This addition to Intellect's Directory of World Cinema series turns the spotlight on Australia and New Zealand and offers an in-depth and exciting look at the cinema produced in these two countries since the turn of the twentieth century. Though the two nations share considerable cultural and economic connections, their film industries remain distinct, marked by differences of scale, level of government involvement and funding and relations with other countries and national cinemas. Through essays about prominent genres and themes, profiles of directors and comprehensive reviews of significant titles, this user-friendly guide explores the diversity and distinctiveness of films from Australia and New Zealand from Whale Rider to The Piano to Wolf Creek.

Building on and bringing up to date the material presented in the first instalment of Directory of World Cinema: Australia and New Zealand, this volume continues the exploration of the cinema produced in Australia and New Zealand since the beginning of the twentieth century. Among the additions to this volume are in-depth treatments of the locations that feature prominently in the countries’ cinema. Essays by leading critics and film scholars consider the significance of the outback and the beach in films, which are evoked as a liminal space in Long Weekend and a symbol of death in Heaven’s Burning, among other films. Other contributions turn the spotlight on previously unexplored genres and key filmmakers, including Jane Campion, Rolf de Heer, Charles Chauvel and Gillian Armstrong. Accompanying the critical essays in this volume are more than one hundred and fifty new film reviews, complemented by film stills and significantly expanded references for further study. From The Piano to Crocodile Dundee, Directory of World Cinema: Australia and New Zealand 2 completes this comprehensive treatment of a consistently fascinating national cinema.

Filmmakers have honed their skills and many have achieved critical and popular success at home and abroad, as have actors and other crew. American filmmakers and companies have found it cheaper to make films in Australia because wages and salaries are lower, tax rebates have been attractive and the expertise in most areas of filmmaking is comparable to that of anywhere in the world. At the same time, Australian audiences still enjoy watching Australian films, making some of them profitable, even if this is a small profit when considered in Hollywood terms. New Zealand filmmakers, cast and crew have shown that they are equal to the world’s best in making films with international themes, while other films have shown that the world is interested in New Zealand narratives and settings. Increased support for Maori filmmakers and stories has had a significant impact on production levels and on the diversity of stories that now reach the screen. It has also helped create more viable career paths for those who continue to be based in their home country. This second edition of Historical Dictionary of Australian and New Zealand Cinema contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 700 cross-referenced entries on leading films as well as many directors, writers, actors and producers. It also covers early pioneers, film companies, genres and government bodies.

Australian Genre Film interrogates key genres at the core of Australia’s so-called new golden age of genre cinema, establishing the foundation on which more sustained research on film genre in Australian cinema can develop. The book examines what characterises Australian cinema and its output in this new golden age, as contributors ask to what extent Australian genre film draws on widely understood (and largely Hollywood-based) conventions, as compared to culturally specific conventions of genre storytelling. As such, this book offers a comprehensive and up-to-date survey of Australian genre film, undertaken through original analyses of 13 significant Australian genres: action, biopics, comedy, crime, horror, musical, road movie, romance, science fiction, teen, thriller, war, and the Western. This book will be a cornerstone work for the burgeoning field of Australian film genre studies and a must-read for academics; researchers; undergraduate students; postgraduate students; and general readers interested in film studies, media studies, cultural studies, Australian studies, and sociology.

This edited collection assesses the complex historical and contemporary relationships between US and Australian cinema by tapping directly into discussions of national cinema, transnationalism and global Hollywood. While most equivalent studies aim to define national cinema as independent from or in competition with Hollywood, this collection explores a more porous set of relationships through the varied production, distribution and exhibition associations between Australia and the US. To explore this idea, the book investigates the influence that Australia has had on US cinema through the exportation of its stars, directors and other production personnel to Hollywood, while also charting the sustained influence of US cinema on Australia over the last hundred years. It takes two key points in time—the 1920s and 1930s and the last twenty years—to explore how particular patterns of localism, nationalism, colonialism, transnationalism and globalisation have shaped its course over the last century. The contributors re-examine the concept and definition of Australian cinema in regard to a range of local, international and global practices and trends that blur neat categorisations of national cinema. Although this concentration on US production, or influence, is particularly acute in relation to developments such as the opening of international film studios in Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide and the Gold Coast over the last thirty years, the book also examines a range of Hollywood financed and/or conceived films shot in Australia since the 1920s.

The first comprehensive volume of original essays on Australian screen culture in the twenty-first century. A Companion to Australian Cinema is an anthology of original essays by new and established authors on the contemporary state and future directions of a well-established national cinema. A timely intervention that challenges and expands the idea of cinema, this book brings into sharp focus those facets of Australian cinema that have endured, evolved and emerged in the twenty-first century. The essays address six thematically-organized propositions – that Australian cinema is an Indigenous screen culture, an international cinema, a minor transnational imaginary, an enduring auteur-genre-landscape tradition, a televisual industry and a multiplatform ecology. Offering fresh critical perspectives and extending previous scholarship, case studies range from The Lego Movie, Mad Max, and Australian stars in Hollywood, to transnational co-productions, YouTube channels, transmedia and nature-cam documentaries. New research on trends – such as the convergence of television and film, digital transformations of screen production and the shifting roles of women on and off-screen – highlight how established precedents have been influenced by new realities beyond both cinema and the national. Written in an accessible style that does not require knowledge of cinema studies or Australian studies Presents original research on Australian actors, such as Cate Blanchett and Chris Hemsworth, their training, branding, and path from Australia to Hollywood Explores the films and filmmakers of the Blak Wave and their challenge to Australian settler-colonial history and white identity Expands the critical definition of cinema to include YouTube channels, transmedia documentaries, multiplatform changescapes and cinematic remix Introduces readers to founding texts in Australian screen studies A Companion to Australian Cinema is an ideal introductory text for teachers and students in areas including film and media studies, cultural and gender studies, and Australian history and politics, as well as a valuable resource for educators and other professionals in the humanities and creative arts.

Since New Zealand Cinema burst on to the global stage in the late 1970s, it has maintained a high-profile presence, capturing the imagination and enthusiasm of both national and international audiences, through such films as Vigil, Whale Rider and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Contemporary New Zealand Cinema provides an astute and definitive analysis of this fascinating industry. Focusing on industrial and commercial concerns, questions of aesthetics and form, and the cultural debates surrounding nation and identity, the book surveys the full range of filmmaking in New Zealand. It displays the rich diversity of film production in the country, and in doing so highlights a number of specific contexts - Maori, documentary and short filmmaking, literary adaptations, the development of the national Film Commission and Archive, marketing and censorship, in addition to explorations into the place of bicultural relations, spirituality, masculinity and disability - that have created a cinema of global significance. Featuring critical accounts of internationally-acclaimed features like The Piano and Once Were Warriors, as well as the growth of the national infrastructure that made such films possible, Contemporary New Zealand Cinema is the most thorough study available of a vibrant filmmaking culture. The book also includes a fully comprehensive filmography detailing all New Zealand feature and television films.