Ray Lawrence’s 1985 AFI Award-winning classic Bliss has been digitally restored by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia as part of its NFSA Restores initiative.

Based on the 1981 novel by Peter Carey, Bliss premiered in competition at the 1985 Cannes Film Festival. Despite a rocky start - 400 of the 1,600 audience at Cannes walked out - the film became an art-house hit in Australia, receiving glowing reviews and winning the AFI Awards for Best Picture, Best Direction and Best Adapted Screenplay.

Harry Joy (Barry Otto) dies – for four minutes – after a heart attack. When he is revived, he suspects he’s living in hell. His wife Bettina (Lynette Curran) is having an affair with his business partner Joel (Jeff Truman), his son David (Miles Buchanan) sells cocaine and Harry’s advertising agency promotes products that cause cancer.

Harry turns over a new leaf when he meets a North Coast hippie, Honey Barbara (Helen Jones), and begins the long process of earning her trust and his own redemption.

Director Ray Lawrence (Lantana, 2001; Jindabyne, 2006) and producer Anthony Buckley, along with our restoration partners Frame Set Match, contributed to the restoration process of Bliss.

Lawrence said, ‘It’s an honour to have your first film preserved like this. I’d only ever seen it with a lot of scratches; this restoration is the best print of the film I’ve seen in 30 years!’.

The NFSA restoration of Bliss premiered at the 2016 Sydney Film Festival.