tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26796279072507852282024-02-18T22:03:03.947-08:00 Documentary-Jeni Thornley practice, filmmaking, reflectionsjeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.comBlogger93125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-25485058751411388792022-08-08T22:20:00.198-07:002022-09-14T19:05:41.060-07:00Agnes Varda Tribute <blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://mubi.com/cast/agnes-varda" target="_blank">Agnès Varda </a> (1928-2019) was a Paris-based photographer and film director and a key figure in modern film history. She is much revered across the globe for her deconstruction of the documentary form and her boundary-pushing work. In a career spanning 57 years, Agnès Varda, is one of the most original and renowned of the French ‘New Wave’ directors; in fact she is the only female director associated with it – her early films anticipating the work of Godard and Truffaut.</div></blockquote><div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxirPmOJJxautxDW99aAM6eJkxKoSNyezVzM0VTvT2HiOqaOOd6Nk-BaaqH12WOkuTN03QLs8Is9D5xavxpSPa1fXrYu0U4BhmEWuRIgNf-47we98LtlmpbVO-RDMI7RmU5RzRWWNJyto/s1600/varda.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxirPmOJJxautxDW99aAM6eJkxKoSNyezVzM0VTvT2HiOqaOOd6Nk-BaaqH12WOkuTN03QLs8Is9D5xavxpSPa1fXrYu0U4BhmEWuRIgNf-47we98LtlmpbVO-RDMI7RmU5RzRWWNJyto/s320/varda.jpeg" width="320" /></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></div>
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<b><i>Beaches of Agnes </i>2008</b></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b><br /></b></div>
<a href="https://antennafestival.org/" target="_blank">Antenna Documentary Festival,</a> in collaboration with the Alliance Francaise, the French Embassy and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, presented a tribute to this legendary French filmmaker on October 13th 2012. The films screened in 35mm (what a treat!) Special thanks to AGNSW Curator and projectionist Robert Herbert (1958-2017) ; and thanks to Antenna for inviting me to introduce her films <i><a href="https://www.criterion.com/films/30368-the-gleaners-and-i">The Gleaners and I</a></i> and <a href="https://www.criterion.com/films/30112-the-beaches-of-agns" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Beaches of Agnes</a><i>. </i>Here is an extract from my introduction: </div><div><div><blockquote><i> In 'The Beaches of Agnes' we are in the mind of an Elder who is ‘essaying’: she weighs </i><i>up her own life, pays tribute to her lovers, friends, family and colleagues. She time travels </i><i>back into her own films – and into Demy's films. It is a tribute to cinema – to the </i><i>nouvelle vaugue, to documentary, to fiction, to imagination, to creativity. There is a </i><i>great freedom in this film – everything is possible – as in a Melies film. It is magic, the </i><i>stuff of dreams.</i></blockquote><blockquote><i>In </i> '<i>The Gleaners and I' </i><i>Varda plays with representation – from Millet’s painting – which serves as visual metaphor and foundation text – and she transforms it into her own film text of gleaning. She pushes beyond the surfaces of Millet’s three gleaners and his framing – to blow open the edge of frame and ‘essay’ into her film’s themes; and she gives us herself and her gleaners in fleshy reality. </i></blockquote><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzrB3EjIwoeWC7Sk2REyTGj-GvfyPEGSCwx92bMIlhdqvwO43iEeR4sulW4by7scEhfqn8jX3KzWAtAgfPZMXOnblGpnp2XPNwfIsEScrF2DfUiY_Amc3KyBV4LxreeUafRpluelTvZWOZjjjCZprpLS35dz6xDvorl_aeKeTDr6CPMu4x9EvZKTd1/s1600/the%20gleaners.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1288" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzrB3EjIwoeWC7Sk2REyTGj-GvfyPEGSCwx92bMIlhdqvwO43iEeR4sulW4by7scEhfqn8jX3KzWAtAgfPZMXOnblGpnp2XPNwfIsEScrF2DfUiY_Amc3KyBV4LxreeUafRpluelTvZWOZjjjCZprpLS35dz6xDvorl_aeKeTDr6CPMu4x9EvZKTd1/s320/the%20gleaners.jpg" width="258" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><blockquote><i>The people actually filmed in 'The Gleaners' – and the way she films with them – is worth thinking about. How does Varda achieve such a special quality in her interviews? – a feeling of compassion and intimacy – a sense of shared humanity. Varda says this: “The people I have filmed tell us a great deal about our society and ourselves. I myself learned a lot as I was making this film. It confirmed my idea that documentaries are a discipline that teach modesty”. </i></blockquote><p> Last year (2021) I was writing about Varda's unique approach to film-making and I came across a thoughtful interview with her by Sheila Heti in <i>The Believer (</i>Issue 66). Sadly, this online magazine's link is no longer active, but here is a quote that expresses Varda's film-making ethic:</p><blockquote><blockquote><i>If it can be shared, it means there is a common denominator. I think, in emotion, we have that. So even though I’m different or my experiences are different, they cross some middle knot. It’s interesting work for me to tell my life, as a possibility for other people to relate it to themselves—not so much to learn about me… It’s a way of living, sharing things with people who work with me, and they seem to enjoy it. </i></blockquote></blockquote><p>Back in 1999, we were blessed to meet up with Agnes Varda at the <a href="https://filmsdefemmes.com/creteil-international-womens-film-festival/" target="_blank">Creteil International Women's Film Festival </a>in Paris. A group of us Australian women filmmakers screened our films in a program called, <i>Les Antipodes. </i>What a wonderful experience! Varda, one of our great mentors! And yes, we need them.</p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRKzNInHA8DS_UL2ogPHBxuAeaK0tO0iLvq2nXPrznLiedqEwQOO7RHBqioWQ9mucS5Dm7evzSag-J7-FaDkIvX0qME2rzaAMKvIapjcMOfXiOHzUXRu2tckkWweFOEEME9zPGE8LmkIri7Mc3WOwDWhp7tJmgCmiaXV8VMGNpI820FivnDuzkMXk8/s395/Margot%20Nash,%20Jeni%20Thornley%20with%20Agnes%20Varda,%20Creteil%20Women's%20Film%20Festival,%20Paris%201999.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="257" data-original-width="395" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRKzNInHA8DS_UL2ogPHBxuAeaK0tO0iLvq2nXPrznLiedqEwQOO7RHBqioWQ9mucS5Dm7evzSag-J7-FaDkIvX0qME2rzaAMKvIapjcMOfXiOHzUXRu2tckkWweFOEEME9zPGE8LmkIri7Mc3WOwDWhp7tJmgCmiaXV8VMGNpI820FivnDuzkMXk8/w400-h260/Margot%20Nash,%20Jeni%20Thornley%20with%20Agnes%20Varda,%20Creteil%20Women's%20Film%20Festival,%20Paris%201999.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Margot Nash, Jeni Thornley with Agnes Varda, <br />Creteil International Women's Film Festival, Paris 1999<br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div><p><b> Notes</b></p><p><span style="font-size: small;">Heti, S. (2009, October 1). An interview with Agnes Varda.</span><span style="font-size: small;"> </span><i>The Believer. </i><span style="font-size: small;">I</span><span style="font-size: small;">ssue 66. https://believermag.com/an-interview-with-agnes-varda/</span></p><p> Sheila Heti, Interviews. http://www.sheilaheti.com/interviews, accessed 9th August 2022.