Michael Glasheen

SUNSHINE CITY is Albie Thom’s sprawling, protoplasmic experimental portrait of his hometown of Sydney. The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia call it “a structured diary film which investigates the process of living in Sydney, which uses a repeating light modulation to intensify experiences of light, heat, colour”.

Shot around the 1968 Arts Vietnam protest—where artists gathered to oppose Australia’s role in the war—this experimental collage film splices festival footage with news imagery, photographs, commercials, and televised material to expose how Vietnam was “experienced” through media and to implicate the viewer in that mediation.