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I thought she would never die. She was already ageless when I met her, in the early 1990s. She could speak without pausing to take a breath, always on the hustle, trying to get her Filmnotes (1971–2000) into the hands of as many as possible. Every part of her body was busy, bursting with to-do lists, concerns about her autistic son Ivor, the latest issue of the magazine, light flowing through the bevelled windows. She was an irresistible force, like a wind sweeping everything clean.

Corinne was the godmother of Australian alternative cinema. Always by her side was her partner, Arthur, his soft-spoken benevolence a counterpart to her prodigious energies. He was the technical genius, though they shared a totalizing commitment and dedication. They met in the late 1950s while working at the Children’s Library and Craft Movement in Brisbane and produced a suite of 11 kid’s movies for TV, the opening foray of what would eventually number 150 films. They pushed on to London in the mid-1960s, where they made BBC docs before moving back to Australia in 1969, eventually settling in Melbourne where they produced and presented expanded cinema at the La Mama Theatre. What followed were deep immersions into the Australian landscape, then colour studies, forays into Indonesia’s shadow puppet theatre were intertwined with biographical sketches, including Corinne’s epochal feature autobiography In this Life’s Body (1984).

When I bought a full set of Cantrills Filmnotes (a capsule history of Australian experimental film) for the artist-run film distributor I was working at, this gesture put me in what we used to call Corinne’s “good books.” This image suggests that each of us is a writer, and that the books we write are moral objects that name those who are good, and those who are not. Like many artists, Corinne was dedicated to a culture of complaint. Who am I if I am not dissatisfied? So, while I was happy enough to be in her good books, it saddened me that so many others would appear in the other place—particularly in Australia, where her voice was so strong, where she and Arthur could decide who was in and who was out.

The road of the film artist is rarely long and often lonely. There are no maps. Communities bloom out of fantastical amounts of volunteer labour and, amongst the beleaguered few who scratch out some marginal offerings, the system—meaning the granting agencies, the few universities and art schools and festivals who might hire these marginal figures—the system encouraged us to go to war with one another. Fight over the scraps. These minor struggles occurred inside the only rooms that offered the possibility of understanding, community and love.

:: Arthur and Corinne Cantrill [National Film and Sound Archive of Australia]

:: Negative image of Corinne Cantrill, In this Life's Body [Arthur and Corinne Cantrill]

When I started making fringe movies, I imagined it as a counter-culture project, and that, by learning to pay attention (which was the not-so-secret aim of all film art), we would create better humans, kinder, more willing to help, compassionate. But, as the years rolled by, I saw that some of the very best work was made by people who simply couldn’t fit in, like Corinne. They were a universe all by themselves.

In those days, cinema meant people gathering in a room—this was long before the portable telephone or home computer. How would these difficult personalities negotiate global pop-up communities, the small scrums who came with holes in our bodies, which we hoped to fill with esoteric offerings that demanded we do some major lifting? I watched many hours of the Cantrills’ films in their once-upon-a-time house. It struck me that every movie, no matter the period of production—and whether autobiography, an investigation of film materials, ethnography, or a reclamation of the Australian landscape—it was all part of an ongoing practice and flow. And each frame felt certain, as if no other choice was possible. Little wonder she became a living encyclopedia of movie art.

I feel grateful that she was able to hold the torch for so long, but sad that it came at such a cost. Her bright and brimming presence, filled with projects, proposals, ideas, new films—and Ivor, always Ivor. She would have to live forever to look after him. It seems that she did live forever. (Who are we, now, that forever is behind us?) Her looking was always part of looking after. There was always someone new who had to be taken in and nourished in Corinne’s Church of “finding your own way.” What would bring us together, she was convinced, was our differences. This became one of the central commandments of what we used to call experimental film. What would create community, even love, is when we were all going our own way.

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