The Age from Melbourne, Victoria, Australia • Page 9

THE AGE, Thursday, May 17, 1979 JTPfLfi f5? fi fir fir Tt ft If sr A hara fteg at Cannes The Great White Yowie Hunter Mr. Cilroy: "There are yowies out there." G2Q7FBIY BABKE3 reports from fanim on fhi film fsstbtl Thus both sides run their sept rate races, slapping Decks, chatting up buyers; turning on the functions at which so much of the real business at Cannes is transacted. The main difference is that the Federal commission has $150,000 to spend in the fortnight, while the NSW corporation has only $20,000. What neither group disputes is the need for the Australian presence at Cannes. At this 35th festival 50 countries are offering 700 films for sale.

Of these only 24 are in the festival competition, and one is 'My Brilliant Career. To be here Js to have a stall at the world's biggest film bazaar. The Australian films are now dealt firmly into the massive in ternational film In the words of Mr. Jim Henry, the AFC's American representee tive, to have a film in the ctimpe tition "shows that you are na tion of substance in the film in dustry that you have the talent, resources and finance to produce quality rrv Few of the Australians coin nected with My Brilliant Career1 not even producer Margaret Fink believe it has much chance of taking a major-prize. But they, hope the of being a will help to sett the fikn in the market place.

The hot favorite for the big prize is Francis Ford Coppola's 'Apocalypse a film about the Vietnam war which was ac cepted sight unseen for the com petition. Another favorite is The China Syndrome', a film about a nucjear reactor accident which has gen erated wide interest after the Harrisburg crisis in the US. Indirectly, the Australians hope to benefit from the expertise being applied to the promotion of these two American films. Promotion of 'Apocalypse Now is being handled by Pierre Ris sient, a French film expert who advised the NSW corporation to enter My Brilliant Career and who is an adviser for NSW. Promotion of The China Syn drome' is being handled by an.

other Frenchman, Rene Donzelot, who is also promoting "My Brilliant Career. rE bizarre procession past the Palais de France starts as soon as the sun rises over the Riviera. Drag queens, joggers, nancy boys, foxy ladies and an extraordinary collection, of malevolent dwarfs, hunchbacks and cripples provide a surreal human backdrop to the innate craziness of the Cannes Film Festival. There is even one filthy beggar who squats on the pavement outside the plushest hotel wagging the naked stump of his amputated leg at the beautiful creatures parading their narcissism down the sunlit beach front For all its grotesqueness, this street show is a fair reflection of the real business of the festival, which is to sell the 700 films being offered in the marketplace and to promote the 24 films entered in the What matters at Cannes is grabbing attention, being seen, and to be seen in this crowd of 50,000 self-absorbed hustlers, you have to have a gimmick. That remains true whether you are a film dealer, a whore fj saw one lady with flashing lights on her breasts) or a one-legged beggar.

And thattl is why tomorrow 1000 local drink waiters with champagne bottles and trays will race over 200 metres along the beach at Cannes for a $500 prize being offered by the Australian Film Commission. It is just the commission's way of attracting attention to its claim that this is a vintage year for Australian films at Cannes. (Champagne i vintage. Get it?) And that is why from their embattled beachfront hotel suites, the NSW Film Corporation and the Australian Film Commission are dispensing badges, T-shirts, shoulder bags, booze and hospitality to dozens of film buyers, journalists, publicists and freeloaders. Somehow you have to get diem to take notice of your products and this year Australia has a lot of products at Cannes.

Yesterday was Australia's day. It was the first screening, and the world premiere, of the $1 million Brilliant Career', Australia's entry in the festival competition. It was crucially important, be- -cause it was the film on which team, said the NSW decision to come to Cannes separately was purely a marketing decision. "We are here to sell four distinctly different films and we thought there was a danger of being considered part Krf a national genre if we remained as a national package," he said. Australian Film Commission chairman Mr.

Ken Watts said the commission welcomed the separate marketing initiative. "We don't offer a marketing service unless we are asked to by the producer," he said. But touches of Commonwealth-State rivalry are plainly apparent As the major investor in 'My Brilliant Career', the NSW corporation has control of the most important Australian film at the festival and is plainly delighted to have this edge over the bigger, more lavish Federal operation. On the other side, ft is not hard to find somebody from the commission prepared at least privately to question the need for the NSW. operation, and to point out the Commonwealth advantages of and Australia pinned its international cinema reputation Ibis year.

