCH THE SHADOWS DANCE Catering......................................MMK Catering Michael Bambacus Continuity.............................................ElizabethBarton (Working title) Studios.................................... The Film Centre Catering..................................................... FrankManly Casting................ Hilary Linstead & Associates Mixed a t .............................................Audio Loc Prod, company...........................

Somerset Film Laboratory...........................................

Colorfilm South Australian casting.............. Anne Peters Productions Pty Limited Laboratory....................................................CFL Lab. liaison................................................ KerryJenkin Lighting cameraperson............................. GeoffSimpson Lab. liaison................................ Kevin Ackroyd Dist. company................. Tambarle AB Limited Length.............................................................90 minutes Camera operator..... ..................Geoff Simpson Length.....................................26 x 46 minutes Producers................... James Michael Vernon, Focus puller.............................................. MartinTurner Cast: Penny Cook, Arna-Maria Winchester, Jan Tyrrell Gauge...........................................1 6 mm to tape Clapper/loader............................................. RodBoultan Liddy Clark, Olivia Hamnett, Patrick Frost.

Shooting stock................................ 7291,7292 Director.............................................Mark Joffe Key grip...................................................... RobinMorgan Synopsis: When a music student is flung out Cast: Grant Dodwell (Willing), Shane WithingScriptwriter........................ Michael McGennan Gaffer........................................................ TrevorToune of her residential college window, her neigh­ ing (Abel), Rebecca Rigg (Angela Reddie), Photography.............................Martin McGrath Best boy................................................. GrahamSheldon bour and fellow student is plunged into a series Lucius Borich (Parramatta), Martin Vaughan Art director.................................................DerekMills Sound recordist.................................Tim Lloyd of mysterious and threatening events.

(Just One), Tina Bursill (Maggie), Mark Mitchell Editor...................................................... LindseyFraser Art dept administrator.................... Toni Forsyth (Dobson), Simon Chilvers (Pisani), Dane Prod, designer............................ Michael Ralph Costume designer..................................... AnnaFrench Carson (Swann).

Prod, supervisor............................ Penny Wall Make-up.........................................Helen Evans DREAMTIME — THE STOLEN CANOE Synopsis: W illin g a n d A b e l is a small company Prod, co-ordinator/manager...... Paula Bennett Hairdresser.........................Fiona Rhys-Jones established by two central characters, who Location manager......................................

Craig Sinclair Prod, company........................................... ABC Asst costume designer................. Fiona Reilly offer their services in any capacity, to anyone, Unit manager...................Richard Montgomery Dist. company....................................... ABC TV Wardrobe standby..................................... PeterBevan at any time . . . an offer which can place them Prod, secretary...................

Sandra Thompson Producer....................................................

RobinJames Machinist/cutter.......................................... Julie Frankham in situations that can be dramatic, humourous Prod, accountant.......................................... LeaCollins Director..................................................... RobinJames Props buyers..............................................BarryKennedy, or dangerous.

Accounts asst................................

Tracey Hyde Scriptwriter................................................

Bruce Murphy Kris Koslovic 1st asst director................... Corrie Soeterboek Based on a n ......................... Aboriginal legend Standby props............................................PeterDavies 2nd asst director............................Toby Pease Photography...........................................Michael Fanning THE WIND AND THE STARS Draftsman...................................................John Axe 3rd asst director.............................Martin Joffs Sound recordist............................................ MelRadford Scenic artist...............................................HilaryCzikowski Prod, com pany....................................... ABC, Continuity..................................................KristinVoumard Editor.............................................................KimCardow Construction manager................................John Moore Revcom Television, C asting....................... Maizels and Associates Prod, designer................................Nick Reed Asst editor................................................. SimonJames Resolution Films Focus puller..........................Calum McFarlane Exec, producer.............................Harvey Shore Stunts co-ordinator..................................... GlenBoswell Producer.......................................................RayAlehin Clapper/loader..........................Miriana Marusic Unit manager...................................David Palm Generator operator................................WernerGerlach Director....................... Lawrence Gordon-Clark Key grip.......................................................

Brett McDowell Producer’s assistant...............Ingrid Andersen Production/unit runner..............................DavidSorensen Scriptwriter................................................ PeterYeldham Gaffer............................................. Derek Jones Casting...............................Ann Clark Agencies Art dept runner........................................... JohnSantucci Photography................................ Peter Hendry Art director.....................................................

