AFW + NFSA #79: At Uluru
7:30PM Tuesday 28 July
The Brunswick Green, 313/315 Sydney Rd, Brunswick
$10 on the door. 16mm projection
Corinne (1928-2015) and Arthur Cantrill (b.1938) are two of Australia’s most prolific and celebrated experimental filmmakers. They started out making documentary films for the ABC but after a formative experience attending EXPRMNTL festival in Knokke-le-Zoute in 1967, they transitioned into a materialist-based experimental filmmaking practice. From then on, they tirelessly interrogated the film form, finding the Australian landscape to often be an appropriate subject. Alongside contributing the largest body of experimental film works in Australia they famously hosted screenings of their films in their Castlemaine home, and wrote and edited Cantrills filmmnotes for almost three decades (1971-2000), adding deeply to avant-garde film practice and Australia’s cultural history.
“If there is a social intention in landscape films, it is to create an awareness of the environment, of the original Australian landscapes, and to contribute to a calm understanding of their significance. In this way, we hope our films will relate to the political struggles against uranium mining, deforestation, sand extraction, and, above all, the fight for Aboriginal land rights.” (Corinne and Arthur Cantrill, 1970)
At Uluru, 16mm, 1978, 80mins
“The filmmaking in At Uluru is informed by the Aboriginal traditions involving the monolith but is not intended to convey any specific information about mythological significance. Rather, it is a film of the rock itself, transcending its uses by any human society and regarding it as having a life of its own. The film is structured in a series of distinct sequences…the soundtrack in At Uluru…alternates sequences of natural sound effects with silence.” (Corinne and Arthur Cantrill)
At Uluru will be preceded by AFW founder, Dianna Barrie’s, film:
The Rocks: Kata Tjuṯa, West of Uluru, 16mm, 2026, 5mins
Looking at the present, as though the far future were dreaming of its ancient past – an 'iconogenic' vision of Australia.
Still from The Rocks: Kata Tjuṯa, West of Uluru