FESTIVALS

A bit of everything and mostly space

(Australian Life & Film Festival, Zagreb-Split, January 2008)

The text tackles films presented in the first week of the contemporary Australian film showcase held in Croatia and organized by the Australian Embassy. Although this was just a showcase that provides an overview of the contemporary feature film production in Australia and has no intention to express some concept of choice apart from the presentation of the Australian culture, the author of this text finds the way for a cultural criticism. She notices that the films are connected by several elements of Australian culture. First of all, some films strongly emphasize the problem of Aborigines and their deep presence in Australian culture while in all other films this problem is at least present in the background. Then there is the Australian landscape which functions in all films as a constant defining presence, and even a main star.

Iva Žurić