</p><blockquote><br /></blockquote><i><br /></i></div></div>jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-11849847875431939432022-03-20T15:52:00.036-07:002022-03-24T19:45:35.933-07:00farewell film poem to life<blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://documentaryaustralia.com.au/project/memory-film-a-filmmakers-diary/" target="_blank"><i>memory film: a filmmaker's diary</i></a>: </span></p></blockquote><p> <span style="text-align: center;">An immersive film poem about transformation and</span><span style="text-align: center;"> ‘the personal is political’</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIT8frDoOkfiseJoLGdkp9dR7m0DCsRPwioAyTn_8w0TmbftWwfO-bGiguOF3d61E79Sfq6iG6LrFMlhG7ksccLRZ8npW3mF9TNc-bf2OIl0kXBQh5BG5OZ1mzJpYAAtzb1GuEUK_KpKw/s640/Christina+NFSA++digitising+copy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Digitising the Super8, Christina Peacock NFSA 2017" border="0" data-original-height="480" data-original-width="640" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIT8frDoOkfiseJoLGdkp9dR7m0DCsRPwioAyTn_8w0TmbftWwfO-bGiguOF3d61E79Sfq6iG6LrFMlhG7ksccLRZ8npW3mF9TNc-bf2OIl0kXBQh5BG5OZ1mzJpYAAtzb1GuEUK_KpKw/w400-h300/Christina+NFSA++digitising+copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: x-small;">Digitising the Super8, Christina Sparrow, NFSA 2016</span><br /> </span></td></tr></tbody></table><span style="text-align: center;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0000ee; font-style: italic; text-decoration-line: underline;"><a href="https://documentaryaustralia.com.au/project/memory-film-a-filmmakers-diary/" target="_blank">memory film: a filmmaker's diary</a></span><i> </i>is based</span><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times, times new roman, serif;"> on my Super8 archives filmed over three decades 1974-2003. The film is an expression of the passage of time, as well as a historic document reflecting personal and political issues of each era. </span></span><span lang="" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;">Currently in post-production, t</span><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;">he </span><a href="https://www.nfsa.gov.au/" style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;" target="_blank">National Film and Sound Archive</a><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; text-align: justify;"> (NFSA Canberra), acquired and digitized the super8 collection during 2016-2017. The film is unique as its legacy harks back to the silent movie era; the film has no speaking voices, no interviews and no narration. Its story is told visually and poetically, with images and music and sound.</span></span></div></span><p></p><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 14.2pt;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div><span style="font-family: times, "times new roman", serif; font-size: medium;"><div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><i>memory film<b> </b></i><span>is currently at rough-cut stage (80mins); editor Lindi Harrison (ASE) worked with me to edit the current 80min rough cut and trailer. I am currently working on permissions with people (and places) who appear in the rough cut, along with clearing text/quotations permissions. There is a guide music track and we will be licensing quotes from the those musician/composers in this edit. Egyptian Australian oud player, <a href="https://josephtawadros.com/" target="_blank">Joseph Tawadros</a> has generously provided the track for the<i> </i></span></span><a href="<iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/505107727?h=4d1d0a8afa" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> <p><a href="https://vimeo.com/505107727">&lsquo;memory film: a filmmaker&#039;s diary&rsquo; (Trailer)</a> from <a href="https://vimeo.com/user2024548">Jeni Thornley</a> on <a href="https://vimeo.com">Vimeo</a>.</p>" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><i>memory film trailer</i></a> (while we work on raising the post production budget for the film); a number of his tracks are in the rough cut, along with Tunisian oud player <a href="https://www.ecmrecords.com/artists/1435046380/anouar-brahem" target="_blank">Anouar Brahem</a>, Canadian cellist <a href="https://www.zoekeating.com/" target="_blank">Zoe Keating</a> and Australian ensemble, <a href="https://www.chaikaband.com/" target="_blank">Chaika</a>.</div><div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div></span></div></span></div></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 14.2pt; text-align: justify;"><div><div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="">The impulse for this film </span></b><span lang="">comes from the <a href="https://www.tuttlepublishing.com/japan/japanese-death-poems" target="_blank">Japanese death poets</a>. In Japan elders and (Buddhist monks) write poems to express their feelings about the transience of life and the inevitable passing of all things (jisei: “farewell poem to life”). H</span>ouseholders write poems as a gift to their children – a legacy of beauty and insight gathered over years. I like this idea– the contemplation of ageing and approaching death, yet<span lang=""> brimming with the lightness and beauty of life. </span></span></div></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 14.2pt;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 37.6pt 0cm 2cm; text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">I borrow moonlight</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 37.6pt 0cm 2cm; text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">for this journey of a</span></i></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 37.6pt 0cm 2cm; text-align: center;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: medium;">million miles</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 37.6pt 0cm 2cm; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span lang="">(Saikaku 1730)</span><br /><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 14.2pt;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="" style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-weight: 400;">A friend gave me </span><a href="https://terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/YoelHoffmann.html" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-weight: 400;">Yoel Hoffman's</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-weight: 400;"> book<i> </i></span><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60376.Japanese_Death_Poems" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-weight: 400;"><i>Japanese Death Poems</i></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-weight: 400;"> years ago and I always carry it around - thinking, ruminating, writing - gradually realising that I could make a film in the spirit of this poetic tradition. Then I discovered that video artist </span><a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/spiritofthings/bill-violas-spiritual-art/2960042:" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-weight: 400;">Bill Viola</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-weight: 400;"> has done just this! So then, everything is perhaps borrowed! The other filmmaker I return to in the vein of death poetry film-making (and the use of the home movie archive) is </span><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-derek-jarman-1395505.html" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-weight: 400;">Derek Jarman</a><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-weight: 400;"> and his innovative film</span><a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/display/derek-jarman-blue" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-weight: 400;"> <i>Blue </i></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-weight: 400;">that he made when he was in hospital dying (1994). Yet, ultimately as Thacker in his essay </span><a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2016/07/02/books/black-illumination-zen-poetry-death/#.W8uZ1SN96u4" style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-weight: 400;"><i>Black Illumination: Zen and the poetry of death</i></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-weight: 400;"> writes, quoting death poet Toko: </span></span></b></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 14.2pt;"><div><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang=""><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium; font-weight: 400;"><br /></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "times new roman"; margin: 0cm 37.6pt 0cm 2cm; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">Death poems</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "times new roman"; margin: 0cm 37.6pt 0cm 2cm; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">are mere delusion</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "times new roman"; margin: 0cm 37.6pt 0cm 2cm; text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-size: medium;">death is death</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "times new roman"; margin: 0cm 37.6pt 0cm 2cm; text-align: center;"><span lang="" style="font-size: medium;">(Toko 1795)</span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt;"><div dir="rtl" style="text-align: right;"><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Preparing the Super8 for NFSA" border="0" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU-mf-7PzriY0DH8zT1AC-jadu62Rukvvp8Lb_mij0l6Xznqkd1Q7cHQeY2UuUYyA0F1nypDGm31lG8-tivPEKRYnl8TsnWU83ut25ycixz7ek5UPa31n0BIEn1JQ9cmAlRy32ZKS6ukU/w439-h292/prepping+JT+super+8+for+NFSA+guadalupe+3+16.