reconstruction ... yet there is also a marked pictorialism. The images are frequently cut together into dynamic montage sequences, the rhythm of the soundtrack controlling and orchestrating the rhythm of the cutting". His most significant films include The Cane-cutters and The Valley is Ours, made for the Australian National Film Board and both screened at the 1949 Cannes Film Festival, and the award-winning The Back of Beyond. These films are good examples of the way Heyer engaged "the aesthetic strategies of [the] international documentary movement filtered through a particular Australian creative imagination". In 1982, Heyer said "A documentary film increases understanding of the subject and brings out its meaning or significance. At best it enlightens and stimulates; at worst it deceives. It must necessarily be highly creative, but to limit it to the creative treatment of actuality is inadequate. Whether or not it involves reality is unimportant: the essential thing is that it achieve its objective". In other words, Heyer believed that documentary had to tell the truth about its subject but that it could use any of the tools at its disposal: re-enactment, drama, history, science. This was something he had demonstrated, to both critical and popular acclaim, in The Back of Beyond in 1954, and it remained his driving philosophy. Awards and recognition Heyer's films garnered over 20 awards at various international film festivals. The following list represents a small sample of these awards and of other recognition he received: 1954: Grand Prix Assoluto at the Venice Biennale for The Back of Beyond 1958: AFI Award: Silver Medallion (Open) for The Forerunner 1958: Kodak Festival Award at the Melbourne Film Festival for The Forerunner 1958: Trophy presented by the University of Padua International Scientific Film Festival for The Forerunner 1970: OBE For service to the film industry. 1983: Retrospectives of his films at the Melbourne and Sydney Film Festivals 1997: OAM (Medal of the Order of Australia) For service to the media as a pioneer of documentary film in Australia and as a film producer and film director. 1999: Stanley Hawes Award for services to Australian documentary. Selected filmography The dates cited below may vary in different sources; the terminology used for role attribution in documentary film is not always clearly articulated so that such terms as 'producer' and 'director' listed here may not necessarily be those used on the work itself. Works not listed include many of