Walkabout (film)

Walkabout
American release poster
Directed byNicolas Roeg
Screenplay byEdward Bond
Based onWalkabout
by James Vance Marshall
Produced bySi Litvinoff
Starring
CinematographyNicolas Roeg
Edited by
Music byJohn Barry
Production
company
Max L. Raab-Si Litvinoff Films
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • 16 May 1971 (1971-05-16) (Cannes)[1]
  • 1 July 1971 (1971-07-01) (U.S.)[1]
  • 17 December 1971 (1971-12-17) (Australia)
Running time
100 minutes[2]
Countries
  • United Kingdom[1]
  • Australia[1]
  • United States[1]
LanguageEnglish[2]
BudgetA$1 million[3]

Walkabout is a 1971 adventure survival film directed by Nicolas Roeg and starring Jenny Agutter, Luc Roeg, and David Gulpilil. Edward Bond wrote the screenplay, which is loosely based on the 1959 novel by James Vance Marshall. It centres on two white schoolchildren who are left to fend for themselves in the Australian Outback and who come across a teenage Aboriginal boy who helps them to survive.

Roeg's second feature film, Walkabout was released internationally by 20th Century Fox, and was one of the first films in the Australian New Wave cinema movement. Alongside Wake in Fright, it was one of two Australian films entered in competition for the Grand Prix du Festival at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival.[4] It was subsequently released in the United States in July 1971, and in Australia in December 1971.

In 2005, the British Film Institute included it in their list of the "50 films you should see by the age of 14".

  1. ^ a b c d e "Walkabout: Movie Details". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. American Film Institute. Archived from the original on 10 January 2021.
  2. ^ a b "Walkabout". British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved 11 June 2014.
  3. ^ Pike & Cooper 1998, p. 258.
  4. ^ "Official Selection 1971". Festival de Cannes. France. Archived from the original on 2 December 2010. Official Selection 1971....Walkabout directed by Nicolas Roeg