What is known as Ozploitation (the contraction of aussie-exploitation) is the product of a political decision. The creation of the Australian Film Commission in the mid-1970s, as well as the introduction of tax incentives for production, incited the birth of a new Australian wave and also encouraged the production of low-budget genre films, horror or action movies, thrillers, road movies and erotic comedies.

Little or not well distributed in France, these productions differed from the conventions of the American B-movie by their crudity, their violence, their subversive dimension, their rejection of decorum, as if the intensity of the sensations they generated was combined with the severities of a larger-than-life landscape.

Seventeen films will be presented during this retrospective, most of which have never been released in France. They will illustrate the most diverse aspects of this vernacular cinema, from horror (Inn of The Damned by Terry Bourke, Next of Kin by Toni Williams, Cut by Kimble Rendall, Wolf Creek by Greg McLean), thriller (Carl Schulze’s Goodbye Paradise, Ian Barry’s Chain Reaction), the slapstick comedy of manners (Tim Burstall’s Alvin Purple), and the extravagant transcription of rock (Chris Lövfèn’s Oz), to name but a few.

The program will culminate in a Mad Max night, where the four films featuring the most famous figure of Ozploitation will be shown together. Fasten your seatbelts!

In collaboration with The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia

More information: https://www.cinematheque.fr/cycle/ozploitation-608.html

Image: Prod DB Kennedy Miller Prod. / DR _ THE ROAD WARRIOR, George Miller 1981, with Mel Gibson