Ian Dunlop (filmmaker)

{{Short description|Australian documentary filmmaker (1927–2021)}} {{use dmy dates|date=December 2025}} {{use Australian English|date=December 2025}} {{Infobox person | name = Ian Dunlop | honorific_suffix = {{post-nominals|country=AUS|size=100|OAM}} | image = | caption = | birth_name = Ian Craig Dunlop | birth_date = | birth_place = England | alma_mater = University of Sydney | years_active = 1956–2010 | organization = | title = | spouse = 2 }} '''Ian Craig Dunlop''' {{post-nominals|country=AUS|OAM}} (1927–2021) was an Australian documentary filmmaker, known for his ethnographic films about Indigenous Australians. He is particularly known for his early work with the Martu desert people of Western Australia, creating the series ''People of the Australian Western Desert'' and a feature film ''Desert People'', and his later work with Yolngu people in Yirrkala, in Arnhem Land, in particular the 22 films making up the ''Yirrkala Film Project''. He also contributed greatly to the preservation and organisation of archival documentary film made in Australia.

==Early life and education== Ian Craig Dunlop<ref name=oam/> was born in England in 1927. His mother was Australian, and Dunlop settled in Australia after doing his national service in the UK in 1948.<ref name=eccles2021>{{cite web | last=Eccles | first=Jeremy | title=Ian Dunlop: filmmaker made early footage of Indigenous people | website=The Sydney Morning Herald | date=29 September 2021 | url=https://www.smh.com.au/national/ian-dunlop-filmmaker-made-early-footage-of-indigenous-people-20210928-p58vib.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240617181129/https://www.smh.com.au/national/ian-dunlop-filmmaker-made-early-footage-of-indigenous-people-20210928-p58vib.html | archive-date=17 June 2024 | url-status=live | access-date=23 December 2025}}</ref>

He graduated from the University of Sydney with a bachelor of arts degree,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Morphy |first=Howard |date=2022 |title=‘A Filmmaker Fond of Anthropology’: Ian Dunlop (1927–2021) |url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ocea.5323 |journal=Oceania |language=en |volume=92 |issue=2 |pages=156–170 |doi=10.1002/ocea.5323 |issn=0029-8077|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name=ifmag2009>{{cite web | title=NFSA film preservation award for Dunlop | website=IF Magazine | date=14 July 2009 | url=https://if.com.au/nfsa-film-preservation-award-for-dunlop/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250523060619/https://if.com.au/nfsa-film-preservation-award-for-dunlop/ | archive-date=23 May 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=24 December 2025}}</ref> after transferring from his original study choice at the university to be closer to a student who later became his wife, Roey.<ref name=aiatsisobit>{{cite web | title=Vale Ian Dunlop| first =Tom|last= Eccles | website=AIATSIS | date=17 September 2021 | url=https://aiatsis.gov.au/blog/vale-ian-dunlop | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250905152706/https://aiatsis.gov.au/blog/vale-ian-dunlop | archive-date=5 September 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=24 December 2025}}</ref>

==Career== For most of his career, after a brief stint with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, he worked for the Commonwealth Film Unit (CFU; later Film Australia), from 1956 until around 1987.<ref name=eccles2021/><ref name=nfsa/>

Dunlop collaborated extensively with editor Pip Deveson,<ref name=eccles2021/> then Philippa Kirk, over around 30 years. Deveson, after a break to rear her children, joined Dunlop on the last 11 films made under the auspices of AIATSIS. Deveson later worked in the Australian National University's Centre for Visual Anthropology.<ref name=mawalan>{{cite web | title=In Memory of Malawan presented by Ian Dunlop|first1= Ian | last1 =Dunlop| first2 = Pip | last2 =Deveson | first3 = Peter | last3 =Thorley | publisher=National Museum of Australia | date=1 January 2018 | url=https://www.nma.gov.au/audio/uncategorised/in-memory-of-malawan-presented-by-ian-dunlop/transcripts/in-memory-of-malawan | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251223235458/https://www.nma.gov.au/audio/uncategorised/in-memory-of-malawan-presented-by-ian-dunlop/transcripts/in-memory-of-malawan | archive-date=23 December 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=23 December 2025| quote=Ian Dunlop, Pip Deveson and Dr Peter Thorley, 5 August 2011... This is an edited transcript typed from an audio recording... Date published: 01 January 2018}}</ref> He also collaborated with award-winning cinematographer Dean Semler on at least two films.<ref name=nfsa/><ref name=mawalan/>

