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Title The Back of Beyond
Copyright Title The Back of Beyond
Released 1954
Production Year 1954
Director John Heyer
Comments The synopsis below is taken from:
INFORMIT. Australian Feature Films. (CD-ROM) Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology & The Australian Catalogue of New Films and Videos. Melbourne, Australia. 1995
Synopsis Adaptation to the harshness of the environment is the theme of this journey with the mailman Tom Kruse along the Birdsville Track. The form of the film is itself an adaptation from the British documentary tradition of narration. The single voice of authority is delegated to a series of storytellers who the filmmaker saw as representative voices of the outback: the mailman, the women on two-way radio, Malcolm an Aboriginal and the Birdsville policeman. An interesting contrast to this romantic view of outback life is provided by John Kingsford-Smith's Mantle of Safety (The Inlanders).


The Back of Beyond, now an Australian classic, was the most notable production by the Shell Film Unit under the charge of Heyer and was one of the first Australian films to make an impact at international film festivals winning the Grand Prix at Venice in 1954. It was widely screened non-theatrically in Australia.
tags: documentary Shell Film Unit 
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