In This Life's Body

A titan of Australian experimental cinema journeys deep within her own past.

In this moving autobiography, structured almost entirely as a montage of still images linked together by narration, experimental filmmaker Corinne Cantrill (Waterfall, MIFF 1986; Time/Colour Separations, MIFF 1982) offers a searching reflection on family photographs and what they reveal and conceal. Moving from her childhood and adolescence through to motherhood, Cantrill examines complex inheritances of race, genetics and culture in contemporary Australia.

Together with her husband and creative partner Arthur, Cantrill is a key figure in the Australian avant-garde, having created more than 150 screen works since 1960, publishing the influential experimental art journal Cantrills Filmnotes, and exhibiting works in major cultural institutions like Paris’s Centre Pompidou and New York’s Museum of Modern Art. In This Life’s Body is a stylistically disciplined and emotionally profound work from a legend of the form.

“Corinne’s unflinching curiosity and honesty frames and reframes questions of family, love, religion, sexuality, identity and belonging.” – Senses of Cinema