===''Desert People''=== His debut film was about the remote Giles Weather Station in the Gibson Desert in Western Australia, where he worked with and filmed Martu people, of the Western Desert cultural bloc. This led him to want to study First Nations Australians on film for the rest of his career, and his work changed the way the CFU framed Aboriginal Australians in their films.<ref name=eccles2021/> It took a while for Dunlop to persuade the CFU to return to the desert to follow up his first film,<ref name=eccles2021/> finally travelling there again in 1965 when the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies (AIAS, later AIATSIS) provided funding for him to return in 1965 and 1967 to make ethnographic films.<ref name=nfsa/> The film unit at AIAS commissioned lot of original film while it was in operation, from 1962 until 1988,<ref name=aiatsisobit/> which included the production of a 19-part series of films made over the six years, called ''People of the Australian Western Desert'', by Dunlop.<ref name=eccles2021/> The series was produced by John Martin-Jones.<ref name=vid>{{cite web | title= People of the Australian Western Desert / Ian. Dunlop ; John. Martin-Jones ; Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies; Film Australia; Australian Commonwealth Film Unit. /2007?, c1997| format= catalogue entry | website=UniSA library catalogue| url=https://find.library.unisa.edu.au/discovery/fulldisplay/alma99113409501831/61USOUTHAUS_INST:UNISA | access-date=26 December 2025}}</ref>

Professional cameraman Richard Howe Tucker, along with recently-qualified young anthropologist Robert Tonkinson, who knew some of the local Aboriginal dialects, set out for three weeks of filming in 1965. Aboriginal guides living on a mission nearby helped with interpretation, while Dunlop and Tucker shot around five hours of film with two Martu families from different language groups (Mandjintjadara and Ngadjadjadjara) group. In 1967 they travelled to a different part of the central Australian desert, where they filmed three related Mandjintjadara families still living a nomadic life. Dunlop and Tucker shot another seven hours of material with this group over three weeks. Most of the footage focuses on making artefacts, gathering food, and hunting (lizards, bandicoots, emus, and kangaroos). Some illustrate therapeutic activities, such as preparing and administering bush medicines. They also filmed some Aboriginal sacred sites, with these parts of the films now being restricted and are only able to be viewed by special permission.<ref name=henley2020/><ref name=vid/>