But Australia's interest at Cannes is not limited to its com- petition entry. The NSW Film Corporation is the major investor ($450,000) in My Brilliant Career', but the corporation is also here to try to sell the new Jack Thompson film The Journalist' cheeky comedy about a good-natured but compulsive according to the blurb). The corporation is also pushing Thirst' and The Night the Prowler. Quite separately, the AFC has its usual suite in the plush Carlton Hotel and is providing an information, marketing and public relations service for the entire Australian film industry. The commission is managing a large collection of films ranging from the big budget features to six feminist shorts being shown under the group title Women Waves'.

This is the first time there has been a divided Commonwealth-State representation at Cannes, and both contingents are touchy about their roles. David Roe, head of the NSW ULTIMATE From ALAN ATTWOOD in Sydney and four arms, dancing about emitting a blood-curdling shriek. The Aborigines bolted, leaving food which sustained the terrible twosome. Well, that is the suggestion. As settlers moved slowly into the forests of the Blue Mountains in the second half of last century, yowie sightings continued.

In 1964, a girl feeding chickens reportedly was confronted by "an enormous hairy man-like beast with ferocious eyes set deep behind big eyebrows. Large teeth showed in the partly-opened Scientists, as is their wont, are sceptical. They attribute some of the early sightings to tame monkeys allowed to run wild in the Blue Mountains by early settlers. They argue that if the yowie exists, or existed, scientists by now would have unearthed skeletal remains. But the yowies have a champion, an intense Katoomba man who has devoted his life to estab hsbing their existence.

Mr. Rex Gilroy, 35, director of the Kedumba Nature Display in Katoomba, is a self-taught naturalist For 21 years, he has been on the trail of the yowie. He has recorded 3000 reported yowie sightings and recently set up die "Australian Yowie Research He first heard stories of the hairy monster when he came to Katoomba High School from Cabramatta in 1959. He admits that his campaign to place the yowie in the ranks of the living has been an uphill battle. The local lads give him a hard time, singing out "Yowieee" whenever they see him.

"I have to put up with a lot of ridicule," he says. "Most people think I'm a nut. "But no one will investigate the creature. Scientists in this country will not give me a proper hearing or investigate my Gilroy's museum in Katoomba. IN BRAGGADOCIO From DOUGLAS ALEXANDER, in Johannesburg Ian Cameron, 28, of Johannesburg, who believes he is one of the few people to survive a Rue sian roulette wound, is still having periodic surgery eight years after he put a .45 bullet through his skulL He lost the use of bis left hand and is in constant pain, but has convinced himself it was for the better because it stopped boa drinking and gambling.

'TSSh i mad did. says-a -disfigured and handicapped Cameron, who can take only sheltered employment Miss Rosanne Nordcutt says: "Russian roulette seems to be a pastime among young police bored with charge office duty late at night i "All too often, someone ends up dead; They never seem to she said. Some teenagers trying to im press friends also try it get hold of weapons in our gun-happy said Miss Nord cutt is Erect and sublime, for one moment of time, In the next, that wild figure they saw (As if stung by a spasm) plunge into the chasm While they waited and listened in awe From 'The Hunting of The Snark' Lewis Carroll. ris tall, hairy with head set deep into broad shoulders. It walks on two legs with a loping gait and has a foul smell.

Normally it is placid, conversing in grunts, but when provoked or alarmed gives a high-pitched shriek. It is not St. Hilda's latest boom recruit, but the yowie, Australia's answer to the Loch Ness Monster, Abominable Snowman and American Yowie is an Aboriginal word meaning "great hairy Yowie yarns have abounded among Australian bushmen for as long as billies have been boiled. The mysterious monster, so it is said, is most at home in dense forest, particultrly favoring the Blue Mountains region. Bush-walkers near the Wentworth Falls recently reported seeing "a strange shaggy grey mass disappearing through the Spotlight shooters in the same area later had the feeling of something watching them and were more than a little startled when their spotlight picked up "a pair of red eyes the size of tennis In northern NSW, on the Newell Highway running through the desolate scrub between Nar-rabri and Coonabarabran, truckies have erected a sign: "Beware yowies for the next 121 The sign was put up as a joke, but Coonabarabran police say some of the truckies heading for Queensland are afraid to sleep by the roadside.

