Michael Rubbo

Michael Dattilo Rubbo (born 31 December 1938) is an Australian filmmaker who has written and directed over 50 films in documentary and fiction.

Rubbo studied anthropology at Sydney University, and then travelled on a Fulbright scholarship to study film at Stanford University, California where he got his MA in Communication Arts.

Early career

For 20 years he worked as a documentary film director at National Film Board of Canada, taking time off in between films to teach both in Australia at the just opened National Film School, and U.S. universities (including Harvard University). At the NFB, Rubbo directed over 40 documentaries, winning many international prizes. His best known documentaries are Sad Song Of Yellow Skin, (1972) (filmed in Vietnam during the war), Waiting for Fidel (1973), Wet Earth and Warm people (a personal journey though Indonesia), Margaret Atwood: Once in August (1984), and Much Ado About Something (2001)

In 2001, he presented a 15 week TV documentary series, Stranger than Fiction.

His films have been widely shown on TV, and are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) New York and film schools around the world.

He has been visiting lecturer at New York University (NYU), UCLA, Stanford. Univ. of Florida with longer teaching periods at Harvard University and the Australian Film, Television and Radio School (AFTRS). In 1973, he helped found Film Australia, an independent organization devoted to the promotion of Australian cinema.

Rubbo has also directed and written four children’s feature films including The Peanut Butter Solution (1985), Tommy Tricker and the Stamp Traveller (1988) along with its sequel The Return of Tommy Tricker (1994), and the Daytime Emmy award winning film Vincent and Me (1990). More recently he spent some time as the Head of Documentaries at Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Television, encouraging Verite and instigating the very popular Race Around the World series.

Freelancing, he directed the much loved; All about Olive for the ABC. This documentary followed the  feisty and funny Olive Riley, then 104,  back to her birthplace, Broken hill, to discover the fights she'd been in, the husband she'd left,  the beloved sister, the only one who ever loved her, all so long ago.   Olive enjoyed the movie making so much  that Rubbo and she went onto another project. Olive had been given a co directors credit and a place in history as the world's oldest director. While Guinness was not impressed,  another very old person, Madam Jeanne Calmant , who featured in Rubbo's Vincent and Me, she having met Vincent  van Gogh as a girl,  did make it into the record book as the world's oldest actress. Madame Calmant was 114 at the time of filming.   Whilst Rubbo's connection with Madam Calmant was brief, he set up a blog for Olive so that for  three years till he death at 108, she reigned as the worlds oldest blogger gaining hundreds of thousands of fans all over the world. When she died the story was carried by wire services all over the world. Olive had inspired people everywhere never to fear old age, never to stop joking and singing.

Recent work

Blogging for Olive led to Rubbo mastering short film making skills, initially so as to be able to post Olive movie clips on Youtube. There are currently almost 100 viewable online.  Starting crudely, the films became more polished with time. By the time Olive died, and Rubbo had become a cycling advocate, these YouTube films had become more refined.   There are currently 30 films on YouTube exploring various aspects of cycling with a particular focus utility cycling (i.e. going from A to B by bicycle) on 'sit-up' bikes.   Three bike reated issues dominate the  films and the blog which hosts them, www.situp-cycle.com. Firstly, electric bikes which Rubbo believes are a way back to cycling for many Australians.  Secondly, the sit-up style of riding which Rubbo believes is one key to bicycles again becoming useful transport in Australia. Thirdly , the issue of compulsory helmets concerns him.   In his films and on his blog, he has been campaigning for helmet choice every since he made two early films on Sue Abbott. Sue went to court to fight against wearing a helmet and won.   Presently,  Rubbo and colleagues are focussing on bike share schemes here and around the world, believing that not only is Bike Share the way to  dramatically grow city cycling, but  that it is key bringing back helmet choice. Rubbo is convinced bike share cannot work with compulsory helmets, as now being proven in Melbourne and Brisbane and for it to survive here - and it's too valuable to lose - a helmet exemption for such bikes is something he believes is required.

Rubbo has always been a social activist. He was a fervent campaigner against the Vietnam war, running risks with his protests, and more recently as will as his bike campaign, he's been  making films for his village on an issue or concern     This series of films  opposes  sinking of a navy Frigate, the Adelaide  as dive site just off Avoca Beach.  he has also done films,  pro bono,  for his federal MP. Deborah O'Neill. All of this work,   plus local portraits of people and events can be found on youtube.

Rubbo is a semi-popular after dinner speaker and has become something of an expert on the singer Steven Page and his role in the continuing decline of popular music.

Personal life

Rubbo is  the son of Australian microbiologist, Sydney Rubbo, and the grandson of the painter and teacher, Antonio Dattilo Rubbo. He has always been a painter as well as film-maker. He has been the 'village painter' in Avoca Beach for a while^[when?] now and is launching some of his bicycle art in the form of linocuts on community art sites^[when?].   Rubbo lives in Avoca Beach with his wife Katerina (a Russian interpreter, icon painter and fundraiser for Russian orphans) and his daughter, Ellen Rubbo (studying events management)^[when?]. He also has a son, Nicolas, living in Canada working at McCarthy Tétrault, a top ranked Canadian business law firm, as Director, Marketing and communications.

References

External links

• Michael Rubbo's cycling blog
• Michael Rubbo's biography on the Internet Movie Database
• Review of Solzhenitsyn's Children
• Watch films by Michael Rubbo at the National Film Board of Canada

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Name	Rubbo, Michael
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Date of birth	31 December 1938
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