ABSTRACT
The history of the 'new' Australian Cinema's revival since the 1970s often now feels like a relatively settled one. A range of studies chart the political cultures which talked the 'renaissance' into being, the institutional frameworks which guided production or formulated policy,1 and survey the eventual output of a growing number of state-backed and independent producers.2 Significant contributions, of course, to the revision of the critical literatures continue to be made, recognising shifts of commercial and aesthetic direction in the 1980s, and locating the various 'hidden' histories overlooked in the critical project of constructing a 'national' Australian cinema.3 Such work on the mainstream cinema has triggered research on more neglected areas such as the non-fiction film, the short film, and the experimental and avant-garde sectors. Scholarship across the board has helped stimulate a conspicuous intensification, since the 1980s, of attention to Australian television.4
