Autoluminescent: Roland S Howard (2011, M)

Dir: Richard Lowenstein / Lynn-Maree Milburn, Australia, 110mins, digital

Roland S Howard was a pivotal personality in the ‘post-Punk’ Australian music scene; founding The Boys Next Door/The Birthday Party with Nick Cave; writing some of the band’s greatest anthems (such as Shiver); then playing over the next three decades in influential acts like Crime and the City Solution. This new documentary by music video and Dogs in Space director Richard Lowenstein was made during Howard’s battle with liver cancer. Appropriately dark materials for a musician whose lyrics were often fatalistic; but this is not a morose look at the loss of a seminal figure in Australian music – rather, it’s 'a celebration of a life lived to the fullest’ (Cara Nash, Film Ink).