Politics & Power Quote by Peter Weir

Weir’s line has the calm bite of someone who’s watched a boom get misread as permanence. By calling national cinema “cyclical,” he punctures the press-release fantasy that a hot streak equals a stable system. The “high” he describes is real - the rush of a few breakout films, a wave of new talent, the sudden sensation that a country’s stories are export-ready. But he’s careful to frame it as mood as much as infrastructure: “a feeling of potential.” That’s the tell. Feelings can surge on festival buzz and a handful of hits; they don’t pay crews year-round.

The sharpest move is the demolition of “industry.” Weir isn’t denying craft or ambition; he’s warning that the word smuggles in Hollywood assumptions: continuous production, deep capital, distribution pipelines, star machinery, and the brutal redundancy that lets one failure be absorbed by the next release. In a small national cinema, each project is closer to a bespoke operation - precarious financing, limited domestic box office, dependence on government support or international co-production, and an ecosystem that can’t easily retain talent once global offers arrive.

Context matters: Weir came out of Australia’s 1970s film revival, when state funding and cultural nationalism briefly made “Australian cinema” feel like a permanent arrival. His subtext is both protective and sober. Celebrate the moment, he suggests, but don’t confuse visibility with viability. A “high” can be culturally intoxicating; it can also be the prelude to a crash if the country mistakes a wave for a factory.