Australian
Screen

There are no end credits on the film and only intertitles to hint of the film’s origins. It is therefore unclear as to whether The Rising Generation was a promotional film made by one of South Australia’s government departments, or a film made by another production entity. The film emphasises the importance and quality of education, but also focuses heavily on primary production and the importance of agriculture in South Australia and could therefore have been produced jointly by the Department of Education and the Department of Primary Industry. Whatever its origins, the scenes in the 14 minutes of surviving footage provide a great snapshot of activities in the schoolyards of the time.

The print of The Rising Generation was deposited at the National Film and Sound Archive by Vic Reeves. Reeves was an Adelaide based film director and picture show man. His love of film led him to collect and show films of early scenes of daily life in the Adelaide area. These screenings included a number of presentations in the 1970s and 1980s to the Historical Society of South Australia. The Rising Generation was most likely one of the films he screened.