The Australian Film Revival

The Australian Film Revival: 70s, 80s, and Beyond explores the matrix of forces – artistic, cultural, economic, political, governmental, and ideological – that gave rise to, shaped, and sustained this remarkable film movement. This engaging new study brings fresh perspectives, insights, and innovative approaches to a variety of films from a diversity of filmmakers. Areas of focus include the complex and contentious subjects of masculinity, femininity and feminism, the maternal, as well as the Indigenous road film and the protean Australian gothic.

During the formative years of the revival, Australian films seemed to emerge from out of the blue in terms of global film history, with many features including Picnic at Hanging Rock (l975), Caddie (l976), The Last Wave (l977), The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (l978), and My Brilliant Career (l979) receiving international distribution and enthusiastic critical acclaim with strong box office results. By the time the film revival was in full swing, not only did Australian audiences flock to theaters to see "homegrown" films, but the quantity of Australian films on overseas screens was so high that ardent critics declared this outpouring an Australian "New Wave." The eyes of the world had turned to a compelling and largely unknown culture.

About the Author

Susan Barber is an Emeritus Professor in the Film, Television, and Media Studies Department in the School of Film and Television, Loyola Marymount University, USA, and has taught film history at LMU for over 30 years. She also taught at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Irvine, USA. She received her Masters and Doctorate degrees at the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California, USA. Her passion for Australian film began in the mid-1970s when the new wave of films from Australia began to screen in Los Angeles theaters, coincidentally when she began her graduate work at USC.

Inspired by this exciting new wave, she selected the film revival as her dissertation topic. She received several research grants to travel to Sydney, Melbourne, and Adelaide, Australia, in order to study the industry and its films first-hand. She had the pleasure of meeting many enthusiastic and talented filmmakers.