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Preparing the Super8 for NFSA" width="439" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2016 Preparing the super8 for NF&SA</td><td class="tr-caption"> </td><td class="tr-caption"></td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU-mf-7PzriY0DH8zT1AC-jadu62Rukvvp8Lb_mij0l6Xznqkd1Q7cHQeY2UuUYyA0F1nypDGm31lG8-tivPEKRYnl8TsnWU83ut25ycixz7ek5UPa31n0BIEn1JQ9cmAlRy32ZKS6ukU/s1600/prepping+JT+super+8+for+NFSA+guadalupe+3+16.jpg"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></a></div></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: justify;"><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><b><br /></b></span></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"><b>What I know about the content of the film </b>– it is composed only of my Super8, filmed between 1974-2003. A layer of the film reflects films I have made and the politics of each era: </span><a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/maidens/" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><i>Maidens</i></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> (1978), </span><a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/love-or-money/" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><i>For Love or Money </i></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">(McMurchy, Nash, Oliver & Thornley 1983), </span><a href="http://beamafilm.com/To-The-Other-Shore" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><i>To the Other Shore </i></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";">(1996) and </span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/%C2%A0http://beamafilm.com/Island-Home-Country" style="font-family: "times new roman";"><i>Island Home Country</i></a><span style="font-family: "times new roman";"> (2008). </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Why the title:<i> “memory film”</i>?</span><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"> </b><span lang="">Film, unlike creative forms like painting, sculpture or writing, is ephemeral. Like theatre and music it, too, is passing by. The movement of film through the gate of the camera, through the projector, (both film and digital), parallels the movement of life – its transience, its flow; watching film we experience time passing, and like the mercury of old we cannot really hold it still. Also some of the Super8 is degraded with time; the colour might have faded, mould has eaten away at the celluloid; the body of the film is ageing, as is mine. I will not hide it. These fragments of life on my 137 rolls and 9 composite reels of Super8 trigger my memory as it fades with age. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "times new roman"; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBXtsPP2-3KBbrpTmwDt9dYw351w5CgTr0pYNqyusxUE1-dHDMuLpVJKGwqJ8fmMNkaTOL3bHCP0g8oTvKPMIqkjrC0gsl7uQarN_job9lkRmraQO2bSKGNaxtRrOualexWFMW9b00ffk/s1600/JT+NFSA+cans+super+8.JPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBXtsPP2-3KBbrpTmwDt9dYw351w5CgTr0pYNqyusxUE1-dHDMuLpVJKGwqJ8fmMNkaTOL3bHCP0g8oTvKPMIqkjrC0gsl7uQarN_job9lkRmraQO2bSKGNaxtRrOualexWFMW9b00ffk/s400/JT+NFSA+cans+super+8.JPG" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: arial;">The Super8 original is preserved and catalogued at NFSA</span><br /></span><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: justify;"><div><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="" style="font-size: medium;"><div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="">The production context</span></b><span lang=""><b> </b><b>for the film<span style="font-weight: 400;"> is the</span></b> <a href="https://www.uts.edu.au/future-students/communication" target="_blank">School of Communication, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences </a>(FASS) UTS, where I am a Visiting Scholar. Marcus Ekermann, <a href="https://www.uts.edu.au/future-students/communication/student-experience/medialab" target="_blank">FASS MediaLab</a>, is technical consultant. </span>I edited a first assembly (3.5hrs) and editor <a href="https://www.wikvsqueensland.com/lindi-harrison.html" target="_blank">Lindi Harrison</a> (ASE) worked with me to edit the current 80min rough cut <span lang="">and trailer. </span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: "times" , "times new roman" , serif;"><span lang=""><br /></span></span></div></span></span></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody><tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdz055c5jB63cNCQGAq5gdMyIyI8wVUMvFqRkvnUPWuoNwyWlywLcCIyqr90dHXs8qReMclcBwkhwRJdxg9UQc0k4xIYI1LBKWe5mGoWO1ij-Cmd78FgjdhDn7l3LX-AtVSNdtagp_2vE/s1600/Lyndhusrt+squats+graffi+2016-10-28+10.08.52+copy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><img border="0" height="409" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdz055c5jB63cNCQGAq5gdMyIyI8wVUMvFqRkvnUPWuoNwyWlywLcCIyqr90dHXs8qReMclcBwkhwRJdxg9UQc0k4xIYI1LBKWe5mGoWO1ij-Cmd78FgjdhDn7l3LX-AtVSNdtagp_2vE/w546-h409/Lyndhusrt+squats+graffi+2016-10-28+10.08.52+copy.jpg" width="546" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption"><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: x-small;"> <span style="font-family: arial;">Squatting at the Lyndhurst Estate, Glebe, Sydney 1976</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><span lang="" style="font-size: medium;"></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt;"><div style="text-align: justify;"><div><span lang="" style="font-size: medium;"><b>All this happened.</b> Yes, I was in the women’s liberation movement; I had a share in women’s land; I marched against the war in Vietnam; I filmed Super8 on the set of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/features/journey-among-women/" target="_blank">Journey Among Women</a>, </i>on<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>Anzac Day, Australia Day and the Aboriginal Awakening ceremonies<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">;</i> I loved women and men; I have a husband, children and grand children and I had a therapist; I bow to my meditation teachers. And yes I made these films. Here is the evidence, it was real, I filmed it. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">memory = film</i>. And so, I share this <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2016/07/02/books/black-illumination-zen-poetry-death/#.W8uZ1SN96u4" target="_blank">“farewell film poem to life” (jisei)</a>, tenderly with you.</span></div></div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt;"><span lang="" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt;"><span lang="" style="font-size: medium;"><style>
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</style></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="" style="font-size: medium;">Clear sky</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="" style="font-size: medium;">The way I came by once</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="" style="font-size: medium;">I now go back by</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="" style="font-size: medium;">(Gitoku 1754)</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang=""><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="font-size: large; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLZDRN69F5_qyqeMd5Vy35M67ukhKZcbQ9Hrvm8L0BFAhvIOIPm15X0RpRrfSgntlG7PWjaTK_YMFsqLMVEvVuLOqlCtmThxb3nQod8mHmRMEA4KnzgeHjIRNAymld2sr6r96tjB6eiwfU-xs0vizpqB6rhRw8gBjr0ExtZVZ01xh7K_ecEUl5cDkK" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="432" data-original-width="540" height="353" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiLZDRN69F5_qyqeMd5Vy35M67ukhKZcbQ9Hrvm8L0BFAhvIOIPm15X0RpRrfSgntlG7PWjaTK_YMFsqLMVEvVuLOqlCtmThxb3nQod8mHmRMEA4KnzgeHjIRNAymld2sr6r96tjB6eiwfU-xs0vizpqB6rhRw8gBjr0ExtZVZ01xh7K_ecEUl5cDkK=w442-h353" width="442" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 14.2pt;"><span><span lang="" style="font-size: