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Dennis O'Rourke
Director 1945 - 2013

Dennis O'Rourke

Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

Australian-born director Dennis O'Rourke is an award-winning documentary filmmaker. While living in Papua New Guinea, he completed the critically-acclaimed feature Yumi Yet - Independence for Papua New Guinea. O-Rourke died in 2013.

Directed Films

Every film this person directed

3 titles
Cunnamulla

Cunnamulla

Dennis O'Rourke 2000 1h 22m

Cunnamulla, 800 kilometres west of Brisbane, is the end of the railway line. In the months leading up to a scorching Christmas in the bush, there's a lot more going on than the annual lizard race. Here, Aboriginal and white Australians live together but apart. Creativity struggles against indifference, eccentricity against conformity.

Ileksen

Ileksen

Dennis O'Rourke, Gary Kildea 1978 59m

A companion to Yumi yet, O’Rourke and Kildea’s Ileksen (derived from the English 'election’) documents Papua New Guinea’s first general election in 1977. The film records a broad cross-section of candidates who, without an extended media network at their disposal, rely on relentless campaigning, ingenuity and personal charisma to attract votes.

Yumi Yet

Dennis O'Rourke 1977 54m

Documents Independence Day of Papua New Guinea on September 16, 1975, comparing the pageantry of local celebrations with the official ceremony in the capital. Also provides historical background about the area's 19th-century colonization by Holland, Germany, and Great Britain.

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