Ian Grade Camera assistant.......................................ColinHertzog Catering...................................... Food For Film, Prod, designer..........................................LaurieJohnson Costume designer..................................... HelenHooper Make-up....................................Lyndal Rhodes Keith Fish Exec, producer..................................... GeoffreyDaniels Make-up...................................................... BritaKingsbury Props......................................... Lorry McGarry Studios....................................................HendonStudios Assoc, producer........................................ PeterYeldham Hairdresser.................................................

Brita Kingsbury Set construction...................... George Johnson Mixed a t..................................................HendonStudios Asst producer............................................... RayBrown Wardrobe supervisor.................Rosalea Hood Asst editor............................Jeanette McGown Laboratory.................................................. Atlab Prod, manager.............................Judy Murphy Neg. matching......................... Barry McKnight Standby wardrobe.....................

Barbra Zussino Lab. liaison.................................................. GaryKeir Budget.............................................................$ 8 million Props master............................. Richard Hobbs M ixer............................................................. MelRadford Budget.......................................... $2.75 million Length..................................................... 8 hours Props buyer............... .........

Lisa Boyd-Graham Narrator.....................................................Belza Lowah Length.......................................... 195 minutes Gauge...................................................... 35mm Asst props buyer...................... Murray Gosson Opticals.........................

Ken Phelan Gauge........................................................ 16mm Cast: Keith Michell, John Gregg, Erich HallStandby props.............................John Osmond Mixed a t................................ABC TV, Brisbane Shooting stock..........................................Kodak huber, Peter Carroll, Ferando Rey, Carol DrinkStunts co-ordinator......................................GuyNorris Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm Cast: Bryan Brown (Macauley), Rebecca Best boy....................................................... PaulBoothwater, Steven Grives.

Length.............................................................20minutes Smart (Buster), Noni Hazlehurst (Lily), Lorna Synopsis: The life of James Cook.

Art dept runner.....................

Adam Hammond Gauge........................................................16mm Lesley (Marge), Reg Evans (Luke Sweeney), Runner.................................... Michael Lavigne Shooting stock......................... 7291,7294 Julie Hamilton (Bella Sweeney), William Zappa Catering........................................John Faithfull (Donnie Carroll), Frank Gallacher (Beauty), Cast: TerryThompson (Ulamina), Anthony Gauge....................................................... 16mm Simon Chilvers (Thaddeus), Ned Manning Hopkins (Bangura).

PO ST-PRO D U CTIO N Shooting stock................................. 7291,7292 (Jim).

Synopsis: This is the fourth in a series of short Cast: Tom Jennings (Robby Mason), Vince Synopsis: To Macauley, the child was his dramas based on Aboriginal legend. It is the Martin (Steve Beck), Nicole Kidman (Amy ‘shiialee’, a burden and a handicap, and also a tale of a boy and his stolen canoe; of selfish­ Gabriel), Joanne Samuel (Sonia Spane), Craig constant reminder of bitterness and failure. It ness and greed personified; and a lesson in Pearce (Guy Duncan), Alex Broun (Henry), was his nature to do things the hard way: the THE AUSTRALIAN CAMELEERS sharing. Moreton Island locations become the Jeremy Shadlow (Simon). way he saw it, there was no other choice. What beautiful authentic environment in which the Prod, company................. Media World Pty Ltd Synopsis: Set fifteen years in the future, a he hadn’t taken into account was the child’s story first took place.

Producers................................... John Tatoulis, group of kids have invented 'The Game’.

The overwhelming need for love.

86 — N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

Length.............................................. 90 minutes Scriptwriters............................................ PeterHepworth (Galkin), Jim Holt (Wilkes), Deborra-Lee FACTS OF LIFE DOWNUNDER Cast: Anne Grigg (Annie), Francois Dunoyer Photography...............................Jamie Doolan Furness (Carmel), Rod Mullinar (Bracks), Fred Prod, company............................. Embassy TV (Patric), John Sheerin (Jack).

Sound recordist.......................... Malcolm Rose Parslow (Symes), Frankie J. Holden (Noel), Producers.....................................................RitaDillon,Editors...................................... Lindsay Parker, Synopsis: An original 90-minute telemovie.

John Frawley (Morris).

Mike Lake Grant Fenn Synopsis: Gerry Shadlow — struggling trade Director......................................Stuart Margolin PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS Composers..............................Gary McDonald, consultant, traitor to his country or master spy?

