Solrun Hoaas Collection

Solrun Hoaas was one of Australia's most distinctive film artists. She passed away on 11 December 2009 after a short illness, and money from her estate was dedicated to the digital re-mastering of her films.

Solrun came relatively late to film in the 1970s. Earlier she had spent fourteen formative years in China and Japan, discovering Japanese theatre as a student in Oslo and Kyoto. She spent some years training as a Noh mask-maker.

She moved to Canberra in 1972, taught secondary school French, then worked in the Japanese Department of the Australian National University where she completed an M.A. in Asian Studies. In this period she also directed theatre, translated, filmed Japanese ritual performances on Super 8 and wrote non-fiction.

In 1977 she began solo filming on 16mm in Okinawa, eventually completing the four films of the highly respected Hatoma series. In 1980 she completed a graduate diploma in film at the Swinburne Institute of Technology.

She subsequently wrote, produced and directed several Japan-related films, including the feature film Aya (1990). Her interest extended also to Korea and she made films in both the North and the South, again working largely on her own. She ran film courses for the Australian Film, Television and Radio School, lectured on Japanese film and theatre, and taught Australian cinema to Japanese students from Kyoto.

After 2004, she focussed on handmade prints, experimenting with film images combined with copperplate etchings, while continuing to develop feature film scripts, including: The Siren of Seoul, The Okinawan Daughter, The Watchmaker, Missionary Kid and Fearless Tours.

Solrun passed away on 11 December 2009 in Melbourne after a short illness.

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