x-small;">my sister's garden, Blue Mountains: </span></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 14.2pt;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">country of the Dharug, Gundungurra & Wiradjuri nations</span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 14.2pt;"><span lang=""><span style="font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang="" style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang=""><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang=""><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang=""><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang=""><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang=""><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang=""><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang=""><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang=""><br /></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 14.2pt; text-align: center;"><span lang=""><br /></span></div><div><span lang=""><br /></span></div>jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-91167521621555030382022-01-05T21:58:00.017-08:002022-01-08T12:28:08.562-08:00 “the river of souls”<div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana; font-size: medium;"><b><span style="color: #741b47;"> </span><span style="color: #351c75;"> </span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: #351c75; font-family: verdana;"><b><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: large;"> <span>m</span>izuko kuyō (水子供養) </span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b style="font-family: verdana; font-size: large;"><span style="color: #351c75;"><span> </span>water child memorial</span></b></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: verdana;"><b><span style="color: #351c75;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHwHmscIsfDSmOZ-kCzvWfqzajY4eUG5fwvMyg1sr7oXa892PBgJ8FQGHUamiL_MeKOqtK3oK7bx7GAvgL4lji_KrFSMvtd-IUJf6pNt50IUY5kQNfIMhaXoRWmXJy_Hyr5uEphvoLxuw/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="168" data-original-width="300" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjHwHmscIsfDSmOZ-kCzvWfqzajY4eUG5fwvMyg1sr7oXa892PBgJ8FQGHUamiL_MeKOqtK3oK7bx7GAvgL4lji_KrFSMvtd-IUJf6pNt50IUY5kQNfIMhaXoRWmXJy_Hyr5uEphvoLxuw/w400-h224/mizuko+kuyo.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.tokyoweekender.com/2020/09/award-winning-short-film-mizuko-explores-grief-search-for-healing-in-mizuko-kuyo-ritual-for-unborn-children/" target="_blank">Mizuko Kuyo, a Ritual for Unborn Children</a><br /><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Japanese Buddhist ceremony for those who <br />have had a miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion</span><br /> </td></tr></tbody></table></span></b></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span><span><span><span>Last year I was interviewed for the documentary film </span></span></span></span><a href="https://www.brazenhussies.com.au/" style="font-style: italic;">Brazen Hussies</a><span> (</span><span>2</span><span>020,</span><i> </i><span>dir: Catherine Dywer).</span><span><span><span> The crew spent a day filming with me. Later, when I saw the edit of my account of an illegal abortion I had in 1968, I found it confronting. For many reasons – perhaps because the inner work I have done around abortion was not incorporated. Or perhaps because it is still an emotional and layered site. So be it. It</span></span></span></span><span style="color: #191919; font-family: "eb garamond", serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span><span><span>s not my film. I accepted the edit - as I felt it was a historically important account of women</span></span></span><span style="color: #191919; font-family: "eb garamond", serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span><span><span>s lack of power over our own bodies in that 1960s era. Then, I happened upon this essay, </span></span></span><a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/brazen-hussies-and-weaknesses-womens-liberation-movement" target="_blank"><i>Brazen Hussies and the weaknesses of the women’s liberation movement</i></a><span> by Diane Fieldes in </span><i><a href="https://redflag.org.au/" target="_blank">Red Flag </a></i><span>(May 14 2021).</span><span><span><span> It triggered emotions again linked to my memories and trauma. I especially took issue with Fieldes’ factual mis-representation of my illegal abortion and also her simplistic class analysis of it. So I decided to write about it to connect with the deeper resonances of abortion for myself and other women. </span></span></span><span><span> </span></span><span>Here is Fieldes</span><span style="color: #191919; font-family: "eb garamond", serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span> paragraph in full:</span><span> </span></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span style="font-size: large;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuNAMCGGAsRMYMx4sU8A_j08hXEZxDzwNFySPKMpg9ENIJsblWx0EBTym2CadovecjoWzvK25Io-pWMoRxGS7-QvpvSEsRpF90QhOUKaDcpS8ljmbb-k5xtWo0ek2QMzlJ2aH8Y3UA6n0/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br /><br /></a></span></span></span></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p></p><p style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #191919; font-family: "eb garamond", serif;" xml:lang="EN-GB">For middle-class women like Jeni Thornley, who is interviewed in the film about her undoubtedly unpleasant experience, an unwanted pregnancy meant going to Sydney and having the abortion at a posh clinic in Macquarie Street once you’d paid £300</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #191919; font-family: "eb garamond", serif;" xml:lang="EN-GB">—</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="color: #191919; font-family: "eb garamond", serif;" xml:lang="EN-GB">the mark of the procedure’s illegality being that you had to go at night instead of during the day. For working-class women, as Communist Party member Zelda D’Aprano outlines in horrifying detail in her autobiography, it meant scraping together a much smaller sum but with much greater difficulty, and surrendering yourself to the hands of a backyard butcher.</span></p><p></p></blockquote><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Unfortunately</span><span><span><span style="font-family: inherit;">, Fieldes has misconstrued my interview in <i>Brazen Hussies </i>to suit her one-dimensional </span>class analysis. She has no idea of my class origins, my personal life or the circumstances of my illegal abortion. In fact my abortion was not in a “posh” Macquarie St clinic. It was at the infamous Heatherbrae Clinic in Bondi; a clinic that operated at night to avoid police raids due to the fact that abortion was a </span></span><span> </span><span>“</span><span>crime</span><span>”</span><span>; a clinic to which desperate women from all classes across Australia and New Zealand sought an abortion; what</span></span></span><span style="color: #191919; font-family: "eb garamond", serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span><span>s more, even if my abortion had been performed in Fieldes</span></span><span style="color: #191919; font-family: "eb garamond", serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span> </span><span>“posh clinic”</span><span>, what does her dualistic argument offer us in understanding the emotional, traumatic inner space of women</span><span style="color: #191919; font-family: "eb garamond", serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span>s illegal abortion experience across class? As Simone de Beauvoir so clearly articulated in</span><span> </span><i><a href="https://iep.utm.edu/beauvoir/" target="_blank">The Second Sex</a> </i><span>(</span><span>Alfred Knopf, 1949, p. 489):</span></span></div><p><span><span style="font-family: verdana;"> <i>"<b>it is difficult to imagine abandonment more frightful than that in which the menace of death is combined with that of crime and shame."