Scriptwriter..............................................GordonCotier Laurie Stone By accepting a lucrative Soviet trade contract, Prod, company........................Jequerity Pty Ltd Photography.................................... Ron Hagen Exec, producers...................................... HectorCrawford, he finds himself caught in a vortex of inter­ Producer..................................................MarthaAnsara Sound recordist.............................Max Bowring Ian Crawford, national espionage, political deceit and public Director....................................................MarthaAnsara Editor.............................................David Stiven Terry Stapleton humiliation. And that’s only the beginning!

Scriptwriters............................................Martha Ansara, Prod, designer........................ Sally Shepherd Asst producer............................ Judith Coward Alex Glasgow, Exec, producer...................................... Virginia Carter Prod, supervisor.............................. Vince Smits Laura Black A LITTLE LIFE Prod, co-ordinator.................. Vicki Popplewell Prod, co-ordinator..................................SimoneNorth and cast Prod, company....... Vicious Circle Productions Prod, manager.....................................Grant Hill Prod, manager........................................... ChrisPage Photography................................ Michael Edols Unit manager..............................................JohnSuhr Unit manager................................................RodShortProducers.............................................DeborahHowlett, Sound recordist.................................. Pat Fiske Cheryl Johnson Location manager................................... MurrayBoyd Prod, secretary...........................................CarolMatthews Editor..............................................................KitGuyatt Director................................................. DeborahHowlett Prod, secretary.............................................SueEdwards Prod, accountant......................... Jeff Shenker Exec, producer...................................... RichardMason Scriptwriters.........................................

Deborah Howlett, Prod, accountant.................Robert Threadgold 1st asst directors..........................Jamie Leslie, Assoc, producer....................................MadelonWilkens Cheryl Johnson Office co-ordinator...................................... Julie Plummer Stewart Wright Prod, supervisor....................................MadelonWilkens 1st asst director..........................................John Wild 2nd asst director.................... Strachan Wilson Based on the original idea Prod, manager..............................................Gail MacKinnon b y ...................................................... DeborahHowlett, 2nd asst director..................... Brett Popplewell Continuity............................... Carmel Torcasio Asst prod, manager.....................Wendy Moore Cheryl Johnson 3rd asst director...................... Cameron Mellor Script editor...................................Annie Beach Prod, assistants..............................................Bill Hodge, Photography.....................................Jan Kenny Continuity................................................. JennyQuigley Casting.......................................... Jan Pontifex Glenys Lawrence, Casting........................................................... LizMullinar Focus puller.................................................PaulTilleySound recordist...............................ChristopherLynch Barbara Jolley Editor.......................................... Tang Thien Tai Camera operator........................ John Mahaffie Clapper/loader...........................Walter Repich 1st asst director....................................Madelon Wilkens Exec, producer..................................... HeatherWilliams Focus p ulle r...............................................HarryGlynatsis Key grip.................................................WarwickSimpson Additional assistance................................ SteveJodrell Clapper/loader............................................. SuziStittsAsst grip............................................... CameronStrachan Prod, manager.............. Penelope Radunovich Producer’s assistant......................................Kit Guyatt Camera assistant........................................ NickMayoGaffer................................................ Bill Jones Prod, assistant........................... Colleen Cruise Casting.................................................. MadelonWilkens Key g rip ......................................... PipShapiera 1st asst director....................... Cheryl Johnson Boom operator...................................Leigh Tait Casting consultant..................................... JohnRapsey Key grip (Alice Springs)..............................TonyHall Art director..................................................BrianBetts Script editor.................................Alex Glasgow Focus puller................................................AnneBenzie Asst grip........................................Jason Harris Camera operator..............................Jan Kenny Asst art director..........................Elena Perrotta Clapper/loader............................................AnneBenzie Gaffer........................................... Brian Adams Focus p uller........................Emily Anne Benzie Hairdresser....................................... Lisa Jones Key g rip ..................................................... PhilipGolombick Electrician................................................... BrettHull Wardrobe...........................................Keely Ellis Camera assistant................Emily Anne Benzie 2nd unit photography Neg. matching.......................... Tang Thien Tai Boom operator........................................... MarkKrating Standby wardrobe.....................Anna Baulch (film)...................................................... SimonAkkerman, Art director...........................Georgina Greenhill Editing assistant.........................

