A filmmaker celebrated for his contribution to Australian cinema will deliver the biennial 2013 Theo Barker Memorial Public Lecture co-hosted by the Bathurst District Historical Society and Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Bathurst on Friday 16 August. The Head of Campus at CSU in Bathurst, Mr Col Sharp, will welcome and introduce Mr Andrew Pike, OAM, the principal of Canberra-based Ronin Films, who will discuss ‘Men and Women of the Bush in Early Australian Cinema’, including the place of bushrangers, the popularity of which led to a ban on bushranger films by the NSW Police in 1912. Dr Rob McLachlan, adjunct senior lecturer in history at the CSU School of Humanities and Social Sciences in Bathurst and coordinator of the public lecture, said, “Of the first twenty feature films made in Australia, at least twelve had a bushranger theme, with five of them featuring a Bathurst-area bushranger, including A Bushranger's Ransom, or A Ride for a Life, which was filmed locally in 1911. The main focus of the lecture, however, will be the films featuring the stories of bush women, which took the place of the banned bushranger films. The Bathurst region has a significant place in the making of such films with A Girl of the Bush, filmed locally in 1921. Mr Pike’s lecture will discuss the importance of this film today, for film and social historians.”