</b></i></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: medium;"><span><span><span>In fact Fieldes</span></span><span style="color: #191919; text-align: justify;">’ rather crude </span><span><span>class based analysis of my </span></span><span><span>“posh”</span><span> abortion, juxtaposed against Zelda D’Aprano’s </span><span>“</span><span>horrifying...working class abortion</span><span>”</span><span> is demeaning to women</span></span></span><span style="color: #191919; text-align: justify;">’</span><span><span>s shared, usually traumatic experience of illegal abortion. Moreover, it is the </span><span>collective, shared experience of women, and our concerted political work, that led to the potent national <a href="https://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE1097b.htm" target="_blank">Women</a></span></span><span style="color: #191919; text-align: justify;">’</span><span><a href="https://www.womenaustralia.info/biogs/AWE1097b.htm" target="_blank">s Abortion Action Campaign</a> </span><span>organising across class lines to decriminalise abortion. This act of solidarity ultimately provided access to safe, free legal abortions for women, initially in women’s health clinics (then, later in clinics such as Preterm) right across the country – and to this day. </span><span>These clinics, like </span><a href="https://lwchc.org.au/about-us/our-history/" target="_blank">Leichhardt Women’s Community Health Centre</a><span>, were created specifically to focus on women</span><span style="color: #191919; text-align: justify;">’</span><span>s health needs in a broad social and political frame, across class.</span></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span>Fieldes</span></span><span style="color: #191919; font-family: "eb garamond", serif; text-align: justify;">’</span><span> rudimentary class paradigm is one of the reasons I left the <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/special/library/foundations-aus/17.html" target="_blank">Socialist Labour League </a> in the early 1970s and became more deeply involved in women’s liberation, navigating the feminist maxim </span><span>“the </span><span>personal is political</span><span>”. S</span><span>ubsequently, some years later, I found psychoanalysis, recovery programs and Buddhism to be necessary and vital companions, along with feminism, on the lifelong journey of liberation.</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>I want to pay tribute to African American writer and feminist <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/bell-hooks-obituary" target="_blank"> bell hooks</a> (1952-2021) at this point as she discusses feminism in such an insightful way – illustrating her desire to bring feminism to everybody. A recent obituary by Sarah Leonard (2021) <i><a href="https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?u=48430eb2ecd1b61a791b4e919&id=45475b4894" target="_blank">bell hooks transformed feminism</a></i> articulates this clearly:</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;">“More than three decades earlier, in 1984,<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/dec/15/bell-hooks-author-and-activist-dies-aged-69" target="_blank"> bell hooks</a> (author and activist) had already sliced through those questions in her book <i><a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/politics-and-gender/article/bell-hooks-35-years-from-margin-to-center-feminist-theory-from-margin-to-center-by-bell-hooks-new-york-routledge-1984-2015-180-pp-13600-hardcover-2396-paperback/E9F9D383EB7C5790E4A343F1F82B6254" target="_blank">Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center</a></i>. Feminism’s aim is “not to benefit solely any specific group of women, any particular race or class of women. It does not privilege women over men. It has the power to transform in a meaningful way all our lives. Most importantly, feminism is neither a lifestyle nor a ready-made identity or role one can step into.”</span></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi47nadMotFHh3-LTP4iA99rVTGEVG_DsKlpSkedDJ0tkyWasb8BYv-9Ien1MzxAl9X5XGgc1AXMzd5AYJQ7aMWFrW-USRo4IlWGSZmZX9h1Wl-HZV7Nwv9lsQZeP2m29eMnGQXW_wAWAY/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img data-original-height="146" data-original-width="346" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi47nadMotFHh3-LTP4iA99rVTGEVG_DsKlpSkedDJ0tkyWasb8BYv-9Ien1MzxAl9X5XGgc1AXMzd5AYJQ7aMWFrW-USRo4IlWGSZmZX9h1Wl-HZV7Nwv9lsQZeP2m29eMnGQXW_wAWAY/w400-h169/femijnist+theory.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span>By defining feminism so precisely in lucid and welcoming prose, hooks issued a challenge to all of us to participate in overturning what she frequently called the “imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.” She also provided me with my own understanding of socialism by making clear that you can’t practice feminism while leaving the brutal hierarchies of capitalism intact. She referred in her writing not to the feminist movement but to “feminist movement.” As in, you get up and go....</span><span>In short, the range of hooks’ work expressed a desire to bring feminism to everybody. It expressed her belief that feminism really could transform the whole world, and that each of us has a part to play</span><span>”</span><span> </span><span>(</span><a href="https://us7.campaign-archive.com/?u=48430eb2ecd1b61a791b4e919&id=45475b4894" target="_blank"><i>Subtext</i></a><i>, </i><span>17th December 2021).</span></span></p></blockquote><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span></span></span></p><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span>I finish this short piece with another image of the <i><a href="https://embryo.asu.edu/pages/mizuko-kuyo">Mizuko Kuyo Ritual for Unborn Children</a> </i>as the abortion experience is profound and also involves spirit. Fieldes’ description of my 1970s abortion </span></span><span>in </span><i>Red Flag</i><span> stirred up many emotions – not only because the assertions about my abortion were factually incorrect, but because there is no </span><span>acknowledgement of the depth of such an intense body/mind/spirit experience - one that unites women in our journey towards liberation. </span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span><span>Recently I read about this documentary</span><span><a href="https://www.tokyoweekender.com/2020/09/award-winning-short-film-mizuko-explores-grief-search-for-healing-in-mizuko-kuyo-ritual-for-unborn-children/?fbclid=IwAR02oGY6FjFqHSwkdSSYmcuLfbal2jdOQQYlyGMukmqpAhQMsQ_ifM6S7DE" target="_blank"><i>“Mizuko”: Visual Exploration of the Grief & Search for Healing</i></a> (dir: Kira Dane & Katelyn Rebelo); it </span><span>explores the cultural, spiritual and personal implications of <i>misuko – </i>holding a memorial service for one</span><span>’</span><span>s unborn child. I have appreciated this wa<i>ter child memorial ritual </i>for some years; it is such a healing ceremony that offers a way beyond the sad struggle of the pro/anti-abortion/pro-life debate that plagues our western societies.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><br /></span></span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img data-original-height="480" data-original-width="360" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgK8LVPxkEEqenm6s_hmDYBLgzngU2mOLnja3_PhQI8ictKSiTweeW_Bv2AVAHSHHjRxi1JQdR5HHjEbvPFyo7SJ3tGT1Rrp17Gppsi2Emif24TFKFfqnj6VM4Tx_6GSQUuy9Z6H7v-hYY/w300-h400/bagan-1-14.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="300" /></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span> </span><i><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mizuko kuyō water child memorial service<br /></span></i><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; text-align: start;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Japanese Buddhist ceremony for those who have had a miscarriage, stillbirth, or abortion </span></span></p><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none; font-size: medium;"><b>Postscript</b></span></p><p class="p1" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">For the record, Zelda D</span><span class="s2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(19, 19, 19); color: #131313; font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">’</span><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;">Aprano was a sister in the <i>free safe legal abortion struggle,</i> and a colleague. We were privileged to document her equal pay activism in our feature film <a href="https://draft.