Portraiture accompanies every step of the creative process of filmmaking – from casting, to stills photography on location, to the posters for film on its release. Starstruck: Australian Movie Portraits draws on the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia’s rich collection of previously unseen photography to explore the history of Australian movie portraiture from the early 20th century to today.
Australia’s cinema history comes alive through glimpses of many faces, familiar and unfamiliar. You may not have been aware of the back-story of Australian filmmaking in the 1920s, but you may now respond to the tender and challenging portraits of those who worked through that fruitful decade, just as you will see overlays of many of those same photographic techniques in the most recent images. It is a story of continuity and growth. Indeed, it is nothing less than the story of Australian cinema, revealed through images of players from every echelon of the cinematic game, from earnest first-time stills photographers to silver screen idols.
