TY - JOUR
T1 - Zubrycki’s point
T2 - Amongst Equals, utilitarian film in the Australian labour movement
AU - Hughes, John
N1 - Funding Information:
This paper was prepared with support from the ARC Discovery Project ‘Utilitarian Film in Australia 1945–1980’, University of Canberra. With special thanks to Rilke Muir for her editing assistance and to Pamela Barnetta at the NAA in Sydney. Thanks also to John Patterson, librarian at the Australia Council; to Margaret Avard, Helen Hopper, Sarah Lethbridge and Catherine Ziegler at ANU Archives, Canberra; to Nick Richardson at ACMI in Melbourne, and at NFSA many thanks to Siobhan Dee. Thanks also to Alex Gionfriddo, Cathie Gillian and Olympia Szilagyi at AFI Research Collection, RMIT and my colleagues on ‘The Utilitarian Film in Australia (1945–1980)’, and to anonymous referees for their comments and suggestions.
Funding Information:
3. The ACTU had a commitment from the Australian Bicentennial Authority (ABA) for around $1M worth of funding for bicentennial projects, a figure negotiated over several years. Most of this allocation was committed to the 14th Congress of the International Con-federation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) in Melbourne, which the ACTU hosted and pro-vided airfares, accommodation and events for ICFTU delegates. The ACTU negotiations with the ABA had also set an allocation for a television history of the labour movement. Zubrycki’s proposal, supported by the ABA, required sponsorship from a nationally repre-sentative organization and production oversight from the government’s production house Film Australia. Film Australia produced a number of projects funded by the ABA. For Zubrycki’s retrospective critique regarding the contractual structure of the project see Coldi-cutt (1980, 33).
Funding Information:
The 1983 Sydney Filmmakers’ Co-operative catalogue lists 31 titles under Work/ Labour History/Unionism, half of them Australian, many of less than 20-minutes duration, mostly U-matic videos. They include short drama projects funded under the Experimental Film Fund. Almost all were made between 1977 and 1980. These are independent films, their editorial advocacy may be ‘utilitarian’ insofar as they seek a pedagogical affect and use, but they originate from filmmakers’ own initiative and funding, rather than being sponsored. Their imperative as art and entertainment in a sense comes first.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, © 2019 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2019/5/4
Y1 - 2019/5/4
N2 - A film history project on the Australian trade union movement commissioned in the late 1980s for Australia’s bicentennial year, 1988, came to grief over differing views of the labour movement’s past and contention around the rights and ethics of the filmmaker when a work is commissioned or sponsored. In the political context of the late 1980s there had been a decade of collaboration between trade unions and artists, but in this case filmmaker Tom Zubrycki was caught in a web of intrigue and complex agendas as he sought to complete this sponsored film. Zubrycki challenged the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) for the right to finish and distribute Amongst Equals, but without success. The struggle to resolve the Amongst Equals dispute continued for years and flared into a heated public debate. This case study illustrates dilemmas facing the artist, historian or filmmaker making sponsored work. A feature-length version of the unfinished film, not seen since 1991with inter-titles identifying scenes that the ACTU wanted revised or deleted was screened by Melbourne Cinematheque in October 2018, marking 30 years since the Australian bicentennial.
AB - A film history project on the Australian trade union movement commissioned in the late 1980s for Australia’s bicentennial year, 1988, came to grief over differing views of the labour movement’s past and contention around the rights and ethics of the filmmaker when a work is commissioned or sponsored. In the political context of the late 1980s there had been a decade of collaboration between trade unions and artists, but in this case filmmaker Tom Zubrycki was caught in a web of intrigue and complex agendas as he sought to complete this sponsored film. Zubrycki challenged the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) for the right to finish and distribute Amongst Equals, but without success. The struggle to resolve the Amongst Equals dispute continued for years and flared into a heated public debate. This case study illustrates dilemmas facing the artist, historian or filmmaker making sponsored work. A feature-length version of the unfinished film, not seen since 1991with inter-titles identifying scenes that the ACTU wanted revised or deleted was screened by Melbourne Cinematheque in October 2018, marking 30 years since the Australian bicentennial.
KW - art and working life
KW - Australian labour movement
KW - film and trade unions
KW - Tom Zubrycki
KW - Utilitarian film
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85063782687&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17503280.2019.1595920
DO - 10.1080/17503280.2019.1595920
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85063782687
SN - 1750-3280
VL - 13
SP - 103
EP - 126
JO - Studies in Documentary Film
JF - Studies in Documentary Film
IS - 2
ER -