I worked with Cecil Holmes at the Commonwealth Film Unit in the mid to late 1960's. We juniors were in awe of him as he had made so many films before we were born. One of his major credits at the CFU was directing and producing a film about the people of the Torres Strait (north of Cape York Australia and only 30 miles from the coast of Papua New Guinea). As a well known former communist & left winger it must have been difficult for him to work with the conservative administration of the State of QLD which did run some very repressive policies for that region at that time. My colleague Stephen Wallace was the lucky production assistant assigned to the location shooting. The film is preserved in the archives of the CFU which later became FILM AUSTRALIA and eventually SCREEN AUSTRALIA when the film studios in Lindfield NSW were finally torn down. THE ISLANDERS Dir: Cecil Holmes Prod: Dick