John Hughes John Hughes i(A103246 works by)
Born: Established: Coburg, Brunswick - Coburg area, Melbourne - North, Melbourne, Victoria, ;
Gender: Male
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Works By

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1 New Life for Old Bones: Moving Image Collections at the National Archives of Australia John Hughes , 2016 single work criticism
— Appears in: Studies in Documentary Film , vol. 10 no. 3 2016; (p. 252-272)

'Cinema studies scholarship has recently turned its attention to the ‘utilitarian film’; the industrial, training and ‘data-film’; Rick Prelinger’s ‘vernacular archive’. An Australian study mapping this territory has been initiated. Australia’s largest repository of audio-visual records is the National Archives of Australia (NAA), where a variety of collections derived from Commonwealth agencies (CAs) are housed and preserved. Diminishing resources allocated by governments to collecting institutions in Australia compound the degree of difficulty faced by moving image archives at a time when an exponential growth in digital acquisitions, crisis around the preservation of video-originated archives and citizen’s needs and expectations of access to records, including moving image archives, increases. This article offers an overview of the NAA’s Audio-visual Preservation projects and collections.' (Publication abstract)
1 A Work in Progress : The Rise and Fall of Australian Filmmakers Co-operatives, 1966–86 John Hughes , 2015 single work criticism
— Appears in: Senses of Cinema , December no. 77 2015; 'Film co-ops were born out of necessity – both economic and political. During the 1960s and 1970s, avant-garde and experimental cinema, “expanded cinema” and varying strands of independent filmmaking sought to grow audiences for work unwelcome in public broadcasting and commercial distribution. Co-operatives were established across Europe, the US, Canada, Japan, Australia and elsewhere. Mostly they were distribution and exhibition operations rather than production collectives, although these kinds of experiments, where they did occur, were often aligned with co-ops. London’s Cinema-Action Collective established in 1968, for example, was an activist media group with close ties to the London Filmmaker’s Co-op. Also established in 1968, the Austrian Filmmakers’ Co-op in Vienna (with some hiatus in the 1970s) continues today, as does Canyon Films in San Francisco. Co-operative structures matched the ethos of their period, insofar as they proposed alternatives to private enterprise by creating institutions envisaged with a commitment to “authenticity”, creativity and co-operation – in contrast with the dominant, “straight” culture’s repressive authoritarianism, alienation and avarice. Needless to say, actuality was a little more complex and compromised than such a dichotomy might suggest, as Australia’s examples illustrate.' (Author's introduction)
1 form A Filimmakers' Cinema John Hughes (director), Tom Zubrycki (director), 2014 single work film/TV non-fiction

'An essential story of late 20th century Australia; the rise, fall and afterlife of the Filmmakers’ Co-operative movement in Australia is an untold story linking social movements of the 1960s, ‘70s and ‘80s with an ‘underground’ cinema that fostered alternative filmmaking enterprise in production, distribution and exhibition. An extraordinary diversity of creative ambition converged with a ground swell of social change, as the Co-ops became a forum and a vehicle for ‘minority’ voices denied expression in mainstream media. The Co-ops themselves changed radically during their lifetimes, charting transitions from 1960s avant-garde film, through militant opposition to authoritarianism, capitalism and patriarchy, to engagement and critical collaboration with a market driven film industry. Australia’s best-known, and lesser-known filmmakers passed through the excitements, disasters and ordeals of the Filmmakers Co-ops. The project contributes to a broad appreciation of engaged filmmaking in Australian cultural history; in particular the work celebrates the commitment of concerned and active citizens, engaged with independent film work, both production and distribution, in campaigns for social equity, human rights and intellectual freedom. The project also explores the constraints and conflicts generated by agencies of government aligned more often with markets than audiences, and with prestige rather than social and cultural impact. ' (Source: Documentary Australia Foundation website)
1 2 form y separately published work icon Artscape : Love and Fury John Hughes , Australia : Early Works , 2013 Z1934467 2013 single work film/TV 'Love & Fury concerns the life and works of two remarkable Australians, Judith Wright and H.C. 'Nugget' Coombs. Our story begins with their correspondence, released by the National Library in Canberra in 2009, making public for the first time one of the best-kept secrets in Australian literary and political public life - the 25 year clandestine relationship between Wright and Coombs.'

