Australian
Screen

an NFSA website

Titles tagged with ‘experimental’

32 titles - sorted alphabetically or by year

A

Against the Grain: More Meat than Wheat feature film – 1980

A terrorist visits his family in Western Australia after detonating a bomb in Sydney on Anzac Day.

B

Breathing Under Water feature film – 1991

The director’s preoccupation with humankind’s tendency to self-destruct was one factor that lead to the creation of this complex film.

C

Camera Natura short film – 1986

This montage film is about the spirit of the land: charting the contours of myth, geography and landscape.

Cheap Blonde short film – 1998

A humorous experimental word game which examines gender representation and authorship in the cinema.

E

Episodes in Disbelief short film – 2000

This short animation is a reflection on childhood loss as the narrator attempts to come to terms with the death of her father.

Epsilon feature film – 1995

Rolf de Heer combines extraordinary time lapse photography with a drama that argues that the human race is killing the planet.

An Exercise in Discipline: Peel short film – 1982

In Jane Campion’s Palme d’Or winning student short, a bickering red-headed family on a weekend road trip reach a standoff by the side of a country road.

F

The First Thing I Remember short film – 2005

A short documentary in which 12 people recall their first memory.

From Sand to Celluloid – Black Man Down short film – 1996

This short experimental drama offers a spiritual alternative to fighting the system. To overcome injustice, return to your spiritual roots for healing to take place.

G

A Girl’s Own Story short film – 1983

In this short film by Jane Campion about changes afoot in 1960s society, teenage girls get in trouble for acting out Beatles concerts in the playground.

I

Indefinable Moods short film – 2001

This short animation by artist Kathy Smith is a surreal Australian dream landscape with music.

In the Head the Fire radio – 1966

This radiophonic piece written by composer Nigel Butterley in 1966 won the prestigious Prix Italia and set a benchmark for radio in Australia.

L

Living Room documentary – 1988

This beautiful, unsettling experimental documentary is a meditation on Australian suburbia and notions of home.

M

Magical Powers short film – 1936

The idea behind Magical Powers was to show the audience some of the illusions and simple tricks that can be created with a moving image camera.

Maidens documentary – 1978

Almost four years in the making, Maidens sparked impassioned debate and became compulsory viewing in women and film courses around the country.

Moodeitj Yorgas documentary – 1988

Moffatt’s work, influenced by cinema and pop culture, probes misconceptions about Aboriginality and explores gender, sexuality and identity.

My Mother Told Me short film – 2007

A fragmentary account of the horrors of war in Cambodia evolves into an exploration of its aftershocks in a family and the impact of cultural dislocation on identity.

N

Night documentary – 2007

The real time and time-lapse images in Night are edited seamlessly and, in combination with the music, become very meditative.

Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy short film – 1989

Tracey Moffatt continues to challenge the social construction of Aboriginality and how it is viewed nationally and internationally. Night Cries is a possible sequel to Jedda.

O

One Way Street: Fragments for Walter Benjamin documentary – 1992

One Way Street is a timely exploration of a figure who was on the way to being recognised among the great 20th century philosophers.

Oz – A Rock ‘n’ Roll Road Movie feature film – 1976

Director Chris Löfvén was heavily involved in the rock music scene. Oz was his attempt to rework The Wizard of Oz for a mid-1970s youth audience.

P

Palermo: ‘History’ Standing Still short film – 2004

Images of architecture and street life shot in Palermo in 1999 are edited as a mock-documentary to suggest a century of history, and to examine issues of authenticity in the period film.

Palm Beach feature film – 1979

The underrated Palm Beach, set on Sydney’s northern beaches, is very daring in its use of sound.

Passionless Moments short film – 1983

Jane Campion’s student short film delivers funny, fragmentary tales with an unsentimental whimsy.

The Piano Tuner short film – 1960

Amateur filmmakers the Straford Brothers started making this comedy short to test their newly purchased 16mm Bolex camera.

The Picture Woman short film – 1997

Over a series of seemingly unrelated images, a woman speaks in voice-over of taking a photo of herself every other day.

Pleasure Domes short film – 1987

The first Australian animation to compete at Cannes, Pleasure Domes is a reflection on the inevitability of attaching associations to perceptions of landscape.

S

Serious Undertakings documentary – 1983

Serious Undertakings breaks new ground in understanding the construction of meaning and exemplifies the impact of 1970s screen theory on making independent films.

Shadow Panic short film – 1989

An experiment in structure, Shadow Panic reflects the influence at the time of French screen theorists on Australian feminist filmmaking.

T

Third Person Plural feature film – 1978

A look at the emotional entanglements of four Sydney friends who take a weekend boating trip.

W

We Aim to Please short film – 1976

We Aim to Please incorporated experimental and feminist ideas and was a bold break away from the narrative films and factual documentaries of the time.

The Workman’s Nightmare short film – 1951

In the first short film from amateur filmmakers the Straford Brothers, a young man falls asleep on his work break and dreams that his ladder attacks him.