One of the Cantrills’ earliest filmmaking efforts, documenting child’s play and the activity-based workshops held by the Creative Leisure Centres in Brisbane (through which Corinne and Arthur first met).

Another film about recreation and learning, made during the Cantrills’ four-year residence in London, and similarly tinctured by Herbert Read’s notions about children’s education as self-directed, creative, and free. The adventure playground provides a space in which children can shape and reimagine the environment according to their own sense of play.

The first film the Cantrills made upon their return to Australia in 1969, gal­va­ni­sed by their expe­rien­ces with expe­ri­men­tal cine­ma in Europe and their sen­se that the Australian lands­ca­pe could be cre­a­ti­ve­ly gene­ra­ti­ve. It is both a lands­ca­pe and a children’s film: it fea­tu­res their two young sons as they move through a vibrant Australian bush scene.

An ener­ge­tic, yet care­ful­ly cho­re­o­grap­hed and lay­e­red, stu­dy of the hills, plains, and gar­dens of Canberra. Great fee­ling and exci­te­ment for the lands­ca­pe is expres­sed through a roving, dan­cing, ​‘calli­grap­hic’ camera.

A sombre and despairing bush film, made after the untimely death of the poet Charles Buckmaster (1951−72), to whom the film is dedicated, and shortly before the Cantrills’ move to the USA in 1973. Unlike Earth Message, At Eltham is slow and somnambulant, observing with wearied, blinking eyes a bush scene in Eltham (an outer suburb of Melbourne). The film is haunted by a sense that they ​‘could no longer work as filmmakers in Australia’ (Corinne Cantrill).

The came­ra focu­ses deli­be­ra­te­ly on the sea, not on the beach and the visi­ble envi­ron­men­tal destruc­ti­on cau­sed by sand mines. The con­cen­tra­ti­on on the mood and natu­re of the sea high­lights the desi­re to res­pect natu­re and its power. Different mate­ri­als are used to film the undu­la­ti­on of the sea, the reflec­ti­on of light and the hori­zon, over and over. This is visu­al poe­try who­se musi­cal struc­tu­re rests on silence.