In 1966, Dunlop edited four parts of the series to create a 49-minute film called ''Desert People''. This film was an Australian National Film Board production, produced by the Commonwealth Film Unit for AIAS.<ref>{{cite web | title=Desert People | website=NFSA Online Shop | url=https://shop.nfsa.gov.au/desert-people | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250806025153/https://shop.nfsa.gov.au/desert-people | archive-date=6 August 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=25 December 2025| quote=Desert People is a more general, interpretive film made from sections of People of the Australian Western Desert Parts 1, 2, 4 and 9.}}</ref> ''Desert People'', shot on black and white 35mm film,<ref name=eccles2021/> was screened at many film festivals, including out of competition at the 28th Venice International Film Festival, and won several international prizes.<ref>{{cite web | title=Desert People (1967) | website=MUBI | url=https://mubi.com/en/us/films/desert-people-1967 | access-date=25 December 2025}}</ref> Australian anthropologist Norman Tindale reviews the film for ''American Anthropologist'' in 1968,<ref name="h334">{{cite journal | last=Tindale | first=Norman B. | title=Desert People [Australia] (2 reels) and People of the Western Desert | journal=American Anthropologist | volume=70 | issue=2 | date=1968 | issn=0002-7294 | doi=10.1525/aa.1968.70.2.02a01070 | pages=437–438 | url=https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1968.70.2.02a01070 | access-date=25 December 2025| url-access=subscription }}</ref> and an article entitled "People of the Australian Western Desert. 1965. A series of nine films in b&w. Directed by Ian Dunlop." by James C. Pierson was published in the same journal in 1986.<ref name="l323">{{cite journal | last=Pierson | first=James C. | title=People of the Australian Western Desert. 1965. A series of nine films in b&w. Directed by Ian Dunlop. Cooking Kangaro | journal=American Anthropologist | volume=88 | issue=1 | date=1986 | issn=0002-7294 | doi=10.1525/aa.1986.88.1.02a01050 | pages=269–271 | url=https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/aa.1986.88.1.02a01050 | access-date=25 December 2025| url-access=subscription }}</ref> In 2015, Massimiliano Mollona, who teaches political and economic anthropology and visual art at Goldsmiths College, London, wrote a review of the film for ''Focaal''.<ref>{{cite web | title=Massimiliano Mollona: Ethnographic filmmaking and the political imagination: A review of "Desert People" by Ian Dunlop (1967) | website=FOCAALBLOG | date=23 April 2015 | url=https://www.focaalblog.com/2015/04/23/new-massimiliano-mollona-ethnographic-filmmaking-and-the-political-imagination-a-review-of-desert-people-by-ian-dunlop-1967/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230218190821/https://www.focaalblog.com/2015/04/23/new-massimiliano-mollona-ethnographic-filmmaking-and-the-political-imagination-a-review-of-desert-people-by-ian-dunlop-1967/ | archive-date=18 February 2023 | url-status=live | access-date=25 December 2025}}</ref> Several episodes of the series were later screened at the Cinema Reborn festival in March 2018.<ref>{{cite web | title=Episodes from Ian Dunlop's monumental documentary series PEOPLE OF THE AUSTRALIAN WESTERN DESERT (Australia, 1966-1969) | website=Film Alert 101: CINEMA REBORN | date=21 March 2018 | url=https://filmalert101.blogspot.com/2018/03/cinema-reborn-episodes-from-ian-dunlops.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250716085446/https://filmalert101.blogspot.com/2018/03/cinema-reborn-episodes-from-ian-dunlops.html | archive-date=16 July 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=26 December 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=People of the Australian Western Desert | website=Cinema Reborn | date=18 March 2018 | url=https://cinemareborn.wordpress.com/people-of-the-western-desert/ | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240823062002/https://cinemareborn.wordpress.com/people-of-the-western-desert/ | archive-date=23 August 2024 | url-status=live | access-date=26 December 2025}}</ref>

Dunlop distinguished between "record" films and "interpretive" films, most of the series adopting the former model, following a particular process, event, or situation in roughly chronologically sequence, while ''Desert People'' follows the latter. ''Desert People'' begins in the morning with the Mandjintjadara family setting out on their day's tasks, and ends with the Ngadjadjadjara family settling down next to fires at night. Although shot over two or three weeks, the film is presented as if occurring over three or four days. Dunlop's second "interpretive" film, ''At Patantja Claypan'', was based on material shot during the 1967 expedition over two weeks as if it were two consecutive days in the life of this Mandjintjadara group. This 53-minute film was released as part of the main series in 1969.<ref name=henley2020>{{cite book| first=Paul | last= Henley| chapter= The invisible author: Films of re-enactment in the post-war period| title= Beyond observation| doi=10.7765/9781526147295.00011 |date = 23 Jan 2020 | via=manchesterhive.com | url=https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526147295/9781526147295.00011.xml | access-date=26 December 2025 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20250617021855/https://www.manchesterhive.com/display/9781526147295/9781526147295.00011.xml| archive-date= 17 June 2025| url-status=live}}</ref>

