18th Festival 1971

Customs Minister Don Chipp introduced special censorship arrangements governing festivals which in theory made all but recently banned films free for festival audiences. Akira Kurosawa had hoped to attend the Festival, and a retrospective of seven of his films not previously seen in Australia was presented (Judo Saga, No Regrets for Our Youth, The Idiot, I Live in Fear, The Bad Sleep Well, Sanjuro and High and Low); unfortunately, iIIness prevented the great Japanese director from coming here. His newest film, Dodes ’ka-den, was also screened. Jerzy Skolimowski came to present his film Deep End and Jörn Donner returned to present Anna. The Festival opened with Truffaut’s The Wild Child and closed with Joe from John G. Avildsen (who would go on to direct Rocky five years later).

Twenty-eight features were shown (plus seven in the Kurosawa program): Truffaut’s Domicile conjugal; Kjell Grede’s Harrv Munter (Sweden); Federico Fellini’s The Clowns (Italy); Werner Herzog’s Even Dwarfs Started Small (West Germany); Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Conformist (Italy); Robert Bresson’s Une femme douce and Georges Franju’s The Sin of Abbe Mouret (both France); Peter Watkins’ Punishment Park (USA); Eric Rohmer’s Claire’s Knee (France); Istvan Szabo’s Love Film (Hungary); Vera Chytilova’s The Fruit of Paradise; Juraj Jakubisco’s The Deserter and the Nomads and Karel Zemon’s On the Comet (all Czechoslovakia); Jean-Louis Bertuccelli’s Ramparts of Clay (Algeria); Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Teorema (Italy); Luis Buñuel’s Tristana (Spain); Mauro Bolognini’s Metello (Italy); Henning Stangerup’s Give God a Chance on Sundays (Denmark); Joaquim Pedro de Andrade’s Macunaima (Brazil); Robert Hughes’ Arthur Penn – Themes and Variants and Barbara Loden’s Wanda (both USA); Susan Sontag’s Duet for Cannibals (Sweden); Gideon Bachmann’s Ciao Federico! and Jean-Luc Godard’s Wind from the East (both Italy).

Shorts included: Carroll Ballard’s Rodeo, Bob Godfrey’s Henry 9 to 5, Peter Foldes’ Visages des femmes, Jiri Brdecka’s Metamorphosis, Franz Zwartjes’ Eating and Seats Two, Co Hoedman’s Matrioska, John Hubley’s Of Men and Demons, Michael Rubbo’s Sad Song of Yellow Skin, Norman Mclaren’s Spheres, Hans Christensen’s Gitte in April, Henri Glaeser’s L’homme aux chats and Kenneth Anger’s Invocation of my Demon Brother.