At Uluru is pre­ce­ded by Waterfall, ano­ther enig­ma­tic stu­dy of a major Australian land­mark – this time, Mackenzie Falls in the Grampians, Victoria. One of the most vibrant of the Cantrills’ three-colour sepa­ra­ti­on films, Waterfall reflects an inte­rest in the begin­nings of colou­ri­sed pho­to­grap­hic pro­duc­ti­on and moti­on-pic­tu­re film. As in their Uluru films, the film­ma­kers set out to dis­co­ver sour­ces and acquain­tan­ces for a cine­ma­tic prac­ti­ce in the phy­si­cal, mys­te­rious world.

At Uluru is the result of the first jour­ney the Cantrills took to cen­tral Australia in 1977. The film con­veys their sen­se of awe when faced with the monu­men­tal struc­tu­re of Uluru, which is shown to be both sta­tic and ever-chan­ging through the inter­play of light and sha­pe. For the Cantrills, the rock eva­des cine­ma­tic docu­men­ta­ti­on whi­le also pro­vi­ding com­pel­ling metap­hors and sug­ge­s­ti­ons for its prac­ti­ce. Remaining invi­o­la­te and gran­der than any artis­tic attempts to ​‘cap­tu­re’ it, the enig­ma­tic mono­lith mean­w­hi­le offers the film­ma­kers the oppor­tu­ni­ty to explo­re a mys­te­rious cre­a­ti­ve syn­the­sis bet­ween con­tent and form, land­form and film-form.

— Note that At Uluru is very rare­ly scree­ned and can only be seen through this film print, as oppo­sed to The Second Journey (To Uluru) (1981), in which the film­ma­kers revi­si­ted the place. —

“We are inte­rested in a con­ti­nuing dia­lo­gue bet­ween con­tent and form. We also see this syn­the­sis of lands­ca­pe and film form as brin­ging together our atti­tu­des as citi­zens to the con­ser­va­ti­on of land, forests and seas­ho­re, and to Indigenous land rights. We have no dif­fi­cul­ty in sha­ring the Indigenous belief that the lands­ca­pe is the repo­si­to­ry of the spi­ri­tu­al life of this con­ti­nent.” (Arthur and Corinne Cantrill, 1982)