Australia’s first film

Last week it was reported that, Patineur Grotesque, the first known film to be shot in Australia has been found and restored.

Featuring a portly man in a top hat on roller skates lifting the tails of his coat to reveal a big white handprint on his bum, the film was considered too risque for Australian audiences although it proved popular in European cinemas.

The film was made in 1896 by French filmmaker Marius Sestier, who was dispatched to Australia by a French film company in a bid to introduce cinema to the colony. He set up Australia's first public cinema in Sydney's Pitt Street.

Sally Jackson from the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) in Canberra says the handprint was probably aimed at the filmmaker's business rival. "The rollerskater when he skates around he turns around flips up his coat tails on several occasions," she said."On the back you can see a big white hand and there's one particular finger that's a little bit higher than all the rest. Really what he was doing was he was giving his competitor the finger."

Sestier's short movies are forerunners to the 1906 film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, which is regarded as the world's first feature film.

Somehow it wouldn't have done for Australia's first film to have been something like a basket of kittens...You can see a clip of the film here