===Yirrkala=== Later in his career, Dunlop filmed extensively over 12 years at the Yolngu community at Yirrkala in eastern Arnhem Land, forming close working relationships with leaders and artists there, including Narritjin Maymuru, Dundiwuy Wanambi, and Mawalan Marika (all of whom had had involvement in the Yirrkala bark petitions; Dundiwuy had been a signatory<ref>{{cite book | last=Wright | first=Clare|author-link = Clare Wright | title=Näku Dhäruk: The Bark Petitions: How the People of Yirrkala Changed the course of Australian democracy | publisher=Text Publishing Company | date=1 October 2024 | isbn=978-1-922330-86-4 | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jRG00AEACAAJ}}</ref>). Dunlop was respected by artist and land rights activist Roy Marika, who explained the importance of his films to other Yolngu elders. Dunlop left 27 of his films with the community.<ref name=eccles2021/><ref name=aiatsisobit/><ref>{{cite journal | last=Deveson | first=Philippa | title=The agency of the subject: Yolngu involvement in the Yirrkala Film Project | journal=Journal of Australian Studies | publisher=Informa UK Limited | volume=35 | issue=2 | year=2011 | issn=1444-3058 | doi=10.1080/14443058.2011.553839 | pages=153–164}}</ref> Artist and clan leader Mithili Wanambi, father of Wukun Wanambi, became a close collaborator in the 1970s. The ''Yirrkala Film Project'' was the name given to a series of 22 films, running for 1,271 minutes in total, filmed between 1970 and 1982.<ref name=nfsa/><ref name=mawalan/> Among these films is ''Baniyala'' (released 1996), showing "the 1974 lifestyle of the Madarrpa people of Baniyala on Blue Mud Bay".<ref>{{cite web | title=Bäniyala | website=NFSA Online Shop | url=https://shop.nfsa.gov.au/baniyala-1974 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250907142606/https://shop.nfsa.gov.au/baniyala-1974 | archive-date=7 September 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=24 December 2025}}</ref>

{{anchor|memory}}<!--for redirect-->Dunlop made ''In Memory of Mawalan'', a black and white film with cinematography by Dean Semler and sound by Bob Hays, in 1971 (released 12 years later). The background to the film is the story of the Djang’kawu sisters, a Rirratjingu clan creation story that laid out the law for the people, which was ignored when the government gave permission for a bauxite mining company to start developing operations in east Arnhem Land. The battle for land rights by the people of Yirrkala mission led to the Yirrkala bark petitions in 1963 and then the Gove Land Rights Case in 1971, which ruled against them. Artist and elder Mawalan Marika, who had been a creator of and signatory to the petitions, died in 1967. In 1971, his eldest son Wandjuk Marika planned a ceremony as a celebration of his father and as a re-affirmation of Djang’kawu Law, and ''In Memory of Mawalan'' is a film of the ceremony. Wandjuk documented the film for the filmmakers as they were filming.<ref name=mawalan/> The film was released in 1983 and is available as a DVD from NFSA.<ref>{{cite web | title=In Memory of Mawalan | website=NFSA Online Shop | url=https://shop.nfsa.gov.au/in-memory-of-mawalan | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250806022809/https://shop.nfsa.gov.au/in-memory-of-mawalan | archive-date=6 August 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=24 December 2025}}</ref><ref>{{Citation | author1=Australian Film Commission | title=APPENDIX E: FILM AUSTRALIA Films Completed During Year 1983/84 (30 June 1985) | journal=Annual report | publication-date=1985-06-30 | publisher=Australian Govt. Pub. Service | issue=122 of 1985 | pages=86 | issn=0816-9624}}</ref> The film was later screened at the National Museum of Australia in Canberra in conjunction with the exhibition ''Yalangbara: art of the Djang’kawu'' in August–September 2011.<ref name=mawalan/>

