2005 Longford Lyell Lecture
Longford Lyell Lecture 2005 [ 
PDF - 185 KB].
Rolf de Heer on the set of Bad Boy Bubby
(1994) NFSA: 352723
Rolf de Heer is one of the most recognised and challenging feature film directors active in Australia. Born in 1951 in Heemskerk, Holland, he migrated to Australia with his family in 1959. Always fascinated by film, he spent seven years with the ABC before he decided he needed to be making films himself. He became an early graduate of the Australian Film Television and Radio School, completing the three-year course with Diplomas in Production and Directing, the foundation for more than two decades of diverse feature film production.
The range of these films is extremely diverse, with the warmth and simplicity of Tail of a Tiger (1984) balanced by the sci-fi horror of Incident at Raven's Gate (1986), the quirkiness of Miles Davis in Dingo (1990), the dark comedy of Bad Boy Bubby (1993), the tenderness of Dance Me to My Song (1998), the rarified atmospheres of The Old Man Who Read Love Stories (2000) and Epsilon (1995), the psychological impact of The Tracker (2001) and the disturbing moral tale of Alexandra's Project (2003).
Still from the upcoming movie Ten Canoes (2006) courtesy of Vertigo Productions
What unites Rolf de Heer's works is their power to establish a strong emotional connection between the viewer and the filmmaker's most intimate concerns, firmly rooted in an assured and yet daring technique. At the time of the Longford Lyell Lecture, Rolf was in post-production for his new feature Ten Canoes, which promises to deliver an intriguing perspective on perceptions of history, the Indigenous story and the role of the filmmaker as storyteller. Shot in Arnhem Land with a local Indigenous cast, it was filmed entirely in Indigenous language (predominantly Ganalbingu), with David Gulpilil as the storyteller. The film is set in both the distant past of Australia before outside contact, and in the mythical past of the Ganalbingu people.
