Cecil William Holmes (23 June 1921 – 24 August 1994) was a

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

-born film director and writer.

Biography

Holmes was born in

Waipukurau Waipukurau is the largest town in the Central Hawke's Bay District on the east coast of the North Island of New Zealand. It is located on the banks of the Tukituki River, 7 kilometres south of Waipawa and 50 kilometres southwest of Hastings. ...

Hawke's Bay Hawke's Bay ( mi, Te Matau-a-Māui) is a local government region on the east coast of New Zealand's North Island. The region's name derives from Hawke Bay, which was named by Captain James Cook in honour of Admiral Edward Hawke. The region i ...

. He served in the Royal New Zealand Air Force and British

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

before turning to filmmaking. He made a number of documentaries for the New Zealand

National Film Unit The National Film Unit (NFU) was a state-owned film-production organisation originally based in Miramar, New Zealand, Miramar, New Zealand. Founded in 1936 when the government took over a private film studio, Filmcraft, the NFU produced newsreels, ...

then moved to Australia, where he directed several feature films and a number of documentaries for the Commonwealth Film Unit. The Cecil Holmes Award given by the

Australian Directors Guild The Australian Directors' Guild (ADG) is an industry guild representing the interests of film, television, commercials and digital media directors, including documentary makers and animators, throughout Australia. With its headquarters in Sydney ...

is named after him. The Award was instigated in 1995, and is presented by the ADG board from time to time to honour recipients who have advocated for the role of the director. His second wife was author and Indigenous advocate Sandra Le Brun Holmes who contributed an account of the experience of their making ''I, the Aboriginal'' to ''Walkabout'', a magazine for which Holmes himself also wrote.

Selected filmography

*''

Captain Thunderbolt Frederick Wordsworth Ward (1835 – 25 May 1870), better known by the self-styled pseudonym of Captain Thunderbolt, was an Australian bushranger renowned for escaping from Cockatoo Island, and also for his reputation as the "gentleman bushra ...

'' (1953) - director *''Words for Freedom'' (1953) (documentary) - director *'' Three in One'' (1957) - director *''Lotu'' (1962) (documentary) - director * ''

I, The Aboriginal ''I, the Aboriginal'' is an Australian book and television film about the life of Aboriginal Australian Phillip Roberts (or Waipuldanya). The 1962 book, written in first person, is described as the autobiography of Waipuldanya, a full-blood Ab ...

'' (documentary) - director *''Faces in the Sun'' (1964) (documentary) - director *'' Gentle Strangers'' (1972) - director *'' The Killing of Angel Street'' (1981) - writer

Screenplays

*''Feature Film Screenplays'' (unrealised) 'Call Me By My Proper Name' (true story of the man hunt for Australian Aboriginal Larrey Boy in the Northern Territory of Australia) *''Mackie's in Town'' (screenplay of the true story of Pat Mackie, leader of Mt. Isa Mines Strike of 1964) *''Morrison of Peking'' (screenplay based upon book by Australian writer Cyril Pearl, 1967) *''The Planter of Malaita'' (screenplay of a Joseph Conrad novella)

Books

*''One Man's Way'', (autobiography) Penguin, 1986 *''Mask Of Smiles'', 1994 (Holmes' journey into the Philippines), completed yet unpublished at time of his death.

References

External links

*
Cecil Holmes profile
at

Australian Screen Online The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national c ...

Cecil Holmes
at the National Film and Sound Archive
Cecil Holmes
at

Dictionary of New Zealand Biography The ''Dictionary of New Zealand Biography'' (DNZB) is an encyclopedia or biographical dictionary containing biographies of over 3,000 deceased New Zealanders. It was first published as a series of print volumes from 1990 to 2000, went online ...

Cecil Holmes Bibliography
at Australian Film Institute Australian film directors 1921 births 1994 deaths New Zealand trade unionists People from Waipukurau New Zealand communists New Zealand military personnel of World War II Royal Navy personnel of World War II {{NewZealand-writer-stub