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/2679627907250785228/9116752162155503038#"><span class="s3" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 233); color: #0000e9; font-kerning: none;"><i>For Love or Money: the history of women and work in Australia </i></span></a>(McMurchy, Nash, Oliver & Thornley, </span><span class="s4" style="font-kerning: none; font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal;">1983). </span>Distributor <a href="https://www.roninfilms.com.au/video/0/0/757.html?words=for+love+or+money&searchby=details" target="_blank">Ronin Films</a></span></p><p class="p2" style="-webkit-text-stroke-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-stretch: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 14px;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span class="s1" style="font-kerning: none;"></span><br /></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;"><br /></span><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-85638037891328723542022-01-02T18:19:00.017-08:002022-01-03T22:36:25.620-08:00Current documentary writing 2022<p> <strong style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;">In Press: Book chapter: </strong><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">‘The enigma of film:</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><em style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;">memory film: a filmmaker’s diary</em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">‘,</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 14pt;"> </span><em style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;">Constructions of The Real: Intersections of Practice and Theory in Documentary-Based Filmmaking, </em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 14pt;">(eds.) K. Munro et al., Intellect Books Series: Artwork Scholarship: International Perspectives in Education, 2022. </span></p><p><span style="color: #4d4d4f; font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO2LkdxcShQgQp89sEwWk0AUVmd_2_0a86KcM973KYUuHp4gMDNzmuVde69_19bZOEDVszwMfKw8VWCoKxaeNhfL5m_sRvtq4BUgwgjUSKxYOdoznoUvUYEbm403oH0S_Nrp9XCBdun7s/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="2448" data-original-width="3264" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhO2LkdxcShQgQp89sEwWk0AUVmd_2_0a86KcM973KYUuHp4gMDNzmuVde69_19bZOEDVszwMfKw8VWCoKxaeNhfL5m_sRvtq4BUgwgjUSKxYOdoznoUvUYEbm403oH0S_Nrp9XCBdun7s/w400-h300/2.+Grading+the+Super+8%252C+Christina+Sparrow%252C+National+Film+%2526+Sound+Archive%252C+Ngunnawal+%2528Canberra%2529+2016.jpg" title="Grading the Super 8, Christina Sparrow, National Film & Sound Archive, Ngunnawal (Canberra) 2016." width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif; text-align: left;"><span>Grading the Super 8, Christina Sparrow, National Film & Sound Archive, </span></span><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"><span> </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;">Ngunnawal (Canberra) 2016.</span></div></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 18.6667px; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #4d4d4f; font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"></span></div><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">This chapter is written from within the production process of <i style="color: #4d4d4f;"><a href="https://documentaryaustralia.com.au/project/memory-film-a-filmmakers-diary/" target="_blank">memory film: a filmmaker’s diary,</a></i><span style="color: #4d4d4f;"> </span>currently in post-production and crowd sourcing via <span style="color: #4d4d4f;"><a href="https://documentaryaustralia.com.au/" target="_blank">DAF:</a></span></span></span><div><span style="color: #4d4d4f; font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><br /></span></span><div><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh80G2O38R5mWFVLdsCfWp-s8SWAlrgc6ehFBe7ep-hqHkcsD_AhTbzvzx4U9BXqBKS7KPLKnvy56AhVssp3mxy6KlAq8eTg25OGCPiOv4Hm4WuB-aqbYwuFLvd3g3QFm2tU5gfRwT-TlI/" style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 18.6667px; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img alt="" data-original-height="367" data-original-width="2648" height="44" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh80G2O38R5mWFVLdsCfWp-s8SWAlrgc6ehFBe7ep-hqHkcsD_AhTbzvzx4U9BXqBKS7KPLKnvy56AhVssp3mxy6KlAq8eTg25OGCPiOv4Hm4WuB-aqbYwuFLvd3g3QFm2tU5gfRwT-TlI/" width="320" /></a></div><div><div><br /></div><div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">Composed entirely of my own super 8 filmed between 1976-2003, acquired and digitised by the <a href="https://www.nfsa.gov.au/">National Film and Sound Archive </a>in 2016-17. It is a film poem about history, time and impermanence inspired by the tradition of the Japanese Death Poets, who wrote their poetry about the transience of life (jisei: ‘farewell poem to life’) as a gift to their children – a legacy of beauty and insight gathered over years. A textual layer of the film reflects my earlier documentaries and the politics of each era: <i>Maidens </i>(1978), <i>For Love or Money (</i>1983), <i>To the Other Shore </i>(1996) and <i>Island Home Country</i> (2008); these four documentaries all utilised Super 8 from my Archive. The process, and the film itself, reflects not only an essayist approach, but at times, it is a meditative text – keenly linked to both an art practice and a lay Buddhist meditation practice. </span></span><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 18.6667px;">The film's production process, supports my essayist–meditator’s approach – an approach not driven by narrative, story and character, but rather by an intuitive process, form evolving through practice – ideas developing through the materiality of image and montage – supported by an innovative use of music and sound design as the film’s major structuring device. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times;"><strong style="font-size: 18.6667px; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;">In Press: Book chapter</strong><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">: ‘“We are not dead”: Decolonizing the Frame’ – </span><em style="font-size: 18.6667px; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;">First Australians, The Tall Man, Coniston, First Contact</em><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">and their predecessors.(ed.) E. Blackmore et al.,</span><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"> </span><em style="font-size: 18.6667px; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;">The Routledge Handbook of Indigenous Film.</em><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"> 2022.</span></span></p><br style="text-align: left;" /><span style="font-size: x-small; text-align: left;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijFdWYLdQZpPBtkBzFnPKVnVnNqRHVuplAzVH_YtOahCyqAQc8mA7g3btTCAnsNZWaQFs9wF1yleSseO1nhUHo-lVr23VJ6vL9STcOCqjuQiRRFdU3mx8kjHzGngJfnNi78e_6ToeF0Jg/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img data-original-height="4500" data-original-width="8000" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijFdWYLdQZpPBtkBzFnPKVnVnNqRHVuplAzVH_YtOahCyqAQc8mA7g3btTCAnsNZWaQFs9wF1yleSseO1nhUHo-lVr23VJ6vL9STcOCqjuQiRRFdU3mx8kjHzGngJfnNi78e_6ToeF0Jg/w400-h225/2.+Bullfrog+and+family+Coniston+MIFF+01.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;">Bullfrog and family, <i>Coniston</i> (2012)<br /><br /></span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;">As the settler nation state of Australia continues to colonize Aboriginal people on the territories and waters that the British crown illegally possessed in 1788 what kind of contribution can film and media works make to decolonization? This article discusses several documentary films and series (with foundational films from the 1970s) that take on the decolonizing challenge: Blackfella Films’ historical series First Australians (Perkins & Cole 2008), their investigative documentary The Tall Man (Krawitz 2011), their reality TV series First Contact (Sharkey & Weekley 2014), and Coniston (Batty & Jupurrurla Kelly, 2012), produced by PAW Media and Rebel Films. These programs have been produced across different modes and genres, with varying degrees of collaboration between their creative principals and Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal participants. In this chapter I suggest that these projects influence both their participants and audiences (television, educational and online networked communities). In their analysis of racism and the long-term consequences of interminable colonizing by the settler state, these documentaries move viewers to ‘step outside the colonial dome of thinking’ (Everett 2008).