Documentary News Letter (1947-1949)

HOC I MINI \RV IT! M NEWS Film Society Movement in Australia by MALCOLM OTTON /when in 1940 John Grierson came to Australia to strengthen Dominion ties on behalf of the Imperial Relations Trust (and was sent, incidentally, straight to see M(iM). there wasn't a solitary Film Society in the length and breadth of the continent. In the State capitals, a small cinema screened an occasional French film, a Kermesse Henrique or a Cm net de But. the Post Office had a few prints of the GPO Film Unit's documentaries, but public taste for the staple fare of the English Film Societies was yet to be awakened. But the War years proved that Grierson's suggestions did not fall on deaf ears. Stemming from his talks with various Federal and State Ministers, Documentary Film Committees were set up in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne. Adelaide and Brisbane. They were financed by the Imperial Relations Trust, and immediately proved that there was a lively demand for nonfiction films in Australia. Though short of staff and limited in funds, these State Film Centres swiftly created a wide appreciation of the manifold uses of 16 mm film. Today, financed by their respective State Education Departments, acting too as distributing agents for the National Film Library established in Canberra in 1945, the Centres are the axletrees of the Film Society movement. During the mid-war years, the spate of documentary films from Great Britain and America rapidly widened the Australian non-theatrical audience, and with the armed forces putting 16 mm to full use, there sprang up a vivid awareness of the power of the cinema as a tool of social criticism and educational construction. 1944 saw leader articles and national broadcasts on Documentary, pioneered by A. K. Stout, Chairman of the NSW Documentary Films Committee and Professor of Philosophy at Sydney University (late of the Fdinburgh Film Guild), leading to the foundation of the first Australian Film Society, the Sydney Workers' Educational Association Film Group. Later that year the Australian Film Society. (Victorian Division) was set up in Melbourne, while early in 1945 the Sydney Film Society was inaugurated. Then a Society developed around the Canberra Film Centre, several other cities followed suit, and today there are between fifteen and twenty full-time Australian Film Societies in action, with more in process of formation — apart, of course, from countless groups centred around Parents' and Citizens' Associations, Trade Union Clubs, and various social organizations using narrow-gauge film for cultural and educational purposes. From this brief flashback it is clear that the Australian Film Society movement has a background quite different from that of the British movement. Both are basically concerned with screening the best available films, keen to give screen-space to the new, the unusual and the experimental in cinema. But here in Australia the emphasis has been perforce upon the factual rather than upon the fiction film. Subscriptions, and funds, have always been low, and the cost of importing Continental features absolutely prohibitive. The few features available have come from one or two small independent importers, or from the Russian Embassy, which brought in such godsends as Alexander Sevsky, and Mark Donskoi's The Rainbow. But even if more 35 mm features were available, very few Societies would benefit, as the Projectionists' Union bans Sunday screenings, and no cinema will consider one-night stands except on exorbitant terms. 'Trade' opposition to the Film Societies in the past has ranged from violent antagonism to splenetic apathy, but in the past six months, with the belated but financially successful importation of a few such excellent productions as Les Enfants du Paradis, Open City, Symphonie Pastorale, and Les Visiteurs du Soir, two or three managers are beginning to believe (we hope) that the folk who enjoy 'foreign' films are neither long-hairs, 'reffos' nor agents of a foreign power, but normal adults with a bias against stereotyped entertainment. 'The Trade' withholds all films, no matter how old, from the Film Societies unless they can fulfil the impossible condition of screening them in a commercial theatre under 'trade' conditions. Sixteen millimetre prints of British features such as Odd Man Out and Brief Encounter were recently imported by one firm, but their distribution to anyone except boarding schools, nunneries, etc., was immediately banned by 'the trade'. Inquiries made recently about 35 mm prints of ( 'itizen Kane and Grapes of Wrath met the reply that all prints had been destroyed. Sixteen millimetre then, bless its heart, has proved and will continue to be the backbone of the Australian Film Societies. Much may be lost, we realize, in quality of sound and image, but perhaps this is compensated for by the friendly informality of Society screenings in the smaller halls and clubrooms so suitable for 16 mm protection. Some country groups, isolated by hundreds of miles, owe their entire existence to the portable substandard projector and the low cost of freight for its films. An attempt is now being made by one or two commercial distributors to build up rural circuits among backblock audiences— this being a field which could be tilled very fruitfully by the State Agriculture Departments. Relations between the Australian Societies are remarkably cordial, considering the long distances separating them and the natural rivalry of the city groups to scoop the all-too-rare new films. 1949 should see the establishment of a Commonwealth Federation of Film Societies, giving the movement an authoritative national status. In Victoria and Tasmania the move is afoot to set up State Federations, which will collaborate, it is hoped, with the Canberra I ilm Centre and the Federation of NSW Film Societies. This latter body, inaugurated earl) m 1948 after nearly a year's spadework by the Sydney Film Society, now has some twelve full-time Film Societies as members, and eight part-time Film Groups as affiliates. A regular bulletin is in production, a State Convention of Film Societies with a weekend Summer School is on the calendar later this year, and a representative, John Heyer, Director of the new Shell Australian Film Unit, has been appointed to the NSV\ Documentary and Educational Films Council. That Australian Film Society members do not join up merely to 'see something different' is evident from these aims, taken from the federation Constitution: 'To secure representation on Government and other Committees relating to films.' 'To improve the standard of commercial film programmes for adults and children.' 'To increase the supply of films available to Film Societies and to improve non-theatrical film distribution generally.' There is general appreciation on all Society Committees of the importance of film as a mass medium, and perhaps a brief survey of the activities of that Society to which 1 belong, the Sydney Film Society, will demonstrate the truth of this. The Society has two regular monthly screenings which are advertised as a matter of policy in the Press and open to the general public. A monthly discussion group argues the merits and techniques of films such as Sucksdorff's Rhythm of a City or Jennings' Cumberland Story. A monthly eight-page magazine with a rising circulation of about 800 is printed (exchanges are welcome), and a growing library of film books is available to members. Last winter a course of lectures on Film Production was held, among the speakers being Stanley Hawes, Harry Watt, and Geoffrey Bell. Social evenings are popular, and discussion is encouraged at all screenings, where distinguished visitors such as Eugene Goossens or Ralph Smart are invited to speak. A Scientific 1 ilm Group died an untimely death last year, but a production unit is now mooted; the Committee is constantly conferring with educational and cultural groups to further the appreciation of film in the city. Annual subscription is £1, with levy for the Federation, and concessions for students and others under 2 1 . Much encouragement and assistance has been given to the Film Society movement, particularly in NSW, by the United Kingdom Information Ollice and the Canadian National Film Board, which both have 16 mm film libraries, and ajso by the British Council. The growing output of Australian documentaries from the Film Division of the Commonwealth Department of Information, under Producer-m-C hief Stanley Hawes, a colleague of Grierson's in Canada and founder of the Birmingham et>. has also given audiences considerable Uh\\ thought on home affairs \ spice of variety comes on occasion, too, from the small collections of the I tench. C zech and Swedish c onsulales continued on p..