by Richard James Allen
In nature, when a big tree falls, the little tree underneath it flourishes. To the observer, the growth can be a surprise like – ‘I had no idea of its potential! I thought that was a small tree’.
So it is in the film industry. Australian films, perceived as naturally small trees, are flourishing at the moment in cinemas, because Covid has interrupted the supply chain of Hollywood blockbusters. Something similar happened in the 1970s, the golden era of the Australian Film Renaissance. Its origins are complex, but include, arguably, the longer-term effects of the 1948 US Supreme Court Paramount anti-trust decision (which separated distribution from production). This hastened the demise of the Hollywood studio system, leaving space on cinema screens for the great era of European Art Cinema and the rise of Independent Film. In the USA, this process began in the 1950s and culminated in the 1970s. In Australia, despite a few valiant efforts earlier on, this happened in the 1970s. Exhibitors were able to exercise more freedom of choice in programming and some chose to champion the new Australian cinema in classics like Picnic at Hanging Rock and My Brilliant Career.
To study the twists and turns of Australian cinema, it is alarming to discover how subject our independent cultural voice is to influences of international economic and cultural trends, as well as the vagaries of domestic government and industry policy. And these golden moments, when big trees fall, the sun comes out and it also rains, don’t last. But at such moments our indefatigable will to creativity immediately flourishes, or rather, stops being repressed.
Are we in such a moment now? It appears so… Side swiped by Covid, Hollywood product is faltering, while simultaneously traditional theatrical distributors are threatened by their own bigger rivals, the streamers. House-bound audiences have been trawling through their set top boxes and are exhausted by the emptiness of so much online content. A few visionary theatrical distributors are looking to support vibrant local production. Will it last? No. Can we celebrate it? Yes.
New Australian films like Bloodshot Heart, premiering at the Fantastic Film Festival Australia and moving into limited national cinema distribution thereafter, are set to test another great potential parallel to an earlier era. In the 1970s, Australian audiences and film critics were not only happy to see non-Hollywood product, but they embraced brash new cinematic visions from Independent filmmakers. The Australian films that have done well so far, like The Dry, may be expertly executed, but Bloodshot Heart seeks to go further. It is a film, like Picnic at Hanging Rock, which deliberately embraces a hybrid of European Art Cinema and Independent Film, woven together with a range of genre aesthetics. It is so richly produced in its visual and aural textures that it is literally a siren call back into the cinematic experience.
Bloodshot Heart is screening in Sydney and Melbourne at the Fantastic Film Festival Australia
Ritz Cinemas, 45 St Pauls Street, Randwick NSW
Fri 23 April,
6:30pm + Q&A
Tues 27 April,
8:40pm +Q&A
Thurs 29 April,
8:40pm
Lido Cinemas, 675 Glenferrie Road, Hawthorn VIC:
Sun 25 April,
6:30pm + Q&A
Wed 28 April,
6:30pm
Bookings: https://www.fantasticfilmfestival. com.au/films/bloodshot-heart
Bloodshot Heart‘s national release, through FanForce Films, begins on Thursday May 13, at the Ritz Cinemas, 45 St Pauls Street, Randwick NSW; with more screenings, around the country, to follow: https://fan-force.com/films/bloodshot-heart/
