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Screen cap from promotional trailer (DVD release)
form y separately published work icon Walkabout single work   film/TV  
Adaptation of Walkabout Donald Gordon Payne , James Vance Marshall , 1959 single work novel
Issue Details: First known date: 1971... 1971 Walkabout
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Film Details - Max L. Raab - Si Litvinoff Film Productions , 1971

Producers:

Si Litvinoff (Producer)
Anthony J. Hope (Associate Producer)
Max L. Raab (Executive Producer)

Production Companies:

Max L. Raab - Si Litvinoff Film Productions

Director of Photography:

Nicolas Roeg

Editors:

Antony Gibbs
Alan Pattillo

Production Designers:

Brian Eatwell
Terry Gough (Art Director)

Composer:

John Barry

Music:

John Barry (Conductor)
Phil Ramone (Music Producer)

Cast:

Incl. Jenny Agutter (Girl), Luc Roeg [as Lucien John] (White Boy), David Gulpilil [as David Gumpilil] (Black Boy), John Meillon (Man), Robert McDarra (Man), Peter Carver (No Hoper), John Illingsworth (Young Man), Hilary Bamberger (Woman), Barry Donnelly (Australian Scientist), Noeline Brown (German Scientist), Carlo Manchini (Italian Scientist).

Release Dates:

1. First screened at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival (France). Released commercially in the USA (1 July 1971), Sweden (30 August 1971), Australia (October 1971), UK (14 November 1971), France (23 February 1972), and West Germany (27 April 1983 - TV premiere). Director's cut released in Australia (9 April 1998), Germany (20 August 1998), Hungary (September 1998 - video premiere), and Finland (12 April 2001 - TV premiere). Screened at the 2003 Adelaide International Film Festival (Australia); Tokyo, Japan (7 August 2004); and 2008 Karlovy Vary Film Festival (Czech Republic).
2. Originally released on videocassette format in 1971 by Max L. Raab-Si Litvinoff Films. The 'Director's Cut' version was released in 1998 by Criterion Collection and Home Vision Cinema/Janus Films (USA). Re-released in 2001 on DVD format by Madman Entertainment (30th Anniversary release).

Location:

  • Filmed largely on location in central Australia, including the Northern Territory (Alice Springs, Arnhem Land, and Darwin), South Australia (including the Flinders Ranges, Iron Knob, and Lake Eyre), and Sydney (NSW). Shooting began in Sydney in August 1969.

Awards:

  • Cannes Film Festival (1971), Golden Palm Award - Nicholas Roeg (nomination)

Notes:

1. Walkabout was made by English director Nicholas Roeg, two English children played the lead characters, and the script was written by an English playwright and based on an English novel. However, Roeg cast David Gulpilil in a lead role at a time when non-Indigenous actors were still being used to play Indigenous parts. Reactions to the film varied widely at the time; some critics were made uneasy by the intense romanticism and wilful thematic naivety, while others applauded it as 'a modern parable of survival and loss in cinematic blank verse'.
2. The world rights to the film were sold to Twentieth Century Fox.
3. Also known as Der Traum vom Leben (West Germany); Erämaan Vangit (Finland); L'inizio del Cammino (Italy); La Randonnée (France); Sonsuz Cöl (Turkey); and Walkabout - Mannaprovet (Sweden).
4. Further reference: Andrew Pike and Ross Cooper. Australian Film 1900-1977, A Guide to Feature Film Production (1980, q.v.), pp.

Subjects:
Settings:
  • Sturt Plain, Mataranka - Tennant Creek area, Central Northern Territory, Northern Territory,
Influence on:
Walkabout
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