Peter Weir's 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' (1975) to be published in the BFI CLASSICS series (Bloomsbury: 2022)

I have secured a book contract with Bloomsbury/BFI Classics to write the first standalone volume on Weir’s classic film 'Picnic at Hanging Rock', which combines history of the film’s production and reception with a re-working of the film’s key themes through a feminist and decolonial lens. 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' is widely hailed as a classic by film scholars and critics alike.

It is seen as exemplary of what has come to be known as the ‘AFC’ style of filmmaking, a term coined by Susan Dermody and Elizabeth Jacka to describe a particular style of heritage costume drama sponsored by the Australian Film Commission.

However, 'Picnic' does not readily fit into this archetype, nor does it uphold the implicit moral code associated with this ‘national’ form of cinema. This elusive, ambiguous and poetic film has inspired reams of scholarship.

Certain readings of the film that play into notions of patriarchal fantasy (Bruzzi), tropes of ‘white-vanishing’ (Tilley) and colonial national identity have become dominant.

This volume will examine the cardinal themes explored in this haunting, yet terrifying film from feminist, psychoanalytic and decolonial perspectives to argue that the film is, in fact, highly subversive in contradistinction to many critical readings of the film. In short, I argue that this film is deeply critical of both 'white settler logic' and patriarchy.

This book will be published in 2022 in the very prestigious British Film Institute Classics series.