The song of Jimmy Blacksmith

Australia, early 20th century. Jimmie Blacksmith, the son of an Aboriginal woman and a white settler, tries to find her place in a white dominated society. Violence, exploitation and subsequent humiliations lead him to a rebellion that quickly turns into a bloody tragedy.

Original title: The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith
Country of production: Australia
Year of manufacture: 1978
Directed by: Fred Schepisi
Cast: Peter Carroll, John Jarratt, Ruth Cracknell, Ray Marshall, Tommy Lewis, Don Crosby
Duration: 120 min.

Room: Mała Czarna
Lecture - Katarzyna Stasiełuk | After film discussion
Projection from DCP | Polish subtitles | English friendly

The sixth season of the Film Club will be a journey into the unknown for all of us. Australian cinema, although present on the world screens for decades, still remains an unobvious cinema — escaping simple definitions, torn between vastness and emptiness, nature and civilization, locality and the need to find one's place in the world.

So we try to immerse ourselves in its climate and identity, and through five films we ask the question: what is Australianism really about? What does he sound like, what does he look like, what is he afraid of and what does he miss? How is it shaped by the space — boundless, harsh and often unpredictable — and the history of a country building its identity between its European heritage and its own distinct culture?

We start in the 1970s, at a time when Australian cinema is increasingly boldly beginning to seek its own voice. For decades to come, we will observe how this voice evolves and how different forms it can take. From brutal, low-budget art cinema and nostalgic tales of the past, through dystopias, action cinema and epic dramas, to biographical, queer, mystery, dreamlike and philosophical cinema.

There will not be one Australia. It will be its contradictions, fears, fascinations and imaginations — and above all six different attempts to answer the question: what is Australian cinema?