The Film Society of Lincoln Center Announces THE LAST NEW WAVE, 1/25-31

The Film Society of Lincoln Center announced today the lineup for THE LAST NEW WAVE: CELEBRATING THE AUSTRALIAN FILM REVIVAL, January 25-31, featuring a mix of established classics and forgotten gems, in beautiful restored prints courtesy of the National Film and Sound Archive.

The Film Society of Lincoln Center's Year-Round Program Director Robert Koehler said, "In a year when Australia promises to deliver two of the most heavily anticipated films in recent memory, Baz Luhrmann's THE GREAT GATSBY and George Miller's MAD MAX: FURY ROAD, we are excited to present this comprehensive overview of a most extraordinary decade in Aussie filmmaking."

When the term "new wave" was coined to describe the group of French critics-turned-filmmakers who exploded onto the scene in the early 1960s, it quickly became shorthand for a series of similarly brash, youth-driven film movements concurrently emerging around the globe, from Japan (Sh?hei Imamura, Nagisa Oshima, Seijun Suzuki) to Czechoslovakia (Milos Forman, Ji?í Menzel, Ivan Passer) to the "new" Hollywood cinema ushered in by BONNIE AND CLYDE and EASY RIDER. Then there is Australia, where, beginning in the early 1970s and lasting throughout the decade, a sudden resurgence of national film production resulted in yet another "new wave"-the last of this particular era, and one of the most prolific.

Though some of the world's earliest narrative films were made in Australia-SOLDIERS OF THE CROSS, that predaTed Edwin S. Porter's THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY by three years-the closing of domestic studio facilities in the 1940s, combined with an absence of government funding for film production, all but ran local film production aground by the late 1960s. But with the creation, in 1971, of the Australian Film Development Corporation, everything changed virtually overnight. Shaking the national film industry out of its mothballed stasis, the Australian New Wave (or Australian Film Revival) launched the careers of a fiercely talented generation of directors (Bruce Beresford, George Miller, Phillip Noyce, Fred Schepisi, Peter Weir) and actors (Bryan Brown, Judy Davis, Mel Gibson, Jacki Weaver), to say nothing of cinematographers (including the future Oscar-winners Russell Boyd, John Seale and Dean Semler), production designers and other craftspeople. Many of the films competed at prestigious festivals including Berlin and Cannes, and it wasn't long before Hollywood caught on to the rich talent pool available to them "down under"-a love affair that continues unabated to this day.

This series was made possible with the invaluable assistance of the National Film and Sound Archive, Australia and is dedicated to the memory of Jan Sharp, a great friend to the Film Society and a pioneer figure in Australian documentary filmmaking. Acknowledgments: Australian Consulate-General/Xenia Hanusiak, Phillip Scanlan and Julie Singer Scanlan, Chris and Francesca Beale, Clare Stewart, David Roonery, David Stratton, Elissa Burke, Margaret Pomeranz, National Film and Sound Archive/John Brady, Charles Slaats and Quentin Turnour, South Australian Film Corporation/Melissa Juhanson

Tickets are on sale both at the box office and on www.filmlinc.com today, Thursday December 20^th. Tickets are $13 for General Public, $9 Student/Senior and $8 for Film Society members. Plus, save when you purchase tickets to three films or more with a special discount package. All screenings will take place at the Film Society of Lincoln Center's Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center, 144 West 65th Street (between Broadway and Amsterdam). Visit www.FilmLinc.com for additional information and to purchase tickets.