Claire Calzoni Props buyer.................................................GlenJohnson David Noakes, Make-up........... .......................... Leanne White, Still photography.........................Nan Richards Special effects........................................... TerryWilcocks Martha Ansara Sally Gordon Runners........................................... Pat Evans, Effects editors.............................Julie Murray, 2 nd unit photography Paul Payne Hairdressers.........................................Rochelle Ford, Bruce Climas (video)................................... David Butorac, Willi Kenrick Publicity.................................... Cheryl Johnson Set decorators....................... Jenny Hoogstra, Peter Kordyl, Wardrobe.................................................... KerriBarnett Catering................................Marie Radunovich Kate Saunders, Peter Baker Wardrobe asst................................ Kate Green Studios.......................................................... FT I Peter Keeble, Gaffer.....................................

Philip Golombick Props............................................... Brian Lang Mixed at....................................................... ABC Darcy Chene Boom operator..........................

Garry Grbavac Props buyer............................. Michael Tolerton Laboratory....................................... Movie Lab Set construction.....................................

Gordon White Costume designer.........................Tish Phillips Carpenter..................................................... Jim McKeon Budget.................................................. $91,510 Asst editors................................................

June Wilson, Asst editor (film)........................

Claire Calzoni Set construction......................................... MikeMcLean Length..............................................50 minutes Owen Johnston Asst editor (video)..................... Colleen Cruise Editing assistant..............................................JoFriesen Gauge.......................................................16mm Neq. matching........................................

Jennie Keem, 2nd unit sound..........................

Garry Grbavac, Stunts co-ordinator..................................... GlenReuhland Shooting sto ck........................................... 7291 Jill Lord David Noakes, S tunts.......................... New Generation Stunts Cast: Craig Groves (Ricci Vicenti), Leslie Music editor................................ David Holmes.

Kit Guyatt Wright (Warder), John Hyde (Policeman), Still photography........................................... JimTownley Editing asst..................................................FredKirkup Still photography....................John Buchanan, Maurie Venables (Taxi driver), Heather Vicenti Best boy...................................................... BrettHull M ixer.........................................Richard Brobyn Nan Richards Runner....................................... Lisa Harrison (As herself in dramatized sections).

Stunts co-ordinator..... New Generation Stunts Catering....................................................AlisonFarnsworth Synopsis: A L ittle L ife is a partially dramatized Laboratory.................................................. Atlab Dialogue editors........................................GavinMyers, Childcare..................................................Alison Farnsworth documentary about the life of Heather Vicenti Lab. liaison..................................................GaryKeir Michael Cardin Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm and her son, Ricci Vicenti, who was fatally shot Length............................................................. 95minutes Runner......................................Brett Matthews Lab. liaison.............................................RichardPiorkowski, while trying to escape from Vale Remand Gauge........................................................35mm Laboratory.............................................Cinevex Denise Wolfson Shooting stock......................................... Kodak Lab. liaison................................................BruceBraunCentre.

Length.............................................. 75 minutes Cast: Cloris Leachman, Lisa Whelchel, Mindy Cast: Robert Grubb (Dr Geoff Standish), Liz Gauge........................................................16mm Cohn, Nancy McKeon, Kim Fields, MacKenzie MUSICAL MARINER Burch (Dr Chris Randall), Pat Evison (Violet Shooting stock......................................... Kodak Astin, Mario van Peebles, Noel Trevarthen, Prod, company........................... Lucky Country Carnegie), Lewis Fitz-Gerald (David Gibson), Cast: Laura Black (Anna), Peter Hardy (John), Joss McWilliam, Jay Hackett.

Productions Pty Ltd Bruce Barry (George Baxter), Lenore Smith Anna Gare (Mandy), Jack Coleman (Stan).

Synopsis: The long running American TV Dist. company.........Lucky Country Distribution (Kate Wellings), Maurie Fields (Vic Buckley), Synopsis: It is 1986 and things are changing in series, F a c ts o f L ife , sets out for Australia to Producers...................................Bill Leimbach, Rebecca Gibney (Emma), Gil Tucker (Joe the port city of Fremantle, home of the commemorate the anniversary of a sister Michael Dillon, Forrest), Terry Gill (Sgt Carruthers), Kylie America’s Cup and host to the American Navy. school. The movie follows the girls’ adventures Claire Leimbach Belling (Sharon).

As Anna tries to find out what’s r e a lly going on, downunder.

