ACTION! FILM & WAR

A SPECIAL TOURING exhibition, presented by the Australian War Memorial, has landed in the gallery space of the Museum and Art Gallery of the Northern Territory (MAGNT).

WORDS TIERNEY WHITE

Action! Film & War deep dives into Australia’s military history, the equipment used to document it through film, and the people behind the lens that captured it, telling the story of how Australians have filmed conflict for over 100 years. 

Through expertly selected objects, images and stories, audiences are challenged to consider the tensions between fact and fiction in the moving image’s quest to truthfully record history while telling the best story. 

Senior Curator of Photographs, Film & Sound at the Australian War Memorial Daniel Eisenberg says Darwin audiences should check it out given our strong connection to Australia’s military history. 

“It is so important to be able to share our National Collection as far and wide as we can with this touring exhibition, so it is a privilege to be able to bring over 250 objects from both the Memorials collection, and our various lenders, to a major garrison city.”

Audiences can check out film equipment used by military personnel and reporters, the advancement of film technology, and some sentimental items – including one surprising, history defining artefact. 

“… Personal objects such as diaries, drawing and photographs of both famous and less well-known Australian cinematographers, costumes, props, scripts, and designs from a number of iconic feature films. And, of course, Australia’s first Academy Award,” Eisenberg says. 

The accolade was awarded to chief director of Cinesound Review Ken G Hall for Kokoda Front Line!, which took out Best Documentary Feature at the 1942 Awards ceremony in Hollywood. 

The exhibition also explores feature film narratives, which collectively share war stories with a breadth of audiences, and frame how history is remembered. 

With a wide range of technology, artworks, posters, paper records, photographs, oral histories, and moving pictures to tell the story, Action! Film & War is certainly an intriguing exhibition to explore.

UNTIL SUN 1 JUN 
AT MAGNT 
INFO magnt.net.au

_{Image: Damien Parer, a Department of Information photographer, filming with a Newman-Sinclair 35mm camera during the Siege of Tobruk, 1941. Parer filmed the Australian forces extensively throughout the Middle East and New Guinea before being killed whilst working with the Americans on Peleliu. Photo: George Silk, AWM 009508}