Patrick Ryan (d. 1990) and Tim Burstall set up Eltham Films in the early 1950s, when the local film industry was moribund. Its first feature, 2000 Weeks, was a flop, but the pair persevered, winning an award at the 1960 Venice Film Festival for the short children’s film The Prize, produced by Ryan. That year, their Black Man and His Bride: Australian Paintings by Arthur Boyd Australia won the AFI Award Silver Medallion in the Experimental category. Other ventures of Ryan’s in this period include the enchanting television series Sebastian the Fox (1961-1963) featuring a fox string puppet in real settings, which won an AFI Special Award. In 1961 he produced a film about the ceramic sculptures of John Perceval, and in 1962 Ned Kelly: Australian paintings by Nolan, which won an Australian Academy of Television and Cinema Arts award. Other art documentaries produced by Ryan include Antipodean painters (1963), Australia Felix: Australian paintings by Tom Roberts (1963), Sydney Blues: Paintings by Robert Dickerson (1963) and The Crucifixion: Bas reliefs in silver by Matcham Skipper. In 1965 Ryan produced an important documentary, The Making of a Gallery, about the National Gallery of Victoria. Ryan began working on the script for Eliza Fraser in the late 1960s; the film appeared in 1976, without Ryan’s involvement.
