The Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals, and the Liberalisation of Film Censorship in Australia

The Federal Minister for Customs and Excise, Don Chipp, introduced the ‘R’ certificate for films in Australia in 1971. As is well known, Chipp’s decision was a key landmark in…

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‘Films for the intelligent layman’: The origins of the Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals (1952-1958)

This is the first of a sequence of three papers, which deal with the formative years (until 1972) of Australia's two major international film festivals, Sydney and Melbourne. These papers…

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‘Is Happiness Festival-Shaped Any Longer?’: The Melbourne and Sydney Film Festivals and the Growth of Australian Film Culture 1973-1977.

This is the fourth in a series of papers discussing the history of the Melbourne and Sydney Film Festivals. Three of our previous papers examined the period from the Festivals’…

Continue Reading‘Is Happiness Festival-Shaped Any Longer?’: The Melbourne and Sydney Film Festivals and the Growth of Australian Film Culture 1973-1977.

‘Separating the Sheep from the Goats’: The Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals (1965-1972)

This paper is the third and final instalment of an organisational history of the formative years of the Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals. Over the period from 1965-1972 the two…

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‘Give It a Go You Apes’: Relations Between the Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals, and the Early Australian Film Industry (1954–1970)

This paper extends our previous analyses of the early history of the Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals, by examining the relations between the festivals and the Australian film industry, from…

Continue Reading‘Give It a Go You Apes’: Relations Between the Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals, and the Early Australian Film Industry (1954–1970)