Celebrating Gulpilil: New Writing – Where to Begin with David Gulpilil (for BFI website)

As part of efforts to ensure David Gulpilil’s life and work is celebrated in the UK, I have written a short feature article for the British Film Institute’s ‘Where to begin’ series, which aims to introduce audiences to a new star or filmmaker, and gives them tips on where to start, where to go next, and what to avoid.

As the BFI’s own blurb puts it:

One of the great presences in Australian film, David Gulpilil blazed a trail for Aboriginal representation on screen – from breakout hits Walkabout and Crocodile Dundee to more recent films that blasted away the stereotypes.

Where to begin with David Gulpilil might have some contentious choices, so feel free to let me know where you’d suggest people start, either in the comments below or via Twitter.

And, of course, don’t forget to keep an eye out for more celebrations of Gulpilil’s life and work, including a short retrospective (and my illustrated talk) at Chichester International Film Festival later this month.

NEW WRITING: Booklet Essay for The Proposition (BFI)

John Hillcoat’s scabrous frontier western The Proposition (2005) is among the best Australian films of the 21st century, and it was recently given the much deserved Blu-ray/UHD treatment from the wonderful folks at the British Film Institute. The release includes a wonderful 80-page book, to which I was delighted to contribute a short essay, alongside contributions from the film’s director, John Hillcoat, composer Warren Ellis, producer Cat Villiers, star Leah Purcell, and Professor Catriona Elder.

Continue reading “NEW WRITING: Booklet Essay for The Proposition (BFI)”

NEW PUBLICATION: Review of My Name is Gulpilil in History Australia

Production still from My Name is Gulpilil (Molly Reynolds, 2021)

The recent death of Yolŋu actor, dancer, and icon David Gulpilil Ridjimiraril Dalaithngu brought great sadness, as well as a flurry of celebration, as the world paid tribute to one of Australia’s finest talents. Early in 2021, I made a video essay for the BAFTSS Conference highlighting his centrality to the ‘body politic’ of post-1970s Australian cinema, which also doubled as a tribute of sorts.

Following this, I was invited to review Molly Reynolds’ bold, moving documentary collaboration with the great man, My Name is Gulpilil, for the ‘Off the Page’ section of the History Australia journal. The review has been available as a pre-print for a little while, but I’m pleased to say it has now got a place in Volume 18, Issue 4 of the journal, and is freely available via Open Access.

Continue reading “NEW PUBLICATION: Review of My Name is Gulpilil in History Australia”

FORTHCOMING: Ealing Abroad to be published by BFI/Bloomsbury in 2023

Having finally bitten the bullet and gotten a proposal together earlier this year, I’m pleased to say that my first monograph, Ealing Abroad: Post-War British Cinema, Settler Colonialism and Ealing Studios in Australia, will be published in 2023 by BFI/Bloomsbury.

This will be the first book-length study dedicated to the five features that Ealing made in Australia between 1945 and 1960, and seeks to position them as part of a broader trend in post-war British cinema that both embraced, and complicated, Britain’s imperial links in the 1940s and 50s, particularly as it relates to Britain’s former Dominions.

More to follow…

NEW PUBLICATION: An international production but ‘not much Australian’: authenticity and Australianness in Under Capricorn (Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism)

Presenting my paper at Under Capricorn + 70 (King’s College London, 5-6 September 2019). [Photo credit: @FilmStudiesFF]

Way back in September 2019, I was invited to participate in a symposium, organised by Prof. Charles Barr and Dr Stéphane Duckett, celebrating the 70th anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock’s much maligned, Australian-set melodrama, Under Capricorn (1949).

Tasked with offering a perspective on the film’s Australian connections, I presented a paper entitled ‘An international production but ‘not much Australian’: authenticity and Australianness in Under Capricorn’, and I’m pleased to say that an extended and revised version of that paper has now been published as part of a special dossier on the film, Under Capricorn: 70 Years On, published by Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism (open access).

Continue reading “NEW PUBLICATION: An international production but ‘not much Australian’: authenticity and Australianness in Under Capricorn (Movie: A Journal of Film Criticism)”

Screening Australia: Book Announcement

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As mentioned on Twitter a little while back, I am pleased to confirm that the book I am co-editing with Dr Peter Kilroy – Screening Australia: Culture, Media, Context – will be published in 2020 by Peter Lang, as part of their Australian Studies: Interdisciplinary Perspectives series.

The details are obviously still under wraps, but the edited collection stems from a seminar series held at the Menzies Australia Institute a few years ago, and should include chapters on topics including early television, screenwriting, documentary re-enactment, artists’ moving image, Indigenous comedy, the Australian gothic, geology and cinema, and much more.

Watch this space!