IT IS perhaps surprising that Australian Rules Football hasn’t appeared in more films. As an endeavour that arouses great passion one might assume 'the footy' to be perfect material to feature in character narratives played out on celluloid.
But Australian Rules has only appeared as a major plotline in a handful of movies. The first was a comedy about a local footballer kidnapped by South Melbourne called The Great McCarthy which came out in 1975. Although very funny, it didn’t do all that well at the box office.
The Club, the movie version of John Williamson’s play of the same name, was released in 1980 and examined the machinations happening behind the scenes at a major Melbourne footy club. With its colourful characters and great storyline it was a hit with both critics and punters alike.
An engrossing documentary exploring the struggles of the Western Bulldogs – and a couple of diehard fans - came out in 1997. The film was called Year of the Dogs and received generally high praise from critics, but drew mainly film buffs and Doggies fans to the cinema, and didn’t exactly set the box office alight.
The most recent film to feature Aussie Rules is a film named, simply and aptly, Australian Rules. This was based on a novel called Deadly Unna?, and tells the story of a young man falling in love while battling racism in a small country town in South Australia.
“These are all fine films,” says Erin Free, editor of FILMINK magazine. “With most of them football is part of a bigger story. Football gives the films their flavour and familiarity, and gives them their backbone in terms of setting.”
So why are so few films made with Aussie Rules as a chief feature? According to Erin, there are a number of possible reasons.
“The people making movies in this country are perhaps not interested in sport,” he says. “And the audiences that see Australian films could possibly be described as ‘arthouse audiences’ who don’t traditionally see many sports-themed films.”
He also suggests that film financing funding bodies may believe there is already enough coverage of sport in this country, and prefer to focus on other aspects of Australian culture when funding films.
There may also be an element of caution when it comes to funding or creating films featuring footy due to concerns that they may not sell well overseas.
In any case, none of these factors was an issue for those film makers who competed for $10,000 in prize money in the MIFF Footy Shorts competition. As part of the AFL’s 150 year celebrations the film makers were asked to make a film of no more than five minutes which explored the theme of “what football means to me or my community”.
The eleven finalists were shown on Thursday night at ACMI at Federation Square in Melbourne.
