For most of his career, after a brief stint with the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, he worked for the
Commonwealth Film Unit (CFU; later Film Australia), from 1956 until around 1987. He also collaborated with award-winning cinematographer
Dean Semler on at least two films. Professional cameraman Richard Howe Tucker, along with recently-qualified young anthropologist
Robert Tonkinson, who knew some of the local
Aboriginal dialects, set out for three weeks of filming in 1965. Aboriginal guides living on a mission nearby helped with interpretation, while Dunlop and Tucker shot around five hours of film with two Martu families from different language groups (Mandjintjadara and Ngadjadjadjara) group. In 1967 they travelled to a different part of the central Australian desert, where they filmed three related Mandjintjadara families still living a nomadic life. Dunlop and Tucker shot another seven hours of material with this group over three weeks. Most of the footage focuses on making artefacts, gathering food, and hunting (lizards, bandicoots, emus, and kangaroos). Some illustrate therapeutic activities, such as preparing and administering
bush medicines. They also filmed some Aboriginal sacred sites, with these parts of the films now being restricted and are only able to be viewed by special permission.
Desert People, shot on
black and white 35mm film, Australian anthropologist
Norman Tindale reviews the film for
American Anthropologist in 1968, and an article entitled "People of the Australian Western Desert. 1965. A series of nine films in b&w. Directed by Ian Dunlop." by James C. Pierson was published in the same journal in 1986. In 2015, Massimiliano Mollona, who teaches political and economic anthropology and visual art at
Goldsmiths College, London, wrote a review of the film for
Focaal. Several episodes of the series were later screened at the Cinema Reborn festival in March 2018. Dunlop distinguished between "record" films and "interpretive" films, most of the series adopting the former model, following a particular process, event, or situation in roughly chronologically sequence, while
Desert People follows the latter.
Desert People begins in the morning with the Mandjintjadara family setting out on their day's tasks, and ends with the Ngadjadjadjara family settling down next to fires at night. Although shot over two or three weeks, the film is presented as if occurring over three or four days. Dunlop's second "interpretive" film,
At Patantja Claypan, was based on material shot during the 1967 expedition over two weeks as if it were two consecutive days in the life of this Mandjintjadara group. This 53-minute film was released as part of the main series in 1969.). Dunlop was respected by artist and land rights activist
Roy Marika, who explained the importance of his films to other Yolngu elders. Dunlop left 27 of his films with the community. Artist and clan leader Mithili Wanambi, father of
Wukun Wanambi, became a close collaborator in the 1970s. The
Yirrkala Film Project was the name given to a series of 22 films, running for 1,271 minutes in total, filmed between 1970 and 1982. Dunlop made
In Memory of Mawalan, a black and white film with cinematography by Dean Semler and sound by Bob Hays, in 1971 (released 12 years later). The background to the film is the story of the
Djang’kawu sisters, a Rirratjingu clan creation story that laid out the law for the people, which was ignored when the government gave permission for a
bauxite mining company to start developing operations in east Arnhem Land. The battle for
land rights by the people of
Yirrkala mission led to the
Yirrkala bark petitions in 1963 and then the
Gove Land Rights Case in 1971, which ruled against them. Artist and elder
Mawalan Marika, who had been a creator of and signatory to the petitions, died in 1967. In 1971, his eldest son
Wandjuk Marika planned a ceremony as a celebration of his father and as a re-affirmation of Djang’kawu Law, and
In Memory of Mawalan is a film of the ceremony. Wandjuk documented the film for the filmmakers as they were filming. The film was later screened at the
National Museum of Australia in
Canberra in conjunction with the exhibition
Yalangbara: art of the Djang’kawu in August–September 2011. Film Australia released a National Interest Program DVD of
Ceremony: The Djungguwan of Northeast Arnhem Land, about the making of the 2002 film, to mark UNESCO World Day for Audiovisual Heritage, and presented to UNESCO for their collection in 2007. After the
Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies and the CFU ceased funding for ethnographic films, around 1985, Dunlop worked on completing unedited films and organising his and others' film archives. He oversaw the preservation and screening of the neglected films of
Walter Baldwin Spencer, and served as a member of the NFSA Indigenous Reference Group from 1998 for some years. In 1996, he undertook a six-month secondment from the NFSA to AIATSIS to manage the film archive, working alongside longtime collaborator, editor Pip Deveson. He represented Australia at ethnographic film conferences and festivals, and screened Baldwin Spencer's films around the world. He also lectured on the history of ethnographic film in Australia. ==Recognition and honours==