Light Years (1991)

2K RESTORATION

“Layers photographs, landscapes and stories to construct a sharply focused portrait of photographer Olive Cotton and the images and philosophies that shaped her life and work.”– ACMI, Melbourne

“Kathryn Millard’s film mirrors Cotton’s elegant photos” – Sydney Morning Herald

In the 1930s and 1940s, Olive Cotton helped run a photographic studio in Sydney with her childhood friend and first husband Max Dupain. During that time, her own work was exhibited locally and internationally. After World War II, she remarried and moved to Koorawatha in central NSW where she lived without water and electricity while struggling to survive and raise a family. Too poor to print her photographs, the negatives were stored in a sea chest until the 1960s, when friends and family helped her build a darkroom in Cowra. She spent much of the rest of her life printing from her archives. Cotton amassed an amazing photographic collection during her 60-year career: she is one of Australia’s most revered photographers and a key figure in the development of contemporary photography in this country.

Introduced by Kathryn Millard and Sandy Edwards at Ritz Cinemas and Barbara Hall at Lido Cinemas.

“I would not like to be labelled a romanticist, a pictorialist, modernist or and other ‘ist’…I want to feel free to photograph anything that interests me in whatever way I like.” – Olive Cotton 

“With her camera, Cotton always draws our attention to the effects light creates as it moves across form, highlighting the ways that photographs can capture and make sense of the fleeting experience of time and of being in the world.” – National Gallery of Australia 

“Her romantic heart is reflected in her capacity to find the exotic in the ordinary; her willingness to experiment can be found in the play of light and shadow; her love of nature is indicated in her intimate depictions of the natural world.” – Alison Stieven-Taylor, Australian Book Review 

Rating

G

Duration

47 min

Language

English

Cast

Olive Cotton, Ross McInerney

Director

Kathryn Millard