Aggy Read

Aggy Read was born in 1941. He was a director and producer, known for Transition (1967), Dance of Euclid (1967) and A Random Walk to Classical Ruin (1970). He died on August 22, 1998 in Brisbane, Australia.

Film-maker, lecturer and croquet champion Aggy Read died in Brisbane on Sunday August 22 1998 after a short battle with cancer. He was best known as the former manager of the UBU Films group in Sydney from 1965-1970. After meeting Albie Thoms at Sydney University, they formed UBU with David Perry, John Clark and associates including Phillip Noyce, Garry Shead, Gary Stiven, Paul Winkler and others. As one of the seminal figures in UBU Aggy was (along with Thoms) the public face of the group, making numerous appearances on television on This Day Tonight, The Don Lane Show and many others, on radio and in the many newspaper articles written about the group.

Aggy was charged with smuggling after sending a copy of David Perry's film A Portait of Abigayl's Belly to the Oberhausen Festival in West Germany; the trial caused considerable outrage in Australia, and led later to the repeal of the archaic censorship laws that governed the importation and classification of motion pictures by Senator Don Chipp in 1970. Later, UBU evolved into the Sydney Filmmakers Co-op and Aggy Read was one of the foundation members (as Secretary) at the same time he was working with Thoms, Brett Whitely, and Martin Sharp at the now famous artist commune the Yellow House in Potts Point.