The lost years: where have Australia’s film classics gone?

Around Christmas of 2019 the veteran Australian filmmaker Nadia Tass was on holiday in New York, catching up with old friends. One day she visited the home of actors Hugh Jackman and Deborra-Lee Furness, where she was surprised to find Jackman and some of his brothers were watching one of their favourite Australian films: Tass’ delightful 1990 teen comedy The Big Steal, starring a young Ben Mendelsohn and Claudia Karvan.

“They were saying that they loved it,” Tass recalls, “But at the time could they find it on any of the streaming services here? Absolutely not.”

Ben Mendelsohn with Claudia Karvan in Nadia Tass’ The Big Steal.

The question of what Australian films you can find on our main streaming platforms is a thorny one (when asked to discuss their movie licensing, Amazon replied with “no comment”). The list of what’s available on commercial platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Stan (which is owned by Nine Entertainment, publisher of this masthead), Apple TV+, and Disney+ is limited, especially as you turn back the clock and search through the 20th century. It’s far easier to stream a Hollywood film from the 1990s than an Australian one; Jurassic Park is available, but not Strictly Ballroom (see below).

Many Australian filmmakers and industry leaders are worried this country’s rich and influential cinema history is under-represented on the viewing option that is becoming increasingly prevalent. While they are comparatively new options compared to broadcast television and even pay television, streaming services such as Netflix and Stan already have subscriber bases that number in the millions, and will continue to expand.

“It’s important that Australian films are not just allowed to fall into the ether and that they can be easily found by an audience,” says Matthew Deaner, CEO of Screen Producers Australia. “If they can’t be seen by an audience then they start not to exist, and that can happen quickly.”

There is no smoking gun answer to the scarcity of Australian movies on the major streaming services. For a start, they’re commercial operation, as distinct from public broadcast offshoots such as SBS on Demand, and the market has established it’s high profile new content that drives buzz and monthly subscriptions. In some cases that can be new Australian works, as with Stan’s recent debut of the elegiac horror film Relic, but back catalogue is a low priority no matter how many accolades the titles collected back in the day.

High-profile Australian films such as Crocodile Dundee are bought by streaming services, while lesser-known films struggle. Credit: Getty

Some rights holders prefer to make their work available as a direct pay-per-view charge rather than as part of a subscription library, seeing a better profit through scarcity. It’s also a complex and often expensive process to bring a film into the streaming age. Unlike Hollywood, where the studio system has held sway and built vast libraries, most Australian films have one or more specific rights holders.

“You’ve got lots of smaller businesses – I look after 500 of them – that own bits and pieces of rights and there’s no easy aggregation point for them,” Deaner says. “There’s also an efficiency thing – the streamers have only got so many staff and if it’s a nightmare to drag out the rights for a film.”

Each Australian film has to be tracked down and secured, which can be a rabbit hole experience. In some cases you’re not dealing with the producer, but their estate. Expectations can vary wildly, and the offers are not lucrative unless the film has the profile of a Crocodile Dundee (now streaming on Stan). Beyond that, there’s issues of quality and format: films often shot on 35mm stock need to be restored and transferred to digital standards. What’s required is a middleman.

“That’s what I’m meant to do,” says Jeff Harrison, managing director of Umbrella Entertainment. “I say to producers, ‘Listen, you’ve got an old film there, but it shouldn’t be sitting in the garage. Why don’t we get it out and try to get people to watch it again?’ We’ve restored many Fred Schepisi films, many Bruce Beresford films.”

“I say to producers, ’You’ve got an old film there, but it shouldn’t be in the garage. Why don’t we try to get people to watch it again?

Jeff Harrison

Umbrella’s focus has long been DVDs, and that’s the case with their Sunburnt Screens series, which is bringing back films such as Peter Weir’s 1977 thriller The Last Wave or the 1975 shearer drama Sunday Too Far Away, starring Jack Thompson. Fully restored, these movies are being relaunched as bonus-laden and handsomely packaged Blu-ray DVDs. The physical edition will get a long window of exclusivity, followed by a digital edition purchase, and finally general availability on a streaming service.

“You’ll see a change, but it’s just not visible yet. It’s just a little further down the line,” says Harrison of the domestic selection on streaming services. “There was a lack of interest, but I think it’s changed.”

Harrison was also able to broker a deal with Amazon Prime Video for the streaming rights to The Big Steal and another beloved Tass film, the 1986 comedy Malcolm. Tass and her husband, the pictures writer and cinematographer David Parker, were producers on both films, and have worked to maintain and promote them here and abroad. But not every valuable Australian movie has dedicated guardians.

