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CIFF 2024 | NFSA RESTORES: THE COOLBAROO CLUB
Sat
30
Sat 30 Nov 2:30 PM
Arc Cinema
General Admission
A SPECIAL SCREENING ON SATURDAY 30 NOVEMBER AT 2.30pm
AT ARC CINEMA, NATIONAL FILM AND SOUND ARCHIVE OF AUSTRALIA (NFSA), McCoy Circuit, Acton ACT
With special guests: Penny Robins (producer) and Steve Kinnane (co-producer, co-writer and researcher)
DIGITALLY RESTORED from the original film negatives, by NFSA RESTORES
THE COOLBAROO CLUB - Classification G
“This chirpy, dignified and scathing documentary by Roger Scholes does more than just recall a less tolerant time and place. In a modest way, it lifts the lid on postwar relations in this country.” – Robert Drewe, The Sydney Morning Herald, July 1996.
Produced in 1996, the film is a lively portrait of the Coolbaroo Club, an Aboriginal-run dance club which operated in Perth from 1946 to 1960. The story is told through the memories of those involved, stills, archival images and records and by evocative dramatisation.
The Club was the only Aboriginal-run dance club in a city which practiced a form of apartheid, submitting its Aboriginal population to unremitting police harassment, identity cards, fraternisation bans, curfews, and bureaucratic obstruction.
During its lifetime, the Club attracted Black musicians and celebrities from all over Australia and occasionally from overseas - among them Nat "King" Cole, Harold Blair and the Harlem Globetrotters. Although best-remembered for the hugely popular Coolbaroo dances attended by hundreds of Aboriginal men and women and their white supporters, the Coolbaroo League, founded by Club members, ran a newspaper and became an effective political organisation, advocating for Aboriginal people on the issues of the time.
Directed by ROGER SCHOLES. Produced by PENNY ROBINS.
Co-Producers - STEVE KINNANE and LAUREN MARSH.
Written by STEVE KINNANE, LAUREN MARSH, ROGER SCHOLES.
Director of Photography - ROGER SCHOLES. Editor - TONY STEVENS.
Music composed and written by LUCKY OCEANS. Songs performed by LOIS OLNEY.
SCREENING WITH another newly restored classic, GREEN BUSH (2005, 25 mins, Classification MA15+) directed by Warwick Thornton, based on his own experiences as a radio DJ in Alice Springs. This remarkable short drama, produced for CAAMA (Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association), was an award-winner at the Berlin Film Festival and the Sydney Film Festival.
This special screening is presented in association with the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, and with the kind support of the Friends of the NFSA.
AT ARC CINEMA, NATIONAL FILM AND SOUND ARCHIVE OF AUSTRALIA (NFSA), McCoy Circuit, Acton ACT
With special guests: Penny Robins (producer) and Steve Kinnane (co-producer, co-writer and researcher)
DIGITALLY RESTORED from the original film negatives, by NFSA RESTORES
THE COOLBAROO CLUB - Classification G
“This chirpy, dignified and scathing documentary by Roger Scholes does more than just recall a less tolerant time and place. In a modest way, it lifts the lid on postwar relations in this country.” – Robert Drewe, The Sydney Morning Herald, July 1996.
Produced in 1996, the film is a lively portrait of the Coolbaroo Club, an Aboriginal-run dance club which operated in Perth from 1946 to 1960. The story is told through the memories of those involved, stills, archival images and records and by evocative dramatisation.
The Club was the only Aboriginal-run dance club in a city which practiced a form of apartheid, submitting its Aboriginal population to unremitting police harassment, identity cards, fraternisation bans, curfews, and bureaucratic obstruction.
During its lifetime, the Club attracted Black musicians and celebrities from all over Australia and occasionally from overseas - among them Nat "King" Cole, Harold Blair and the Harlem Globetrotters. Although best-remembered for the hugely popular Coolbaroo dances attended by hundreds of Aboriginal men and women and their white supporters, the Coolbaroo League, founded by Club members, ran a newspaper and became an effective political organisation, advocating for Aboriginal people on the issues of the time.
Directed by ROGER SCHOLES. Produced by PENNY ROBINS.
Co-Producers - STEVE KINNANE and LAUREN MARSH.
Written by STEVE KINNANE, LAUREN MARSH, ROGER SCHOLES.
Director of Photography - ROGER SCHOLES. Editor - TONY STEVENS.
Music composed and written by LUCKY OCEANS. Songs performed by LOIS OLNEY.
SCREENING WITH another newly restored classic, GREEN BUSH (2005, 25 mins, Classification MA15+) directed by Warwick Thornton, based on his own experiences as a radio DJ in Alice Springs. This remarkable short drama, produced for CAAMA (Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association), was an award-winner at the Berlin Film Festival and the Sydney Film Festival.
This special screening is presented in association with the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, and with the kind support of the Friends of the NFSA.