Opening on 21 September, the Royal Academy’s Australia exhibition proposes that the story of Australia, of Australian art, and its people is inextricably linked to its landscape: ‘an ancient land of dramatic beauty, a source of production, enjoyment, relaxation and inspiration, yet seemingly loaded with mystery and danger’.

Throughout September and October the BFI host Australia – Shifting Sands Season.
29th September – 10th October

This thematic is also prevalent in Australian cinema – the landscape is often described as ‘another character’, evoking both its potency and its agency, with the power to shape the story. This notion shifts between European settler beliefs of ‘the land’ as something to be owned or overcome, and the Indigenous Australian belief in ‘country’ in which law, language, storytelling and spirituality are entwined with the land. The referendum ensuring Aboriginal Australians would be ‘counted’ was only held in 1967. This symbolic change predated the resurgence of an Australian ‘national’ cinema in the 1970s.

After Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout (1970), filmmakers such as Peter Weir and Fred Schepisi – with The Last Wave (1977) and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1978) respectively – began to ensure that Aboriginal characters counted too. But it was not until the mid-1990s and 2000s when Indigenous Australians got behind the camera, such as Tracey Moffatt with beDevil (1993) and Rachel Perkins One Night the Moon (2002) and a new wave of filmmaking voices were heard bringing with them stories of heartbreaking inequality, as seen in Rabbit Proof Fence (2002), respect for the ancient folklore from Ten Canoes (2006) – starring David Gulpilil who, 40 years on, is one of Australia’s most recognizable stars – and hope for a united future The Sapphires (2012).

MORE INFO

Full full listings and timetables please visit the BFI main site here.

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Winners can pick which film and at which time they would like to attend (Subject to availability).

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Who is the director or Rabbit Proof Fence?

a) Phillip Noyce
b) Lou Diamond Phillips
c) Diarmuid Noyes

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