“The government needs to make sure we have the support as filmmakers. I don’t think they understand how difficult an industry this is. Just because we’re involved in entertainment it doesn’t mean that it’s easy,” Tass says. “We also need Screen Australia to get involved and look at this problem and make sure that we get our films on the current platforms, both here and internationally, so that the people who might watch them don’t forget those gems.”

Foley (Jack Thompson) and Tom West (Rob Bruning) at work shearing in Sunday Too Far Away.

The perspective of Screen Producers Australia is that if market forces doesn’t spur demand for Australian movies, government intervention might be warranted. While it’s often mentioned that the European Union legislatively compelled streaming services such as Netflix to ensure that 30 per cent of their productions were made in Europe, the same figure equally applies to their movie libraries.

Ensuring the menus of streaming services are adequately stocked with Australian faces, history, and ideas straddles business and culture. If the next generation of budding filmmakers can’t readily access Australian movies – in the same way their predecessors could scan the racks at a video shop in the 1980s – then there’s a chance our collective national voice gets stymied.

“A number of times we’ve been eclipsed by international trends, so we had to start from scratch and build up again. It happened in the 1930s and in the 1970s,” Nadia Tass says. “We have to trust that the work we’ve done in the past can still speak now. The experience audiences have had with our works can survive and communicate with different generations.”

TELL ’EM THEY’RE STREAMING

Paul Mercurio and Tara Morice in Strictly Ballroom.

How big are the gaps in Australia’s screen history on the major streaming services? Here are 10 major – whether critically or commercially – local features you can’t view on any of the leading streaming platforms.

Newsfront (1978): Headlined by a stellar performance from Bill Hunter, Phillip Noyce’s second film charted Australia’s 1950s history and social mores through the lens of rival newsreels companies in the final years before television’s spread. Family rancour, workplace struggle, and political conflict all coalesce.

Gallipoli (1981): Peter Weir’s 1981 classic, with Mel Gibson and Mark Lee as young sporting rivals turned comrades, comprehensively addresses Australia’s use of World War I to help forge a national identity. The carnage eventually suffered in the 1915 campaign is staggering, the final scene devastating.

High Tide (1987): Gillian Armstrong’s landmark 1979 debut My Brilliant Career was restored in 2018 and is now available on several streaming services, but there are invaluable gaps in her filmography including this masterfully bitter-sweet drama about a wandering woman (Judy Davis) who encounters a teenage girl (Claudia Karvan) she bonds with.

Noah Taylor and Loene Carmen in The Year My Voice Broke.

The Year My Voice Broke (1987): Set in rural NSW in the 1960s and boasting a trio of compelling lead performances from then teenagers Loene Carmen, Noah Taylor and Ben Mendelsohn, John Duigan’s affecting drama is a benchmark Australian coming-of-age movie.

Ghosts… of the Civil Dead (1988): With a cast that includes David Field and Nick Cave, the uncompromising debut of director John Hillcoat (The Proposition, The Road) is a prison drama about the chilling dehumanisation of incarceration, as inmates and guards alike fall prey to the official machinations of a private facility

Strictly Ballroom (1992): Baz Luhrmann’s breakthrough brought high style and engorged colour to Australia’s suburbs, as drama and farce intermingle in the tale of ambition and angst centred on a young ballroom dancer (Paul Mercurio) with glorious moves and a rebellious heart that helped conquer the box office.

The Boys (1998): An unnerving, desperate invocation of everyday evil, Rowan Woods’ intimate drama takes place in the shadow of a horrific crime, which hangs over the long day in which a suburban family implodes with the return home of a domineering son (David Wenham) from a year in jail. It remains absolutely compelling.

Chopper (2000): Full of memorable quotes, Andrew Dominik announced himself with this subversively sharp portrait of the late criminal turned icon Mark Brandon Read. A study of legend, it found the caustic cost in the traditional biopic with a terrific and transformative lead performance from Eric Bana.

Toni Collette and Gotaro Tsunashima in Japanese Story.

Japanese Story (2003): Full of telling but unspoken detail, Sue Brooks’ outback drama inverts the clash of cultures plot when an aristocratic Japanese scion (Gotaro Tsunashima) is deposited in the care of a hardy geologist (Toni Collette). The film’s refusal to be rushed in its storytelling now appears prescient.

Ten Canoes (2006): A prize winner at the Cannes Film Festival, Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr’s mesmerising drama is set in Arnhem Land in this continent’s distant past, with David Gulpilil’s Storyteller winding a morality tale of longing and loss delivered entirely in Indigenous languages. Moments of humour and ravishing cinematography provide apt illustration.