17th Festival 1970

Though the new Minister in charge of censorship, Don Chipp, proved much more approachable than his predecessors, two films entered in the Festival were effectively banned – Allan King’s A Married Couple (Canada) and Jonas Cornell’s Like Night and Day (Sweden). However, a screening of both films organised for the media and parliamentarians brought a reaction generally in favour of the Festival’s anti-censorship stand. The Benson & Hedges Awards for Australian Short Films were introduced.

The festival opened with Costa-Gavras’ Z and closed with Richard Lester’s The Bed Sitting Room; 32 features were shown in all. They included: Andrzej Wajda’s Everything for Sale (Poland), Glauber Rocha’s Antonio das Mortes (Brazil), Walerian Borowczyk’s first feature Goto, Island of Love (France), Humberto Solas’ Lucia (Cuba), Alain Resnais’ I Love You, I Love You (France), Dusan Makavejev’s Innocence Unprotected (Yugoslavia), Eric Rohmer’s My Night with Maud and Claude Chabrol’s The Beast Must Die (both France), Emile de Antonio’s In The Year of the Pig (USA), Satyajit Ray’s Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (India), Palle Kjaerulff Schmidt’s Think of a Number (Denmark), Time Bergheim’s Little Red Riding Hood (Finland) , Diurka Medvedsky’s Paul (France), Emile Degelin’s Palaver (Belgium), Louis Malle’s Calcutta (France), Zivojin Pavlovic’s Ambush and Bore Draskovic’s Horoscope (both Yugoslavia), Jaroslav Papousek’s The Best Age and Juraj Herz’ The Cremator (both Czechoslovakia), Nagisa Oshima’s Boy (Japan), Gilberte Tofano’s Siege and Ephraim Kishon’s The Big Dig (both Israel), Vladimir Motyl’s White Sun in the Desert (USSR), Robin Spry’s Prologue (Canada), Andrei Blaier’s Then Came the Legend (Rumania), Gianni da Campo’s Closed Pages (Italy), The Maysles Brothers’ Salesman (USA) and Judit Elek’s Lady from Constantinople (Hungary). Shorts included: Anthony Scott’s One of the Missing, Peter Refn’s The Stolen Feast, Pascal Aubier’s Monsieur Jean Claude Vaucherin, Stuart Cooper’s Test of Violence, Peter Pearson’s The Dowry and The Best Damn Fiddler, Peter Foldes’ Belle Cerebrale, Aito Makinen’s Poro, George Dunning’s The Chair, Bob Godfrey’s Whatever Happened to Uncle Fred?, Ryan Larkin’s Walking, John Hubley’s Urbanissimo, Michael Rubbo’s Sir Sir, Bretislav Projar’s To See or Not to See.