The story of their meeting, their love and their shared passions provides unique insights into the dreams and disappointments of a generation.

Judith Wright, among Australia's foremost literary figures, poet, essayist, activist, dedicated herself to writing and fighting for a more humane Australia. Her passion was the land and the first Australians. She was often furious about what she saw as the betrayal of both. Her creative enterprise as a poet engaged deeply with very contemporary concerns of philosophy and language. H. C. 'Nugget' Coombs (1906- 1997) and Judith Wright (1915-2000) are without doubt two of Australia's most admired figures.

Nugget Coombs, the policy intellectual, 'sage', advisor to governments at the highest level from Curtin to Whitlam and beyond, devoted the last decades of his life to the most rigorous commitment to Indigenous Australia. They each had enormous ambitions for Australian culture and society; their meeting in the early 1970s -Nugget was 66 and Judith 57 -was at a time of great optimism that must have mirrored for both of them, the early post war when shared ambitions for a new kind of Australia seemed achievable. This is a story of two people whose love, work and knowledge have much to tell us still.' (Source: ABC website)
1 form y separately published work icon Love & Fury: Judith Wright & 'Nugget' Coombs ( dir. John Hughes ) Neutral Bay : Enhance TV , 2013 6440252 2013 single work film/TV

'Narrated by Ramona Koval, with Helen Morse and Paul English reading from the letters of Judith Wright and ‘Nugget’ Coombs, Love & Fury explores the relationship and shared passions of these two remarkable Australians. Their clandestine relationship over 25 years has been one of the best-kept secrets in Australian literary and political public life.'

'Judith Wright, among Australia’s foremost literary figures, poet, essayist, activist, dedicated herself to writing and fighting for a more humane Australia. Her passion was the land and the first Australians; she was often furious about what she saw as the betrayal of both. ‘Nugget’ Coombs, policy intellectual, ‘sage’, advisor to governments from Curtin to Whitlam, devoted the last decades of his life to the most rigorous commitment to Indigenous Australia. They met in the early 1970s –Nugget was 66 and Judith 57 –at a moment when their shared ambitions for a new kind of Australia seemed achievable. This is a story of two people whose love, work and knowledge have much to tell us still.' (Source: Early Works Australian Documentary Film and Television website)
1 2 form y separately published work icon Hidden Treasures : Inside the National Library with Betty Churcher : John Olsen's Opera House Mural Betty Churcher , ( dir. John Hughes ) Australia : Australian Broadcasting Corporation , 2008 Z1507719 2008 single work film/TV
2 form y separately published work icon The Art of War Betty Churcher , ( dir. John Hughes ) 2004 Z1196015 2004 single work film/TV
1 form y separately published work icon After Mabo John Hughes , ( dir. John Hughes ) Australia : Early Works Mirimbiak Nations Aboriginal Corporation , 1997 14524022 1997 single work film/TV

'From the perspective of Mirimbiak Nations Aboriginal Corporation, AFTER MABO chronicles the political crisis around native title in Australia during 1997 and the Indigenous response to the current Government's ongoing threat to human rights implicit in its proposed amendments to Australia's Native Title Act.' (Production summary)
1 14 form y separately published work icon What I Have Written John Scott , ( dir. John Hughes ) Melbourne : Early Works , 1995 Z126531 1995 single work film/TV

What I Have Written explores masculinity, spectatorship, and the pornographic imagination. After Christopher Houghton suffers a stroke from which he is not expected to recover, his wife Sorel Atherton receives the manuscript of a novella written by her husband and 'leaked' to her by her husband's friend and university colleague, Jeremy Fayrfax. Sorel finds in these pages evidence of a life betrayed. While Christopher Houghton stares speechless and uncomprehending from his death bed, Fayrfax seeks a moment of truth.
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