As well as a full morning of ceremonies and events, Anzac Day in London this year will be marked by a special screening of Peter Weir’s WWI classic Gallipoli (1981) at the Hackney Picturehouse. Hosted by the London Australian Film Society, the screening begins at 9pm with a special introduction by Dr. Ian Henderson from the Menzies Centre for Australian Studies at King’s College, London.
Now, just about anyone who’s studied at an Australian high school since the mid-1980s will have seen this classic at some stage, and along with Breaker Morant and The Lighthorsemen, the film also holds a place as an established classic of Australia’s new wave. But, just as films like Breaker Morant attest, there is more to the Anzac spirit than those brave souls who landed on the beaches at Gallipoli and more to films about diggers than Peter Weir’s perennial classic. So, to celebrate the screening and mark the day that Australians and New Zealanders remember their fallen, The Far Paradise takes a look back at soldiers in Australian films before the new wave of the 1970s…
The Far Paradise 