====Djungguwan ceremony==== In 1963, anthropologist Nic Peterson was the first to document the Yolngu ''Djungguwan'' ceremony on film, for AIATSIS.<ref name=nfsa/> This is a weeks-long initiation ceremony of the Rirratjingu and Marrakula clans, designed to teach young boys about discipline, as well as respect for Yolngu law and traditions.<ref name=eccles2021/> In 1976, Dunlop worked with cinematographer Dean Semler (who later won an Oscar for ''Dances with Wolves''), to again film the ceremony, the resulting film being entitled ''Djungguwan at Gurka’wuy''.<ref name=nfsa/><ref name=eccles2021/> In 1987, a restricted archival print of this was made, eight hours long.<ref name=eccles2021/> In 2002, Dunlop collaborated with filmmakers Denise Haslem, Trevor Graham, and his wife Rose Hesp, on a new project, ''Ceremony: The Djungguwan of Northeast Arnhem Land'', produced at the request of and in partnership with the Yirrkala Dhanbul Community Association and the Rirratjingu Association, for Film Australia.<ref name=nfsa/> In 2003 the ceremony was once again staged at Gurka’wuy and filmed by Kos Tambling.'<ref name=nfsa/> The NFSA holds the films, and clips from the 1966, 1976 and 2002 films are freely available on their website.<ref>{{cite web | title=Djungguwan Ceremony | website=National Film and Sound Archive of Australia| url=https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/djungguwan-ceremony | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250907015534/https://www.nfsa.gov.au/collection/curated/djungguwan-ceremony | archive-date=7 September 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=23 December 2025}}</ref>

Film Australia released a National Interest Program DVD of ''Ceremony: The Djungguwan of Northeast Arnhem Land'', about the making of the 2002 film, to mark UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, and presented to UNESCO for their collection in 2007.<ref name=nfsa/>

===Other work=== In the 1950s, Dunlop made films in Papua New Guinea.<ref name=aiatsisobit/> In 1969 he was invited by French anthropologist Maurice Godelier to film the initiation ceremony of the Baruya people of the highlands of New Guinea. His films were developed into two major series about the Baruya people, of 9 and 13 hours.<ref name=film1996/> The nine-part series was called ''Towards Baruya Manhood''.<ref name=eccles2021/><ref name=mawalan/><ref>{{Cite web|title=Towards Baruya Manhood|url=https://shop.nfsa.gov.au/towards-baruya-manhood|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180209014552/http://shop.nfsa.gov.au/towards-baruya-manhood|archive-date=9 February 2018|access-date=2020-06-18|website=National Film and Sound Archive of Australia|language=en|format=catalogue entry|url-status=dead}}</ref>

After the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies and the CFU ceased funding for ethnographic films, around 1985, Dunlop worked on completing unedited films and organising his and others' film archives.<ref name=eccles2021/> He oversaw the preservation and screening of the neglected films of Walter Baldwin Spencer,<ref name=nfsa/> and served as a member of the NFSA Indigenous Reference Group<ref name=ifmag2009/> from 1998 for some years.<ref name=aiatsisobit/>

In 1996, he undertook a six-month secondment from the NFSA to AIATSIS to manage the film archive, working alongside longtime collaborator, editor Pip Deveson.<ref name=aiatsisobit/>

He represented Australia at ethnographic film conferences and festivals,<ref name=eccles2021/> and screened Baldwin Spencer's films around the world. He also lectured on the history of ethnographic film in Australia.<ref name=nfsa/>

==Recognition and honours== In 1996, Les McLaren, Annie Stiven made a film about Dunlop for SBS Television, called ''Taking Pictures''.<ref name=film1996>{{cite web | last=Fiske | first=Pat | title=Taking Pictures | website= Australian Screen | url=https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/taking-pictures/clip3/ | access-date=26 December 2025}}</ref>

