A caged nightingale sings: the Australian films of Ayten Kuyululu

Ayten Kuyululu is a key figure in 1970s Australian cinema. But her significance within that era's celebrated ‘revival' has been sidelined due to her marginalised background and identity, her then recent arrival in Australia, the limited release of the few works she did make, and the discomforting form, nature and content of the two films she completed: A Handful of Dust (1974) and The Golden Cage (1975). A Handful of Dust screened in competition at the Sydney Film Festival and The Golden Cage was the first feature to be directed by a woman in Australia since Paulette McDonagh's Two Minutes Silence (1933), but in many popular accounts of the ‘new wave' it is Gillian Armstrong's My Brilliant Career (1979) that is granted this distinction. For many, Kuyululu's two Australian films from the mid-1970s aren't merely lost, they are completely invisible and entirely unknown. This essay aims to address this lacunae in Australian film history. Building on the formative work of a scattering of scholars and critics - such as David Stratton and Sue Hardisty - it places Kuyululu’s two films within and transcultural and transnational framework, while also re-examining their place within Australian film history.