It Is of Eden I Was Dreaming

1983, 25 Minutes

This film is an evocation of the life of the 19th century French poet Arthur Rimbaud, based on a series of paintings by Sidney Nolan.

Rimbaud was always one of Nolan’s heroes. Over the years he painted many pictures of the poet. The famous artist responded enthusiastically to a suggestion by an Australian scriptwriter for a film about Rimbaud and he produced 31 large new paintings for this film together with many small crayon drawings.

These works, interwoven with a wealth of drawings paintings, photographs and documents from the Louvre, the French National Library and the Rimbaud Museum at Charleville, have been combined in a filmic evocation of one of France’s most extraordinary writers.

A Film Australia and TOTAL Holdings (Australia) co-production. © 2011 National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.