Director.......................................Bill Leimbach Synopsis: A Royal Flying Doctor Service is her family is drawn into conflict. Their dilemma Photography............................... Michael Dillon located in the Outback town of Coopers Cross­ is mirrored in the film by a documenTHE FAST LANE Composer.............................. David Fanshawe ing. The two doctors, Geoff Standish and Chris tary/archival exploration of the contradictions Prod, company...........................................ABC Budget................................................ $160,000 Randall, not only contend with the medical of the US-Australian alliance.

Dist. company.............................................ABC Length..............................................60 minutes challenges, but also with the small community Producer............................................ Noel Price Gauge......................................................16 mm in which they live.

SALLY AND SANTA Directors...................................... Mandy Smith, Cast: David Fanshawe (Presenter).

Mark Joffe, Prod, company.................... Davis Film & Video Synopsis: After five years collecting over HUMPTY DUMPTY MAN Colin Budds Productions Pty Ltd 1,500 hours of music and effects from Micro­ Scriptwriters..............................Andrew Knight, Dist. company......................Davis Film & Video Prod, company............Capital Productions Ltd nesia, Melanesia and Polynesia, world John Clarke, Productions Pty Ltd Producer...................................... Miranda Bain renowned music composer David Fanshawe is Max Dann, Producers...................................................JohnDavis, Director......................................... Paul Hogan ready to prepare his next major piece 'Pacific John Alsop, Ursula Kolbe Scriptwriters..................................KarIZwicky.

Odyssey’ , which will premiere for the 1988 Deborah Parsons, Directors...................................... Ursula Kolbe, Paul Hogan Bicentennial.

Robyn Watton John Davis Based on the original idea Scriptwriter...............................Richard Tulloch Based on the original idea b y .............................................Miranda Bain, PERHAPS LOVE b y ............................................................ John Clarke, David Millikam Based on an original idea Prod, company..........................................ABC Andrew Knight by.............................................................JohnDavis, Photography............................................ MartinMcGrath Dist. company............................................ ABC Sound recordists.............................Peter Mills, Ursula Kolbe Sound recordist........................... Lloyd Carrick Producer.....................................

Jan Chapman Tim Wilton Photography.................................................. IanMarden Editor........................................Murray Ferguson.

Director........................................ Lex Marinos Editors.......................................................... KenTyler,Prod, designer.............................. Neil Angwin Sound recordist......................................RichardBone Frank Zimmerman Scriptwriter.......................................... Bob Ellis Editor.................................................. Ian Vaile Exec, producer........................................RobertMercieca Based on an original idea by...............Bob Ellis Prod, designers..........................Alwyn Harbott, Prod, designer..........................................UrsulaKolbe Prod, co-ordinator...........Bernadette O'Mahony Photography........................ Christopher Davis Carole Harvey Composer...............................Michael Atherton Prod, manager........................ Elizabeth Symes Sound recordist.......................... Chris Alderton Composers................................................. GregSneddon, Exec, producer............................................JohnDavis Unit manager............................................DarrylSheen Editor.......................................................... MikeHoney Andrew Baylor Prod, manager.......................................... CathyMiller Prod, accountant................................... BelindaWilliams Exec, producer............................................ NoelPrice1st asst director............................................ PhilJonesProd, designer........................Murray Picknett 1st asst director........................................CathyMiller Design asst....................................... Julie Belle Prod, manager..................................... MargaretGreenwell Camera assistant.................................... ShaunCefai 2nd asst director.........................Tim Browning Exec, producer............................Jan Chapman Prod, secretary......................................FrancesFitzgerald Art director............................................... UrsulaKolbe Continuity....................................Kay Hennessy Prod, manager........................................... John Moroney 1st asst director.......................... Peter Baroutis Asst art director.................................. Cait Wait Casting........................................ Susie Maizels Unit manager..........................Beverley Powers 2nd asst director..........................................DonRyanCasting consultants.... Maizels and Associates Costume designers................Deidre Dowman, Prod, secretaries......................... Julie Adams, Beverley Campbell-Jackson Continuity...................................................... LeeHeming Focus puller............................................. CalumMcFarlane Annabel Jeffery Casting............................................Dina Mann Props.............................................................TorLarsen, Clapper/loader..........................................SoniaLeber Prod, assistant....................... Rhonda McAvoy Lighting directors............................Ron Comb, Alexis Raft Key grip............................................... Tony Hall Noel Quirk Set decorator...........................................UrsulaKolbe Asst g rip ......................................................GregTuohy1 st asst director............................ Scott Feeney 2nd asst directors....................... Lance Mellor, Camera operators........................................DickWilloughby, Set construction........................................... TorLarsen, G affer..........................................................MarkGilfedder Roger McAlpine Vid McClelland Alexis Raft, Boom operator............................................ChrisGoldsmith Continuity................................ Rhonda McAvoy Key grip........................................................ MaxGaffney Chris Brechwold, Asst art director............................................. VivWilson Boom operator............................................GaryLundCostume designer.........................Jenny Arnott Dale Duguid Casting..................................................JenniferAllen Make-up.........................................................IanLoughnan Music performed by............... Michael Atherton Casting asst..................................Irene Gaskell Make-up/hair................................Carolyn Nott Wardrobe..............................................BeverleyJasper Lighting cameraperson........Christopher Davis Sound editor........................................... Ian Vail Standby wardrobe................................ FrancesHogan Set construction.......................................... ABCWorkshop Still photography................... Deidre Dowman Props buyer/standby props....................... John StabbCamera operator.......................................... JeffMalouf Title designer..............................Phil Cordingly Focus puller............................................RichardWilmott Puppets designed and Asst e ditor...................................................IrwinHirsch Publicity......................................Geòrgie Howe Clapper/loader............................................ GedQuinn made by..............................Deidre Dowman, Sound editor..............................................FrankLipson Studios....................................................... ABC,Melbourne Beverley Campbell-Jackson Key grip........................................ Alan Trevena Sound editing assts...................................SteveLambert, Length....................................... 10 x 50 minutes Publicity....................................... Elana McKay Ross Chambers Asst grip......................................Paul Lawrence Gauge.............................................................. 1"videotape Electricians................................ Martin Perrott, Catering....................................... Felicity Davis Stunts co-ordinator..................................... GlenRuehland Cast: Debra Lawrence, Richard Healy, Terry Robert Wickham Studios........................................................ VTC Stunts.......................... New Generation Stunts Bader, Peter Hosking.