</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div><span style="color: #4d4d4f; font-family: times new roman, times, serif;"><span style="font-size: 18.6667px;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><br /></div></span></span><div><p></p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #4d4d4f; font-family: "times new roman", times, serif;"></span></p><blockquote style="text-align: left;"><blockquote style="text-align: justify;"><br /></blockquote><p style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><br /></p></blockquote><p style="clear: both; color: #4d4d4f; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times; font-size: medium;"><br /></span></p><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span></div><span style="font-family: times;"><br /></span><p></p><p style="background-color: white; color: #4d4d4f; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 10px 0pt 15px; padding: 0pt;"><span style="font-family: "times new roman", times, serif; font-size: 14pt; margin: 0pt; padding: 0pt;"><br /></span></p></div></div></div></div></div>jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-75831445043587220192021-09-14T01:25:00.501-07:002021-09-21T00:13:09.421-07:00'For Love or Money: Conflicting Temporalities'<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"></span></div><p></p><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><b><a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/love-or-money/notes/"></a></b></i></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><i><b><a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/love-or-money/notes/">For Love or Money: A history of women and work in Australia</a> </b></i>is a feature documentary by Megan McMurchy, Margot Nash, Margot Oliver and Jeni Thornley released in 1983.</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">This feminist classic was digitally restored from original film materials by the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia in 2017. The film has been in active distribution for over 40 years with <a href="https://www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/757/for-love-or-money-history-of.html" target="_blank">Ronin Films</a> and is available on VOD</span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">, DVD and DCP.</span></blockquote></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiosDTtYqHn1VKselWR0UAiVKV3_uk4j_dl6moauKRAZslHqBJA4N7ZCK8KaEouLjlJDeXrUoPnGFZRY1LpOpKz2AbTxkq904MTa7QW400oJAFOp4E6SV1SBA_JBloAjtpdTC9IKyeKcdY/" style="clear: left; font-family: georgia; font-size: large; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Newcastle Barmaids, Tribune, 1962" data-original-height="844" data-original-width="1280" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiosDTtYqHn1VKselWR0UAiVKV3_uk4j_dl6moauKRAZslHqBJA4N7ZCK8KaEouLjlJDeXrUoPnGFZRY1LpOpKz2AbTxkq904MTa7QW400oJAFOp4E6SV1SBA_JBloAjtpdTC9IKyeKcdY/w400-h264/FLOM+Barmaids.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Newcastle Barmaids, </span><i style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Tribune, </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">1962 </span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The following essay, '<i>For Love or Money:</i> Conflicting Temporalities' is a revised and edited extract from Felicity Collins, “The Experimental Practice of History in the Filmwork of Jeni Thornley”,</span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> uploaded to<i> </i></span><a href=" http://www.screeningthepast.com/issue-3-first-release/the-experimental-practice-of-history-in-the-filmwork-of-jeni-thornley/#_edn14)" style="font-family: georgia;" target="_blank"><i>Screening the Past </i>Issue 3</a><span style="font-family: georgia;">, 29 May 1998. </span></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div></div></div><blockquote><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium; text-align: left;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="text-align: left;"><i style="font-family: georgia;">The most synthetic of all art forms, film is the space in which the representative and symbolic birth of a female person can can take place through the reconstruction of her history. </i><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="color: #990000;">(</span></span></span><span style="font-family: georgia; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #990000;">B</span><span style="color: #741b47;">arbara Kosta, </span></span><i style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">Recasting Autobiography</i><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: georgia; text-align: left;">, 1994: 164) </span></span></div></blockquote><p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #741b47;"></span></span></p><p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">In a belated reading of Claire Johnston’s influential work as a 1970s cultural activist,
Meaghan Morris attempts to clarify the paradox of feminism’s </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic;">constructive </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">approach
to social change in the face of its </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic;">skeptical </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">approach to history. She argues that
feminism’s difference from other radical political and aesthetic movements is
characterised by modes of action “to bring about concrete social changes while </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic;">at the
same time </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">contesting the very bases of modern thinking about what constitutes
‘change'” <span style="color: #660000;">(“‘Too Soon, Too Late’: Reading Claire Johnston, 1970-81,” in </span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #660000;">Dissonance:
Feminism and the Arts 1970-90</span></span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><span style="color: #660000;">, ed. C. Moore, 1994: 128).</span> Morris’s essay is an
attempt to think about what it takes for feminist forms of action (which include
festivals and seminars, essays and films) to redefine (as well as survive) historical
change.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;">Here, I draw on contemporary readings of Walter Benjamin’s disruptive concept of
history to revisit the 1983 documentary film, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic;">For Love or Money </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">(a collective film by
Megan McMurchy, Margot Nash, Margot Oliver and Jeni Thornley). Assembling a
vast amount of archival footage and adding a rhythmic and intimate voice-over, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic;">For
Love or Money </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">was part of a paradigm shift in feminist film-thinking, away from the
concept of ‘the spectator’ towards cinema as a public sphere “through which social
experience is articulated, interpreted, negotiated and contested in an intersubjective,
potentially collective, and oppositional form.” <span style="color: #660000;">(Miriam Hansen, “Early Cinema, Late
Cinema” in </span></span><span style="color: #660000;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-style: italic;">Viewing Positions</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">, ed, L. Williams, 1995: 140)</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;"> </span></span></span></p></div></div></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Georgia;"><i><b>For Love or Money </b></i></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Georgia';">had its origins when Sandra Alexander, co-ordinator of the 1977 </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: Georgia;">Women’s Film Production workshop, suggested to Thornley and McMurchy that it
