Back in 1973, 10,000 hippies descended on the tiny Australian town of Nimbin (population: 300) for a 10 day arts festival. Nimbin is now known as the marijuana capital of Australia, so you can guess how it turned out.
How to watch Aquarius in Australia
Aquarius is screening in Australian cinemas right now.
Aquarius (2024)
What is Aquarius about?
Directed by My Girl assistant costumer Wendy Champagne (look, her IMDb page is pretty sparse) who also co-wrote the film with Karin Steininger (Brand Bollywood Downunder), Aquarius is a look back at a little known but nonetheless pivotal moment in Australia’s cultural and countercultural history. The 10 day festival saw a motley crew of activists, artists, free thinkers (or idle layabouts—your call) and more paint the town in rainbow colours, do a staggering amount of drugs, engage in experimental art and living…you know, that sort of thing.
It’s easy (and fun!) to mock, but you try getting that kind of entertainment at five bucks a ticket these days. The film uses archival footage, including contemporary news reports, 8mm footage captured at the event, and lots of stuff from experimental activist group the Bush Video Archive, who actually built an ad hoc TV station during the festival and broadcast all manner of stuff, including a live birth (!!!).
The cast of Aquarius
A bunch of hippies, many of whom are probably LNP-voting NIMBYs now, but we do get valuable insight from Festival Cultural Director Johnny Allen and Festival Director Graeme Dunstan, plus a few other old campaigners still flying the flag.
Aquarius trailer
Why we’re excited about Aquarius
Personally, we love exploring forgotten corners of cultural history, and given the current state of…well, everything, really, and the fact that many of the issues the festival was engaging with (environmental crisis, foreign wars, Indigenous rights, the scarcity of really good Turkish hashish, and so on) are even more pressing in our present moment, this one will be worth a look.