Yowie stories began soon after the first settlement of Australia. One suggestion is that it all began with two escaped convicts in the Sydney Cove area, one a giant of a man, the other short, with a luxuriant beard. The smaller convict would sit on the other's shoulders and by crouching allowed his beard to cover his mate's face. Local Aborigines were confronted by a man-monster with long beard DURING this year's harvesting of harp seals in Canada, the long standing North American controversy over alleged cruelty, and the need for the harvest, spread to Australia. Many Australian animal lovers might be astonished to find that the harvest is defended, not only by the Canadian Government and the independent Committee on Seals and Sealing (COSS), but by animal organisations such as the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies and the Canadian Council of Animal Care.

Further surprises could be that the licensed and supervised fishermen do not skin the seals alive; nor is the species endangered; rather the harp seal's abundance in 'the world is second only to the unharvested Antarctic crab-eater seaL The population and ecological role of sealing is monitored by COSS, by the Fisheries and Environment Department, and by seal scientists on the standing committee on research and statistics of the International Commission for the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries. The population is assessed by three diverse techniques including aerial ultra-violet photography. This year's quota of 170,000 harp seals out of a herd of 1.3 to 1.4 million, was set to maintain the annual growth rate of 10 per cent. No more than 5 per cent of seals one year or older can be taken, to maintain a balanced herd with a maximum growth rate. The whelping season is short and the seals are taken from dangerous ice floes north-east of Newfoundland.

A controlled sailing fleet of eight ships takes a limited number of sealers through the difficult ice. About 500 sealers use smaller vessels. Other sealers, tackle the seals on foot from land. Sealing in Canada is arduous and dangerous. It is also a 300-year-old tradition in the culture of the people.

The rugged and extensive coast and the islands of Newfoundland are sparsely populated by fishing communities. There is high unemployment and low incomes, compared with urban areas. Seal harvesting provides essential income in the slack fishing season. Each year, 7000 of the 12,000 licensed fishermen catch seals. Seals are not taken just for pelts, their meat is used for human consumption.

Oil is extracted from the blubber. Anti-sealers who discount the relative value of the harvest, about $6 million, display a profound ignorance of the economic and social implication of sealing for the region. Nothing infuriates Newfoundlanders more than critics, such as New York socialite Cleveland Amorv, president of Funds for Animals, who glibly suggests an artificial fur factory should be THE DEATHS from Russian roulette are increasing in the big cities of South Africa. The daredevil game of spinning the six-slug cylinder of a revolver that holds one bullet and squeezing the trigger with the weapon pressed to the head claims 30 to 40 lives a year. "I bet that exceeds the number in Russia itself," says a Johannesburg police chief gloomily.

He has reason to be sad, be' cause young police and national servicemen are among the chief victims. Johannesburg social worker ANZ975R of A sketch of a yowie from Mr. His faith in the yowie is un-shakeable. He believes he saw one himself, on the Carrai plateau near Kempsey, on August 7, 1970, at 3.30 pm. Rex says he can be so exact because he wrote the details in his yowie exercise-book.

He was sitting on a rock eating some sandwiches, he says, when he had the feeling of being watched. Then he saw a hairy "apelike manlike" thing loping into thick bush. By the time Rex had dropped his sandwiches and gone to the spot the yowie was gone. But a strong smell lingered and from marks on the bush he estimated its height at 750 cm. As Rex talks, he fondles what he says is a molar from a giant prehistoric wombat One of his proudest possessions is a plaster-cast of.

what he says is a footprint found in the Blue Mountains. It is large and certainly foot-like. But a yowie? All one By CARL GABRIEL Australia and sub-Arctic countries. There are powerful reasons why the anti-sealing lobby has been 60 successful. The prime thrust comes from organisations in the United States financed by public gifts.

Last year two million American families were blitzed through the mail by F.F.A. alone. Larger organisations are the International for Animal Welfare and the long-established Greenpeace. A former director of Greenpeace, Paul F. Watson, has denounced the organisation as "professional opportunists as dependent upon the continuation of the seal hunt as the sealers These organisations have an excellent medium for raising money with the "Save the Seals" campaign.