Boom operator........................................... ScottTaylor Mixed at........................................................RBA Armourer..................................... Brian Holmes Synopsis: The events surrounding a pair of Make-up................................................SylvanaVennen Budget.................................................$120,000 Still photography...............Tom Psomotragos down-at-heel private eyes.

Length............................................................ 48minutes Wardrobe..................................... Dean Pearce Best boy...................................... Daryl Pearson Gauge................................................... Betacam Props buyer............................Ian Andrewartha Genny operator...........................Tony Pronesti THE FLYING DOCTORS Puppeteers: AllenHighfield, Richard Brad­ Special effects............................. Laurie Faen, Runner.................................................. StephenShelley Peter Leggett shaw, Tina Matthews, JoeGladwin, Caroline Catering............................. Bande Aid Catering Prod, company............... Crawford Productions Editing assistant...........................Sasa Vitacek Jones.

Laboratory............................................ Cinevex Producer................................................... OscarWhitbread Synopsis: A charming puppet story capturing Still photography.......................Martin Webbey Lab. liaison.....................................................IanAnderson Directors............................................... BrendonMaher, the unique flavour of an Australian Christmas.

Publicity.....................................Geòrgie Brown Budget........................................ $1.292 million Colin Budds, Sally writes to Santa to ask for rain to save her Catering.............................................. Take One Length.............................................. 90 minutes Dan Burstall, Australian native animal friends. Santa brings Studios........................................ABC, Gore Hill Gauge........................................... Super 16mm Mark deFriest a snowball, but it is too heavy and the sleigh Mixed at....................................................... ABC Shooting stock.........................................Kodak Scriptwriters..............................Tony Morphett, crashes in the bush. Sally and her bush friends Laboratory........................................... Colorfilm Cast: Frank Gallacher (Gerry Shadlow), Sue Christine McCourt help Santa to deliver his presents on time.

Lab. liaison................................ David Shubert Jones (Adele Shadlow), Robin Harrison Vince Moran,

CINEMA PAPERS N ovem ber — 8 7

Number 17 (August-September 1978): Bill Bain, Isabelle Huppert, Brian May, Polish cinema, N ew sfront, The N ig h t the

Number 40 (October 1982): Henri Safran, Michael Ritchie, Pauline Kael, Wendy Hughes, Ray Barrett, M y D inner

Prowler.

with Andre, Invincible.

Number 18 (October-November 1978): John Lamond, Sonia Borg, Alain Tanner, Indian cinema, D im boola, C a th y ’s Child.

