The Ferrara poems

Australia, 1990

Two Australian travellers Karl (Michael Snelling) and Giselle (Kerin Murray) meet up with friends at a cafe in Italy for coffee and discuss their cultural experiences and observations of the country. A trip is planned and the group sets off together on another sight-seeing adventure. A postmodernist film essay exploring the structure of storytelling through the deliberate raw use of cinematic and film making devices (making those devices transparent). A film about foreigners, film making and foreign processes. Cast also includes: Ken Bolton, Mark Thomson and Tish Banks. Narrator: Richard Grayson.

Content notification

Our collection comprises over 40,000 moving image works, acquired and catalogued between the 1940s and early 2000s. As a result, some items may reflect outdated, offensive and possibly harmful views and opinions. ACMI is working to identify and redress such usages.

Learn more about our collection and our collection policy here. If you come across harmful content on our website that you would like to report, let us know.

How to watch

This work has not been digitised and is currently unavailable to view online. It may be possible for approved reseachers to view onsite at ACMI.

Learn more about accessing our collection

Collection

In ACMI's collection

Credits

producer/director

Jenny Robertson

production company

Australian Film Commission

S A Department for the Arts

Duration

00:26:00:00

Production places

Australia

Production dates

1990

Collection metadata

ACMI Identifier

315296

Language

English

Subject categories

Adaptations

Advertising, Film, Journalism, Mass Media & TV → Motion pictures - Production and direction - Australia

Advertising, Film, Journalism, Mass Media & TV → Postmodernism

Anthropology, Ethnology, Exploration & Travel → Ethnicity

Anthropology, Ethnology, Exploration & Travel → Italians - Australia

Anthropology, Ethnology, Exploration & Travel → Language and culture

Crafts & Visual Arts → Art - Themes, motives

Crafts & Visual Arts → Postmodernism

Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion & Sociology → Cross-cultural studies

Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion & Sociology → Cultural relativism

Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion & Sociology → Ethnicity

Economics, Philosophy, Politics, Religion & Sociology → Italians - Australia

Education, Instruction, Teaching & Schools → Cross-cultural studies

Education, Instruction, Teaching & Schools → Language and culture

Literature → Australian literature - Film and video adaptations

Literature → Literature

Literature → Storytelling

Short films

Short films → Short films - Australia

Sound/audio

Sound

Colour

Holdings

VHS; Access Print (Section 1)

Collected

2 times

Please note: this archive is an ongoing body of work. Sometimes the credit information (director, year etc) isn’t available so these fields may be left blank; we are progressively filling these in with further research.

Cite this work on Wikipedia

If you would like to cite this item, please use the following template: {{cite web |url=https://acmi.net.au/works/92093--the-ferrara-poems/ |title=The Ferrara poems |author=Australian Centre for the Moving Image |access-date=25 May 2025 |publisher=Australian Centre for the Moving Image}}