The Waterside Workers' Federation Film Unit: The Forgotten Frontier of the Fifties

This paper, written for the Fifth International Documentary Conference, Brisbane, 1997, offers a reappraisal of the historical status of Australian documentary, and, more generally, suggests the value of a revised view of Australian Cinema. In particular, Martha Ansara and Lisa Milner look at the work of the Waterside Workers' Federation Film Unit in the xontext of the rapid expansion of Australian filmmaking that took place in the 1950s. At the time, the 'wharfies' Film Unit opened a new frontier in documentary filmmaking in Australia, an endeavour which, in retrospect, provides a source of reflection upon our own documentary practices of today.