What Now for the Australian Cinema?- James Ricketson asks What Are Australian Films For? - Fourth in a series.

 Editor's Note: This is the fourth in a series of Facebook posts by filmmaker James Ricketson on his hopes for the future directions of the Australian film industry. The previous posts have been reposted on Film Alert 101 and may be found if you click on the links GATEKEEPERS, Comments on GATEKEEPERS and RABBIT PROOF FENCE as Textbook Example. Now read on

WHAT ARE AUSTRALIAN FILMS FOR?

For discussion, dialogue and debate

What is an Australian film supposed to achieve? And how do we decide whether it has succeeded or failed?

These may seem like obvious questions, but I suspect much of the confusion surrounding Australian film funding arises because we lump films made for quite different purposes into the one category - "Australian film" - and then judge them by criteria that may have little relevance to why they were made in the first place.

Consider six possible objectives for a publicly supported film:

To provide employment and training for Australian film crews.

To attract a large Australian audience.

To win recognition at prestigious international festivals.

To tell a culturally or historically significant Australian story.

To attract international audiences and generate overseas sales.

To encourage emerging filmmakers and help launch their careers.

These objectives are not mutually exclusive. A film may achieve several of them simultaneously.

But they are not interchangeable.

A film about some neglected aspect of Indigenous history, for instance, might be worth making even if relatively few Australians pay to see it in a cinema. Its cultural significance may extend far beyond its theatrical life, through schools, streaming services, archives and future generations.

Conversely, if a film is funded primarily because it is expected to attract a substantial Australian audience, the number of Australians who actually buy tickets is an important measure of its success.

THE DRY is a good example. An Australian novel, adapted by Australian filmmakers, set recognisably in Australia, it attracted large numbers of Australians into cinemas.

Then there are films such as RABBIT PROOF FENCE , which achieved several objectives simultaneously. It told an important Australian story, attracted substantial Australian and international audiences, won numerous awards and contributed to our national conversation about the Stolen Generations.

More than two decades later, we are still discussing it.

How do we measure that kind of cultural success?

And what about films made in Australia that make no pretence of telling Australian stories?

THE GREAT GATSBY, Marvel productions and other international films filmed here bring money into the country, provide employment, develop skills and support studios and infrastructure.

All good things.

But they are not necessarily contributing to Australian cultural expression. Their principal value to Australia is economic rather than cultural. We should recognise that distinction without diminishing their contribution.

The danger, as I argued in an earlier piece, is that Australia becomes primarily a backlot for overseas productions at the expense of making Australian films for Australian audiences.

Another legitimate reason to invest taxpayer money in a film is to support an emerging filmmaker. The film itself may not be commercially successful, but the investment could help launch a writer or director whose work enriches Australian cinema for decades.

My own filmmaking career began with a $300 government grant in 1971. That small investment made possible a first film which opened doors to film school and a career lasting more than half a century.

Would that $300 have been considered a good investment if the film itself had been judged solely by its box-office return?

All of which raises a question:

What are our funding bodies trying to accomplish with the films they fund, and how do we determine afterwards whether they accomplished it?

Three measures of success tend to get tangled together in discussions about Australian cinema.

Cultural success: Does the film contribute something of value to Australian culture?

Critical success: Does it win recognition at Cannes, Venice, Berlin, Toronto or elsewhere?

Commercial success: Do people actually pay to see it?

These measures sometimes overlap. Often they don't. And there are other legitimate measures, including employment, skills development and the nurturing of new talent.

A film can be commercially unsuccessful but culturally important. Another can be a box-office hit without making any significant contribution to Australian culture.

More than half a century ago, the Interim Board of the Australian Film Commission recognised this distinction:

"Some may not become commercially successful ventures, but these may include films which posterity will regard as some of the most significant films made by and for Australians."

Those words seem remarkably prescient.

William Goldman famously observed that "Nobody knows anything."

He was referring to Hollywood's inability to predict which films would succeed. The same uncertainty applies to Australian filmmaking. Every film is a gamble. Some will fail, and the more adventurous we become, the more failures we must be prepared to accept.

But here is where I have a concern.

I believe our funding bodies have become increasingly bureaucratic and risk-averse, favouring projects that satisfy established assessment criteria over unconventional ideas that may look unpromising on paper but have the potential to excite audiences.

I may be wrong. I would welcome arguments to the contrary.

But surely we should be discussing how much creative risk our funding bodies ought to take, rather than assuming that minimising risk is necessarily good policy.

And before we argue about whether Australian films are succeeding or failing, shouldn't we first agree on what we want them to achieve?

If we don't know what success looks like, how can we recognise failure?