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CecilHolmes

  • Director
Cecil_William_Holmes_thumbnail.KEY.jpg

New Zealand’s first left-wing documentary filmmaker, Cecil Holmes achieved notoriety in the late 1940s through the highly publicised exposure of his communist activity as a Public Service Association (PSA) delegate in the National Film Unit. He went on to become a significant film director in Australia.

Image credit: Alexander Turnbull Library, 1/2-023573; F (detail)

Screenography

1995 Subject Television
Bitter Rice
1989 Producer Film
The Voyage of Bounty's Child
1984 Writer Film
The Killing of Angel Street
1981 Writer Film
Cyclone Approaching!
1976 Director, Writer Short film

Biography

Cecil Holmes achieved notoriety in the late 1940s, thanks to the exposure of his communist activity as an NZ Public Service Association delegate in government filmmakers the National Film Unit. After leaving New Zealand in 1949, he went on to become a significant film director in Australia.

Awards

1958 Karlovy Vary Film Festival (Czechoslovakia)
Special Prize: Three in One

“It was genuinely difficult to do sound recording on location in those days - the recording was on film and the gear consisted of a number of huge cumbersome objects … I did push very hard for sound on location and the greater use of effects and dialogue than was customary then in the usual format of Weekly Review items. ”

Cecil Holmes, quoted in Russell Campbell’s 2011 book Observations - Studies in New Zealand Documentary

Related images

Cecil_William_Holmes_Gallery_1.jpg
Cecil William Holmes - photo taken around 1956.
Image courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull Library. Image reference 1/2-023573; F