'A great deal has been made ofthe boom in audiovisual production based in southern Queensland (and to some extent in northern Queensland)in the 1990s. This follows a pattern throughout the so-called 'revival' period (since the early 1970s) in Australia which has seen successive moments of regional upsurge. In the 1970s, it was South Australia, under the energetic leadership of the South Australian Film Corporation, that saw many of the best feature films and several of the early historical mini-series of the early revival period made in that state (see, for example, Moran). During the early to mid-1980s,Western Australia, with the locationofbold production houses such as Barron Films and strong independent documentary traditions, offered robust regional opportunities, culminating in such memorable films as Shame and Fran.' (Introduction)