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LIGHT YEARS

Year: 1991

Classification: G

Runtime: 47 min

Produced In: Australia

Directed By: Kathryn Millard

Produced By: Kathryn Millard

Language: English

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NOW SUPERBLY RE-MASTERED FROM ORIGINAL FILM MATERIALS!

A unique record of the life and work of eminent Australian photographer, Olive Cotton.

In the 1930s and 1940s, Olive Cotton successfully ran a studio in Sydney with renowned Australian photographer Max Dupain. Her work was exhibited both in Australia and overseas.

At the end of the war Cotton married and moved to Koorawatha in central New South Wales. As she and her husband struggled to gain a living from the land and raise a family, it seemed that Cotton had left her career as a photographer behind.

Living for many years without running water or electricity, she continued to take photographs although she was unable to print them. The negatives were carefully stored in an old sea trunk until the 1960s. Eventually friends and family built a darkroom in Cowra, and in the early 1980s Olive resumed exhibiting her work to critical and public acclaim. She then devoted much of her time to printing from her vast personal archive of negatives.

As one of Australia's most accomplished photographers with a portfolio spanning some sixty years, Olive Cotton and her work offer a rich insight into Australian social history and art. This film was completed in 1990, thirteen years before Olive Cotton passed away on 27 September 2003.

VIEW TRAILER HERE: vimeo.com/815283285

Narrator GILLIAN JONES

Written and Directed by KATHRYN MILLARD
Produced by KATHRYN MILLARD and PATRICIA L'HUEDE
Cinematographer JOHN WHITTERON
Editor TONY STEVENS
Sound Recordist LEO SULLIVAN
Music composed by RICHARD VELLA
Sound Designers JOHN DENNISON and TONY VACCHER