Unlike piglets or lobsters, harp seal pups are cute and helpless. They do resemble chubby puppies. Constant media references to seal pups as ''baby" seals do sug OPEN I SPACE can say for sure is that the sight of it would give a chiropodist nightmares. Rex believes the yowie is related to the Himalayan yeti and American Bigfoot and crossed from Asia to Australia on a land bridge in prehistoric times. He estimates there are 400 to 600 left in Australia.

Rex says the yowie is nocturnal, vegetarian and not at all dangerous which is why he is against any yowie-shooting expeditions. He hunts the yowie with a camera, accompanied by wife Heather and baby daughter Elizabeth. He has been as far as Cape York. Outside his museum, he points to the forest of the Blue Mountains: "There are yowies out there; it's yowie. Maybe the yowie is like Peter Pan's fairies.

If there are no Rex Gilroys to believe in them, they'll all die and go away gest Herodian images of "the slaughter of the Pictures of sealers clubbing their "baby victims" fuel the emotional fire. The prime question in the killing of animals is not of unpleasantness but of humaneness; that is, whether it brings a rapid, painless death to the animal with the absence of psychological distress or fear. No other aspect of the seal harvest has been as misrepresented by the organisations as alleged cruelty. Research over 12 years has been carried out by veterinarians and humane society officials on the most humane method of killing seals. Guns, drugs, chemicals and concussion bolts have all been tried.

The conclusion has been that clubbing is the most humane method. The only method for killing seal pups is clubbing with a hardwood bat or a spiked Norwegian instrument. A single' blow to the head causes instant death or renders the animal deeply unconscious. Arteries to the heart must then be cut; then the animal may be skinned. As for the "skinning alive" myth, a large reward posted by a Canadian citizen for proof of skinning alive remains unclaimed.

The sealers are supervised by Government inspectors from the ground and from helicopters and planes. Any deviation from regulations leads to the sealer being removed from the ice, with loss of licence and heavy penalties. All sealers must wear a large number for identification. That bereft imother" seals suffer during the killing is another myth. All seal pups are abandoned at four weeks.

"Mother" seals still present during the harvest take little interest in the proceedings, and do not show signs of bereavement as dogs might Seal harvesting is the most scientifically managed and best regulated fishery in the North Atlantic Each seal eats up to a tonne and a half of fish a year. Scientists estimate that seals eat fish equivalent to one-third of all commercial catches in the whole North Atlantic region. Seals and man are competitors for the food resources of fish. Sealing complies with international conservation principles in that sustainable resources, properly managed, are used to benefit humanity now and for the future. The apparent success of the anti-sealing groups reflects then-lack of accountability and excellent management in pursuing funds.

Cart Gabriel teaches science and humanities at Moorab-bin Technical College and is a final year student in the Diploma of Arts at Prahran College of Advanced Education i i ANZ Term Deposits. They are convenient, profitable and extremely safe. ANZ Term Deposits pay a high rate of interest. Once you invest in a Term Deposit, the interest rate will not change during the term of the deposit Interest accrues immediately, from the date the deposit is lodged. You may choose your period of investment from three months to four years.

You may have as marry Term Deposits as you like. And you may invest any sum you please from a nTinimumof 10.Askatany ANZ Bank. The 'Rand Daily Mail', an appeal for tighter gun regulations, said: These deaths underline the terrible toll taken by guns in South Africa. When wifi South Africans call a halt?" Gun licences were too easy to obtain, it said. "People wishing to own fire arms should not only have a good, reason, tiiey should prove can handle a gun, and pass a stringent test to show they are mentally equipped to do so.

It is a good idea to invest at least a part of your savings in the security oh Off Mr. Cleveland Amory, president of Funds for Animals, with a harp seal, off Quebec Province. Seal kill good sense substituted for the seal harvest. The manufacture and use of synthetic fur has similar implications as synthetic substitutes for wool, cotton or leather. Chemical industries, unlike animal industries, are highly polluting and damaging to the environment They are also heavy consumers of energy.

At consumer level, just as the wearability of wool and leather has not been matched by synthetics, so it is with fur. Australians who reject the need for fur should contrast the climates of ICS A I' -v I r- 'lift.