Home Talent: Australia's Itinerant Filmmakers

From the earliest days of film in Australia, travelling film exhibitors brought entertainment and news to even the smallest communities. Graham Shirley follows a brief overview of Australia’s travelling film exhibitors with a more detailed look at the home talent films made across the continent.

The presentation will look at how a stock standard script called 'The Adventures of Dot' was repeatedly filmed as its itinerant directors and cameramen visited town after town.

Graham Shirley has worked as a director, writer and researcher on Australian historical documentaries. He has conducted numerous oral histories and is co-author of Australian Cinema: The First 80 Years (Currency Press, 1983 & 1989). From 2006 to 2014 he worked for the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, initially as a senior curator and subsequently as NFSA Historian. In mid-2014 he returned to freelance researching, writing and consulting. He is an Royal Australian Historical Society councillor and a member of the Professional Historians Association (NSW & ACT).

Home Talent will premiere on the RAHS YouTube Channel on Saturday 4 September at 6pm.