BACK ISSUES Number 1 (January 1974): David William­ son, Ray Harryhausen, Peter Weir, Antony Glnnane, Gillian Armstrong, Ken G. Hall, The Cars That A te Paris.

Number 2 (April 1974): Censorship, Frank Moorhouse, Nicolas Roeg, Sandy Harbutt, Film under Allende, B etw een the Wars, A lvin Purple.

Number 3 (July 1974): Richard Brennan, John Papadopolous, Willis O’Brien, William Friedkin, The True Story o f Eskimo Nell.

Number 10 (September-October 1976): Nagisa Oshima, Philippe Mora, Krzysztof Zanussi, Marco Ferreri, Marco Bellochio, gay cinema.

Number 11 (January 1977): Emile de Antonio, Jill Robb, Samuel Z. Arkoff, Roman Polanski, Saul Bass, The Picture S how M an.

Number 12 (April 1977): Ken Loach, Tom Haydon, Donald Sutherland, Bert Deling, Piero Tosi, John Dankworth, John Scott, Days o f H ope, The G etting o f W isdom.

Number 13 (July 1977): Louis Malle, Paul Cox, John Power, Jeannine Seawell, Peter Sykes, Bernardo Bertolucci, In

Number 19 (January-February 1979): Antony Ginnane, Stanley Hawes, Jeremy Thomas, Andrew Sarris, sponsored documentaries, Blue Fin. Number 20 (March-April 1979): Ken Cameron, Claude Lelouch, Jim Sharman, French cinema, M y Brilliant Career.

Number 22 (July-August 1979): Bruce Petty, Luciana Arrighi, Albie Thoms, Stax, A liso n's Birthday.

The

Return

of

Captain

Number 41 (December 1982): Igor Auzins, Paul Schrader, Peter Tammer, Liliana Cavani, Colin Higgins, The Year o f Living D angerously.

Number 42 (March 1983): Mel Gibson, John Waters, Ian Pringle, Agnes Varda, copyright, S trikebound, The M an from Number 43 (May-June 1983): Sydney Pollack, Denny Lawrence, Graeme Clifford, The Dismissal, C areful He M ig h t

Number 53 (September 1985): Bryan Brown, Nicolas Roeg, Vincent Ward, Hector Crawford, Emir Kusturica, New Zealand film and television, Return to

H ear You.

Papers.

Number 46 (July 1984): Paul Cox, Russell Mulcahy, Alan J. Pakula, Robert Duvall, Jeremy Irons, Eureka S tockade,

Number 27 (June-July 1980): Randal Kleiser, Peter Yeldham, Donald Richie, Richard Franklin’s obituary of Alfred Hitchcock, the New Zealand film industry, G rendel G re nde l Grendel.

Number 28 (August-September 1980): Bob Godfrey, Diane Kurys, Tim Burns, John O’Shea, Bruce Beresford, B ad Timing, R oad games.

Number 29 (October-November 1980): Bob Ellis, Uri Windt, Edward Woodward, Lino Brocka, Stephen Wallace, Philippine cinema, Cruising, The La st Outlaw.

Number 36 (February 1982): Kevin Dobson, Brian Kearney, Sonia Hofmann, Michael Rubbo, B low Out, B reaker

Number 52 (July 1985): John Schlesinger, Gillian Armstrong, Alan Parker, soap operas, TV news, film advertising, D o n 't C all M e Girlie, For Love Alone, D ouble Sculls.

Number 25 (February-March 1980): David Puttnam, Janet Strickland, Everett de Roche, Peter Faiman, Chain Reaction, Number 26 (April-May 1980): Charles H. Joffe, Jerome Heilman, Malcolm Smith, Australian nationalism, Japanese cinema, Peter Weir, W ater U nde r the Bridge.

N aked Country, M a d M ax: B eyon d Thunderdom e, R obb ery U n d e r Arms.

Snow y River.

Number 24 (December 1979-January 1980): Brian Trenchard-Smith, Ian Holmes, Arthur Hiller, Jerzy Toeplitz, Brazilian cinema, H arlequin.

Stir.

Number 50 (February-March 1985): Stephen Wallace, Ian Pringle, Walerian Borowczyk, Peter Schreck, Bill Conti, Brian May, The Last Bastion, Bliss.

Number 51 (May 1985): Lino Brocka, Harrison Ford, Noni Hazlehurst, Dusan Makavejev, Emoh Ruo, Winners, The

Number 44-45 (April 1984): David Stevens, Simon Wincer, Susan Lambert, Street Kids, a personal history of Cinem a

Eden.

