Bruce Petty

Documentary about the state of the modern world.

The animated history of leisure: that concept most commonly known as free time.

The latest work from Australian political satirist, cartoonist and filmmaker Bruce Petty contemplates our efforts to imagine the future using animated and live-action sequences, fiction and reality. An accident takes place during the filming of a documentary on the future and the film’s presenter (Rhys Muldoon) slips into unconsciousness. The actor’s muddled neurons recall fragments of his script, and he begins to consider humankind’s past and present imaginings of Utopia – an ideal and perfect state.

A satirical enquiry into the origins of media, their distribution and their effects on the way we behave. Those familiar with cartoonist Bruce Petty’s award winning film Leisure will enjoy the same sharp wit brought to bear on another institution, the media. This three-part film is a satirical enquiry into the origins of media, their distribution and their effects on the way we behave. The first part provides a brief history of print, radio, television and film. The second part proposes that a market-placed media produces the problem of monopolisation leading to mediocrity. Finally, Petty produces a caricature of the way ideas form in the mind from reading print, as distinct from passive looking and listening.

A visual onslaught of artistic ideas, showing how art relates to and intertwines with our daily lives. Art, personified here as an opera-singing Valkyrie, hang-glides down from the clouds to check on the state of the arts in Australia - from painting, writing and music to dance, theatre, puppetry and sculpture. Featuring John Bell, Anna Volska, Reg Livermore, Rory O'Donohue, David Gulpilil and the work of Thomas Keneally and Patrick White among others, this is a phantasmagoria of filmic effects.

Short directed by Bruce Petty.

Australian documentary about the New South Wales Builders' Labourers' Federation, 1940-1975.