About

‘Cinema Obstructed’ is an eclectic survey of films that share one thing in common: each has something standing in its way. Whether confronted by an uncooperative subject, the long arm of state censorship, or the litigious might of a corporate behemoth, the works gathered here all faced daunting barriers to production, with the filmmakers documenting their own restraints and the inventive tactics they employed to overcome them.

Running through the program is a spirit of perverse—often gleeful—defiance, along with a sincere desire to destabilise the established order, and renegotiate the imposed limits of cinematic expression. A significant proportion are directorial debuts, underlining not just the ubiquity of creative obstruction, but its generative potential. The films include reflexive self-portraits, furious political polemics, and fascinating cinematic creations that defy easy categorisation.

Paint Drying

10–29 Nov 2023 | Cinema B
Screening throughout 'Cinema Obstructed' in Cinema B, the public world premiere of Charlie Shackleton's crowd-funded Paint Drying, a 607-minute film consisting of a single, unbroken shot of white paint drying on a brick wall, created in protest against the British censorship board.

Program curated by Charlie Shackleton and Robert Hughes, Australian Cinémathèque.

Charlie Shackleton is a nonfiction filmmaker living and working in London. His most recent work, the one-on-one performance film As Mine Exactly, won the Immersive Art & XR Award at the 2022 BFI London Film Festival, and went on to have extended runs at the Barbican Centre in London and the Museum of the Moving Image in New York. His film The Afterlight 2021 screened at the Australian Cinémathèque in 2022. He is currently in post-production on a feature-length documentary.