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CAMERA NATURA
Year: 1984
Classification: G
Runtime: 32 min
Produced In: Australia
Directed By: Ross Gibson
Produced By: John Cruthers
Language: English
How has cinema shaped our relationship to the Australian landscape? What vision of the natural world and our place in it have filmmakers created? From Walkabout to Sunday Too Far Away to Mad Max, the camera moves restlessly across the landscape, creating a vision of a country more hostile than grand.
CAMERA NATURA is a film about the Australian landscape as portrayed in the myths, maps, painting, writing, photography and cinema of white Australians. Even before Europeans had located Australia, they had constructed an image of the country. The Antipodes were projected to give form to European aspirations and anxieties.
CAMERA NATURA traces the developing image of the continent as it has been represented over 200 years, from the anguish of the convict painter, Thomas Watling, to the technologies of the cinema and aerial photography.
CAMERA NATURA charts the contours of a mythic realm and geographical entity. Through its use of painting, photographs and film it highlights some of the premises upon which many 'quintessential' Australian myths and beliefs are founded.