Wednesday, November 05, 2008

Australia on Film



I may actually go and see Baz Luhrmann's Australia as it will be showing here in the far north of Sweden in about a month.
What I am more excited about is the Australian Screen website. It is a treasure trove of Australia cinema going back to its earliest years. There are online streams from hundreds of films and some are in their entirety. Teaching notes and resources such as still images and downloadable segments make the Australian Screen site a valuable potential teaching tool. You can register as a member (there is also a Facebook group) and receive emails and make contacts with others interesting in the amazing world of Australian film.
I was happy to reconnect with a favorite film of mine, The Year My Voice Broke. Not easy to find a copy of these days, but a film that reminds me so much of growing up in rural Queensland.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi James,

Australia looks like a must see. I am looking forward to it. I have read very little of Australian history but what I have read underscores how tough the early settlers did it.

There has been a bit of controversy around Luhrmann because Tourism Australia has paid him $40 Million dollars to do tourism ads for Australia. When a lot of people are saying Luhrmann is actually promoting his film ...

The Year My Voice Broke was a great film. I always thought Noah Taylor would go on to bigger things.

I was at Helidon on the weekend for a paragliding comp with the Toowoomba club. They have a mountain flying site a few K's south east of Table Top mountain in behind Helidon. I did not go up to T-ba but the drive out brought back a lot of memories. So little changes. There is a lot of nothing out that way. I saw a billboard for $350000 blocks of land out back of Gatton.

Ben

James Barrett said...

Hi Ben.
yes, I heard a bit about the tourism deals and Australia. It was also interesting to watch both the American and Australian previews on Youtube, as they are quite different.
Not much changes in Helidon. There was a religious cult based there for a while but I think they have moved on. In Gatton they have the Potatoe Festival and that's about it....Toowoomba feels more like a suburb of Brisbane than it used to when we were there. There is a lot more going on in T-Bar these days but not much in the way of alternative culture. More cafes and such.