===Film awards=== Dunlop's 1967 film ''Desert People'' won the following accolades:<ref name=dpnfsa>{{cite web | title=People of the Australian Western Desert, Parts 1-19; and Desert People |publisher= NFSA | url=https://shop.nfsa.gov.au/assets/files/People_Aust_West_Des_TN.pdf| date=2003| first= Ian|last= Dunlop | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250323132500/https://shop.nfsa.gov.au/assets/files/People_Aust_West_Des_TN.pdf | archive-date=23 March 2025 | url-status=dead | access-date=25 December 2025| quote=Background notes on a series of films on Western Desert culture produced by the Australian Commonwealth Film Unit for the Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies, filmed in 1965 and 1967.|others = Includes notes by Ian Dunlop, dated March 2003| pp=1–33}}</ref> * 1967: Prix Special du Comite Directeur: IX Recontre Cinematographique Internationale de Prades (Prades, France (Ciné-Rencontres de Prades<ref>{{cite web | title=Home | website=Ciné Rencontres de Prades | url=https://www.cine-rencontres.org/ | language=fr | access-date=23 December 2025}}</ref>) * 1967: Diploma of Merit: Edinburgh International Film Festival * 1967: Golden Bucranium (best film of festival): XII International Festival of Scientific and Educational Films, Padua, Italy * 1968: Special Citation (out of competition): Australian Film Awards, Australian Film Institute * 1969: Diploma of Merit: Melbourne Film Festival * 1969: Blue Ribbon (First Prize in Anthropology and Archaeology section): 11th American Film Festival, New York<!---can't find a source corroborating the name of this festival---> * 1971: Golden Decade Award: U.S. Industrial Film Festival, Chicago, 1971.

''Conversations with Dundiwuy Wanambi'' won the Royal Anthropological Institute Film Prize in 1996.<ref name=mawalan/>

===Personal awards=== Dunlop was also the recipient of many personal awards and honours for his work, including: * 1968: Winner, inaugural Raymond Longford Award from the Australian Film Institute<ref name=eccles2021/> * 1986: Medal of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day 1986 Honours List, "in recognition of service to the public, particularly in the field of ethnographic film making"<ref name=oam>{{Cite web|url= https://honours.pmc.gov.au/honours/awards/885375| title=Mr Ian Craig Dunlop: Medal of the Order of Australia| website=Australian Honours Search Facility| publisher=Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (Australia) |access-date= 23 December 2025}}</ref><ref name=eccles2021/> * 1991: Elected honorary fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland<ref name=eccles2021/> * 2000: Winner, inaugural Gian Paolo Paoli Award for Ethnographic Film at the Festival dei Popoli in Florence, Italy<ref name=eccles2021/><ref name=daaorecog>{{cite web | title=Ian Dunlop :: biography: Recognition | website= Design and Art Australia Online | date=Oct 3, 2021 | url=https://daao.org.au/bio/ian-dunlop/recognitions/ | access-date=23 December 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web | title=48th Festival dei Popoli |date=2007 | website= festival dei popoli | url=https://archiviofilm.festivaldeipopoli.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/catalogo_festival_dei_popoli_2007.pdf | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250406193733/https://archiviofilm.festivaldeipopoli.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/catalogo_festival_dei_popoli_2007.pdf | archive-date=6 April 2025 | url-status=dead | access-date=23 December 2025}}</ref> * 2009: Winner, Ken G Hall Award for services to the preservation of Australian films, awarded by the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA)<ref name=eccles2021/><ref name=daaorecog/> to coincide with NAIDOC Week, to recognise Dunlop's "major contribution to the preservation of films of Australian Indigenous communities through his own work and his preservation and protection of the work of others"<ref name=ifmag2009/>

==Personal life== Dunlop married "Roey",<ref name=nfsa/> and they had at least two children, a son and a daughter.<ref name=eccles2021/>

They moved to Canberra in 1998 to be closer to their son, who was living there.<ref name=aiatsisobit/>

