
Australia's Unknown
"A wonderful record of a wonderful trip into the wilds of the Never-Never."
This silent travelogue chronicles Francis Birtles' and Frank Hurley's 6,000-mile motorized expedition through the unmapped Australian wilderness. Filmed over four months in 1914, it serves as a historic natural and ethological study across Central Queensland, the Gulf of Carpentaria, and the Northern Territory. The surviving written records detail outback landscapes, swamps, and water-lily lagoons. In addition to flora, it extensively records fauna including crocodiles, alligators, snakes, wallabies, wild boars, camel teams, lizards, pelicans, and various bird species. This documentary also provides footage of Indigenous people and their practices, capturing ceremonial dances, fish spearing, hunting methods, traditional corroborees and a native tree burial. This film is considered entirely lost.
- Status
- Released
- Budget
- —
- Box office
- —
- Language
- EN
- natural history
- 1910s
- australian bush
- australian
Behind the camera
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Release dates
AustraliaAU
- Theatrical8 Feb 1915
Frequently asked questions
Australia's Unknown was released on 8 February 1915.
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