Tell me about the history of Australian film-making

A.� It's true some of the best known celebrities at the moment - Nicole Kidman, Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush and Judy Davis - are all Australians. Baz Luhrman's Moulin Rouge was shot on Australian sound stages and Peter Jackson, the director of Lord of The Rings, is a New Zealander as is last year's Oscar winner, Russell Crowe.

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But it's taken some time for Australian directors and actors to become established. There were flourishes of silent film in Australia, but for decades it was the outback. Errol Flynn and the director, John Farrow, however, both hailed from Tasmania.

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Just after the Second World War, the Scot, Harry Watt, a maker of wartime documentaries, discovered the vastness of the outback and its Western feel. He made two films there, The Overlanders in 1946, about a cattle drive, and Eureka Stockade in 1949, on the Australian gold rush in the 1850s. Both films did well and launched Australia's first movie stars. Chips Rafferty and Peter Finch. Finch went on to have an affair with Vivien Leigh, played Oscar Wilde in 1960 and won a posthumous Oscar playing an American in the 1976 film Network.

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Q.� What about films made in Australia

A.� SInce the late 1940s, there had been only an occasional home-grown film. The industry mostly waited for an American or English crew to arrive. Robbery Down Under with Finch was made in 1957, a story about outlaws; and Fred Zinnemann made The Sundowners in 1960 with Robert Mitchum and Deborah Kerr. Michael Powell made Age of Consent in 1969 with James Mason and a young Helen Mirren; Ned Kelly, directed by Tony Richardson, came out in 1970, and Nicholas Roeg's chilling film Walkabout, is counted as one of the great Australian films ever made.

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But in the 1970s the situation changed. Peter Weir made Picnic At Hanging Rock in 1975, The Last Wave in 1977 and Gallipoli in 1981. Bruce Beresford did Don's Party in 1976 and Breaker Morant in 1980. Fred Schepisi made The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith in 1978 and George Miller delivered the first Mad Max in 1979, starring an American kid, Mel Gibson, who left Australia when he was 12.� Muriel's Wedding and Strictly Ballroom were worldwide hits made in Australia.

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Q.� Who are the biggest names in Australian cinema now

A.� The usual suspects like Kidman and Crowe are well-known. Others like Naomi Watts, the star of Mulholland Drive, and Guy Pearce, who is in The Count of Monte Cristo and The Time Machine. Then there are the directors like Gillian Armstrong, Jane Campion and Philip Noyce, and stalwarts such as Paul Hogan and Sam Neill.

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By Katharine MacColl

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