==Death and legacy== Dunlop died in 2021.<ref name=eccles2021/> The NFSA's tribute on its website says that "Ian has left an incredible legacy and will be greatly missed".<ref name=nfsa>{{cite web | title=Vale Ian Dunlop| first1 =Michael | last1 =Leigh| first2= Tristan| last2 = Cole| first3= Trevor | last3 =Graham | first4= Rose | last4 =Hesp | website=National Film and Sound Archive of Australia | url=https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/vale-ian-dunlop | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250425225034/https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/vale-ian-dunlop | archive-date=25 April 2025 | url-status=live | access-date=23 December 2025}}</ref>

His 1965 series ''People of the Australian Western Desert'', showing as it did nomadic Martu people still living on their own land, as they had done for thousands of years, continue to be viewed by Martu people, proving to be a useful learning tool for younger Martu, to learn about traditional knowledge and culture.<ref name=eccles2021/>

His Yirrkala films, after becoming available on VHS videotapes in 1996, were left for community use<ref name=eccles2021/> in the Buku-Larrnggay Mulka Centre, an art centre and museum.<ref name=mawalan/> According to Buku director Will Stubbs: "From day one, the place was packed. Demand was intense and constant. This is when we understood the need for the Mulka media centre, where Yolngu could go on to make films of their own today". Some of these films incorporate clips from Dunlop's films.<ref name=eccles2021/> According to filmmaker Trevor Graham, who went to Yirrkala 30 years after Dunlop, Dunlop had become "a legendary figure in their eyes".<ref name=nfsa/>

Dunlop donated more than 5000 photographs (mostly colour slides) to AIATSIS, comprising stills taken during his work between 1964 and 1982 at various locations.<ref name=aiatsisobit/>

Upon presentation of the NFSA film preservation award in 2009, CEO Darryl McIntyre said:<ref name=ifmag2009/>{{blockquote|A pioneer of modern Australian visual anthropology, Ian documented traditional Aboriginal communities during a period of tremendous change and upheaval, his films helped build a broader awareness of the Aboriginal world view, the land rights movement and the impact of Western culture on the Aboriginal way of life.}}

Friend and colleague Tom Eccles, who met Dunlop at AIATSIS in 1996, wrote in his obituary on the website in 2021:<ref name=aiatsisobit/>{{blockquote|Unlike the negative portrayal of Aboriginal communities in mainstream Australian media, the intention of Dunlop’s films was to show a positive side to a homeland and how living on homelands are a means of maintaining a connection to Country and a unique way of life.}}

==References== {{reflist}}

==Further reading== *{{cite journal | last=Morphy | first=Howard|author-link=Howard Morphy | title=The aesthetics of communication and the communication of cultural aesthetics: a perspective on Ian Dunlop's films of Aboriginal Australia | journal=Visual Anthropology Review | publisher=Wiley | volume=21 | issue=1-2 | year=2005 | issn=1058-7187 | doi=10.1525/var.2005.21.1-2.63 | pages=63–79| hdl=1885/32319 | hdl-access=free }} *{{cite web | last=Tiley | first=David | title=The death of Ian Dunlop – from outsider to participant in a true ethical journey | website=ScreenHub Australia | date=21 September 2021 | url=https://www.screenhub.com.au/news/features/the-death-of-ian-dunlop-from-outsider-to-participant-in-a-true-ethical-journey-1474029/}}

==External links== *{{IMDb name|1648120}} * [https://aiatsis.gov.au/sites/default/files/catalogue_resources/dunlop.i06.cs_.pdf Ian Dunlop's photographs of Yirrkala, 1971.] (A list)

{{authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Dunlop, Ian}} Category:1927 births Category:2021 deaths Category:Australian documentary filmmakers Category:Recipients of the Medal of the Order of Australia Category:University of Sydney alumni Category:Australian ethnographers Category:Film archivists Category:20th-century archivists