Commonwealth Film Unit

Film Australia was a company established by the Government of Australia to produce films about Australia in 1973. Its predecessors were the Cinema and Photographic Branch (1913–38), the Australian National Film Board (1939–1955, under different departments), and the Commonwealth Film Unit (1956–72). Film Australia became Film Australia Limited in 1988 and was consolidated into Screen Australia in 2008.

Administration of the Film Australia Collection was transferred from Screen Australia to the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia on 1 July 2011.

The mission of the organisation changed through its earlier incarnations, but from 1973 its aim was to create an audio-visual record of Australian culture, through the commissioning, distribution and management of programs that deal with matters of national interest or illustrate and interpret aspects of Australian life.

History

In 1913 the Cinema and Photographic Branch (also known as the Cinema Branch) was created in Melbourne under cameraman Bert Ive, after he had been appointed government photographer and cinematographer. The Branch was administered by a number of Commonwealth government departments during its existence, changing the focus of the photographs and films, including the promotion of Australian merchandise, tourism, and immigration. When it came under the Commonwealth Immigration Office in 1921, the Cinema Branch was expanded, and by the end of the Silent era (1927 onwards), it was making a film a week. Lyn Maplestone, production manager from 1926, directed many of the films made by the Branch in the 1930s.

The Cinema and Photographic Branch wound up in 1938, Ive died on 25 July 1939, and Australia was at war with Germany two months later. The Cinema Branch moved into the new Department of Information (DOI), becoming the Australian National Film Board (also referred to as the Film Division, created in order oversee coordination of government and commercial filmmaking, and to engage film production in the war effort and based in Sydney). From 1950, the division came under the Australian News and Information Bureau, until 1955, and from 1956 until 1972 it was the Commonwealth Film Unit.

By the late 1940s all film production took place in Sydney, and the Melbourne branch closed in 1954, after continuing to process some non-theatrical film until this time.

Stanley Hawes was the Producer-in-Chief from 1946 to 1969.

In June 1973 the unit was superseded by Film Australia, which became Film Australia Limited in 1988.

The operations of Film Finance Corporation Australia, Australian Film Commission, and Film Australia were merged as Screen Australia in July 2008.

Administration of the Film Australia Collection was transferred from Screen Australia to the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) on 1 July 2011, and the Film Australia Library became the Film Australia Collection.

The Australian Children's Television Foundation became distributors for Film Australia's children's catalogue, with the exception of '' Boffins'', maintained by the NFSA.

Films

In 1973 Film Australia gained its first female producer, Suzanne Baker, who in 1977 became the first Australian woman to win an Academy Award, for Best Animated Short Film, for ''Leisure'', animated by Bruce Petty

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