AustLit

'This article examines some aspects of the West German reception of a series of Australian films about Aborigines - including Peter Weir's The Last Wave (1977), Phillip Noyce's Backroads (1977) and Michael Edols' Lalai and Floating (1973 and 1975) - which were shown in Germany and elsewhere in Europe in 1978 and 1979. It explains how these films came to be shown in Europe, how and why they caught the imagination of German reviewers and film-makers at the time, and how they themselves contributed to the begetting of several German films on Aboriginal themes - including Nina Gladitz's documentary Das Uran gehört der Regenbogenschlange (The Uranium Belongs to the Rainbow Serpent) (1979), Werner Herzog's Where the Green Ants Dream (1984) and Wim Wenders' Until the End of the World (1991).' (Author's abstract)