What killed Australian cinema & why is the bloody corpse still moving?

Australians love cinema, but consistently refrain from watching their own native films, why? During its golden period, 1970-1988, Australian cinema was renowned for its ingenuity and responsible for critical and commercial successes. Over the past thirty years, 1988-2018, due to the detrimental role of government funding agencies, Australian films are perceived as under-developed, low budget, and depressing. By separately analyzing each concept: Australian, national and cinema, the thesis demonstrates how the false ‘national’ discourse helped consolidate government funding bodies’ power, and contests its validity. Consequently, Australian cinema is declared dead. Avenues for future research are offered to remedy this situation.