Number 54 (November 1985): Graeme Clifford, Bob Weis, John Boorman, Menahem Golan, Wills a n d Burke, The Great B ookie R obbery,

The L a ncaste r

R obbery U nde r Arm s.

M iller Affair, rock videos.

Number 55 (January 1986): James Stewart, Debbie Byrne, Brian Thompson, Paul Verhoeven, Derek Meddings, The R ight-H and M an, Birdsville, tie-in market­ ing.

Number 56 (March 1986): Fred Schepisi, Dennis O’Rourke, Brian Trenchard-Smith, John Hargreaves, stunts, smoke machines, D ead-E nd Drive-In, The M ore

Number 48 (October-November 1984): Ken Cameron, Michael Pattinson, Jan Sardi, Yoram Gross, Bodyline, The Slim

Number 58 (July 1986): Woody Allen, Reinhard^ Hauff, Orson Welles, the Cinémathèque Française, The Fringe

Waterfront, The B oy in the Bush, The Woman Suffers, Street Hero.

Number 47 (August 1984): Richard Lowenstein, Wim Wenders, David Brad­ bury, Sophia Turkiewicz, Hugh Hudson,

D usty Movie.

Number 49 (December 1984): Alain Resnais, Brian McKenzie, Angela Punch McGregor, Ennio Morricone, Jane Campion, horror films, N iel Lynne.

Things Change, K angaroo, Tracy.

Dwellers, Great E xpectations: The U ntold Story and The Last Frontier.

Number 59 (September 1986): Robert Altman, Paul Cox, Lino Brocka, Agnès Varda, the AFI Awards, The Movers.

Other Publications

M orant, B o d y Heat, The M an from Snow y River.

□ The Australian Motion Picture Yearbook 1980 $15 (Overseas. $30 surface, $40 air mail).

Number 37 (April 1982): Stephen MacLean, Jacki Weaver, Carlos Saura, Peter Ustinov, women in drama, M o n ke y Grip.

□ The Australian Motion Picture Yearbook 1981/82. $15 (Overseas: $30 surface, $40 air mail).

Number 15 (January 1978): Tom Cowan, Francois Truffaut, John Faulkner, Stephen Wallace, the Taviani brothers, Sri Lankan cinema, The Irishm an, The

Number 38 (June 1982): Geoff Burrowes, George Miller, James Ivory, Phil Noyce, Joan Fontaine, Tony Williams, law and insurance, Far East.

□ The Australian Motion Picture Yearbook 1983. $25 (Overseas: $35 surface, $45 air mail). '

C han t o f Jim m ie Blacksm ith.

Number 39 (August 1982): Helen Morse, Richard Mason, Anja Breien, David Millikan, Derek Granger, Norwegian cinema, National Film Archive, We o f the

Search o f Anna.

Number 14 (October 1977): Phil Noyce, Matt Carroll, Eric Rohmer, Terry Jackman, John Huston, L u ke 's K in g d o m , The La st Wave, Blue Fire Lady.

Number 16 (April-June 1978): Gunnel Lindblom, John Duigan, Steven Spiel­ berg, Tom Jeffrey, The Africa Project, Swedish Cinema, D aw n!, Patrick.

N ever Never.

88 — N ovem ber CINEMA PAPERS

□ The New Australian Cinema edited (Overseas: $20 surface. $26 air mail).

by Scott

Murray.

$14.95

□ The Documentary Film in Australia edited by Ross Lansell and Peter Beilby. $12.95 (Overseas: $18 surface, $24 air mail). i

This year Atlab is celebrating 25 years in the Australian film industry.

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For personal service with the professional result you can't go past Atlab Australia. To find out what Atlab can do for you contact Peter Willard.

Give us lO minutes of your time and we’ll give you 25 years of ours.

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Images through Innovation.

M otion Picture History

found inspiration in literature when Raymond Longford directed T he Sentimental Bloke’ in 1918. Shot on the streets of Woolloomooloo for around £2,000, it is one of the four surviving Longford silent films. On its release in 1919, T h e Bloke’ was widely praised in both Australia and England, and it is now regarded as Australia’s finest screen classic. Today the tradition continues with Eastman’s technological leadership and full service support structure making it the first choice in professional film and tape stock.

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Eastm an Classic 1919

This advertisement was prepared with the assistance of the National Film and Sound Archive.

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