NATIONAL 6 -(Spotlight Weekly)]

Cultural Contacts

The Australian Embassy is organizing a film festival in Kathmandu from January 25 to 28

By A CORESSPONDENT

Although Nepal and Australia established relations a long time ago and many Nepalis are living, working and studying in Australia, a large number of Nepalis do not have a taste of Australian films. To bridge that gap, in conjunction with the Australian Film Commission, the Australian Embassy will be hosting a festival of contemporary Australian Film from January 25-28.

Envoy Conroy : Australian Films for Nepalese audiences

"The film festival will help Nepalese to understand the development of Australian film and its unique characters in the world," said Australian Ambassador Crispin Conroy. "I hope Nepalese viewers will enjoy Australian films, as it has its own different taste."

According to the embassy, the feature and short films in the festival were selected from a package prepared by the Australian Film Commission for use by Australian Embassies called "The Embassy Roadshow" under the auspices of the Australian International Cultural Council. The aim of the project is to provide an insight into Australia, its landscape and lifestyle, its politics, society and culture.

"Looking at their international success, you will find something interesting in Australian films. Australian films and actors won many academy awards this year," said Diana Summer, script writer of "Caravan" and documentaries like "Honey Hunters".

"The first Australian films were produced in 1896, mainly unedited documentary films about wharves at Brisbane, the Manly Ferry, horses races. But in 1906 Australia produced the world's first full-length film: the story of the Ned Kelly gang. Interesting to know that a new film on the Ned Kelly Gang will be directed by academy award winning Neil Jordan this year and based on the recent Booker Prize winning novel by Peter Carey," said Summer, director of Johns Hopkins University office in Kathmandu.

Nepal and Australia are far away from each other but the people share some commonalities. "Nepalis and Australians share a love of cinema ó in fact Australians are among the leading cinema-goers in the world. In fact, so much so that Australia is a testing ground for the US majors. In the first decade of the twentieth century, Australia was the largest film producing country in the world," said Summer.

The Embassy Roadshow brings contemporary Australian films to Kathmandu, with offerings for a broad range of tastes. From the bittersweet coming-of-age drama "Looking for Alibrandi" to the moving father-son relationship (including acceptance of the son's homosexuality) in the "The Sum of Us", the films have tough universal themes like family and belonging, but in a distinctly Australian way.

"One of the reasons for the renaissance is that Australians are telling their own stories ó and you will see in the films being presented at this upcoming film festival that they each tell a story of a facet of Australian culture and society. Some of it is raw and brutally honest, but each tells a fine story," said Summer, an Australian citizen.

Australia has a long history in producing films, which project the Australian identity in all its wonderful diversity, urban and outback, indigenous and migrant and the settled and the searching. "From 1906 to 1911 Australia produced more feature films than any other country in the world. Until the time of the depression, Australia consistently produced films particularly about Australian life, some of which became masterpieces of film making, such as "The Sentimental Bloke," said Summer.

Australia has many renowned international actors. "It wasn't until the 1970s that there was a renaissance of Australian film making with the debut of directors who went on to international acclaim: Bruce Beresford ("Breaker Morant" and "The Untouchables") Peter Weir ("Picnic at Hanging Rock" and "Wave") and George Miller ("Mad Max", "The Man from Snowy River", and "Babe"), Gillian Armstrong ("Getting of Wisdom, Oscar and Lucinda"). More recently Jane Campion ("An Angel at my Table" and "Piano") and Baz Luhrmann ("Strictly Ballroom, "Romeo and Juliet" and "Moulin Rouge")," said Summer. n