would be a good idea to get together all the images of women in Australian films and </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia;">have a look at them. This dovetailed with a request, in 1978, from the organisers of the </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia;">first Women and Labour Conference to the Sydney Women’s Film Group to make a film </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia;">of all the archival images of women at work. These apparently modest requests resulted </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: Georgia;">in six years of painstaking work of collecting, cataloguing, and reprinting film and
photographic images.</span></span></p><p><span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: Georgia;"></span></span></p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSwoBy2__VgJUswg0OUWzv_F8gSaklNYWbT_HuEV0yv6zFXEs5MvziNNlkdZwFyCkwd-y_QAO5d5Xqus_AP7Lgrky_kM5e-YtPdQUEURe9ofAY99jpaw4__V3h9OVLn9gPm2hcE0ZtY_U/" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgSwoBy2__VgJUswg0OUWzv_F8gSaklNYWbT_HuEV0yv6zFXEs5MvziNNlkdZwFyCkwd-y_QAO5d5Xqus_AP7Lgrky_kM5e-YtPdQUEURe9ofAY99jpaw4__V3h9OVLn9gPm2hcE0ZtY_U/w400-h300/FLOM+filmmakers+photo+Sandy+Edwards+1983+copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">For Love Or Money </i><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: georgia; font-size: small;">Filmmakers, Sydney 1983 <br />(photo Sandy Edwards)</span></td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><div class="page" title="Page 2">
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<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: 'Georgia';">The formal challenge of narrating two centuries of Australian women’s history in a
feature length film which used over two hundred film clips was further complicated by
what Walter Benjamin identified as a crisis in the tradition of storytelling, evident since
World War I when “men returned from the battlefield grown silent – not richer, but
poorer in communicable experience.” </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">(<span style="color: #660000;">“The Storyteller” in </span></span><span style="color: #660000; font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">Illuminations</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';"><span style="color: #660000;">, trans. Harry
Zohn and ed. Hannah Arendt, 1970; reprint, 1992: 84).</span> </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">For Love or Money </span><span style="background-color: whitesmoke; font-family: 'Georgia';">was
conceived as an antidote to the exclusion of women from Australian national history,
yet the problem of finding a suitable narrative form for communicating women’s
historical experience was never fully resolved by the makers of </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">For Love or Money</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">:
</span></span></p>
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<p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: medium;"></span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">"There were times when it got very frustrating because we would have liked to have
structured </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">For Love or Money </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';"><span>differently. The showreel was great to cut; it was such
fun because it wasn’t chronological and I could really play, in the editing, across
periods. It didn’t have that dreadful rigid chronology. In trying to find another structure
that was not chronological, there just came a time when we had to let go because no one
came up with anything; no one solved it". </span><span style="color: #660000;"><span>(</span>Margot Nash. Interview with the author, 1
July 1992).
</span></span></span></p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: medium;"></span><p></p>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">The challenge facing the filmmakers, to find a non-chronological structure, can be
understood in terms of the distinction between conscious, voluntary memory and the
act of remembrance. Like Benjamin, Irving Wohlfarth contends that modern
historiography is a “mere pile of souvenirs” which “substitutes voluntary memory for
authentic remembrance”. <span style="color: #660000;">(“On the Messianic Structure of Walter Benjamin’s Last
Reflections,” </span></span><span style="color: #660000; font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">Glyph 3</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';"><span style="color: #660000;">, 1978: 166).</span> This contention is particularly pertinent to the
struggle to produce an authentic, feminist mode of remembrance in </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">For Love or
Money</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">. Wohlfarth suggests one path to authentic remembrance via Benjamin’s claim that the epic is the oldest form of historiography, containing within it
the story and the novel, and their corresponding forms of memory: the storyteller’s epic
memory (</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">gedachtnis</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">) of short-lived reminiscences and multiple events; and the
novelist’s perpetuating memory (</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">eingedenken</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">) dedicated to “the one hero, the one </span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">odyssey, the one struggle” (1978: 149-50). Distinguishing between the epic genre of the
chronicle (associated with oral tradition) and the conflation of chronology with the idea
of progress (in the novel), Wohlfarth poses a choice for the historian: “historicism’s
universal panorama” or “highly particular interactions between past and present”
(1978: 167).</span></span></p><div class="page" title="Page 3">
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<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">For Love or Money </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">adopts historicism’s “universal panorama” yet fractures it in three
ways. Firstly, “multiple events” are narrated from a feminist perspective on the present,
challenging standard accounts of Australian national identity built on mateship and the
bush ethos. Secondly, the film evokes “particular interactions between past and
present” through audio-visual montage-sequences and the voice-over, offering a history
of “multiple reminiscences” rather than one of lone heroes. And thirdly, the film’s
apocalyptic perspective, on the present (the atomic age) heralds the annihilation rather
than the redemption of history.</span></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><div class="page" title="Page 2"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><div class="page" title="Page 3"><div class="section" style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;"><p><span style="font-size: medium;">A feminist, historical temporality is specified at the beginning and in the closing montage of <i>For Love or Money. </i>The opening montage of shots is accompanied by a non-Anglo woman’s voice-over which establishes that this will be a history from below: “<i>We find heroes only in monuments in public parks, but I think the real heroes are us.”</i> The closing montage includes photographs of the filmmakers at work on the film, followed by a compilation of scenes from local feminist films, and a voice-over:</span></p><blockquote style="font-size: large; font-style: italic;">"We go
back. We ask what happened then. We find documents, diaries, letters, images. Stories
are uncovered. The stories of women’s work.”</blockquote><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbHZ8dUdKuLolm6wlv5rQmEDYai6MSzdNvAt54Nsm9QYil5GMgcjn4GQsIZVYZ-oPe6R9n_m41Le_kjfXh4xiCW0hOApj3yXBo5gXssiqb1zy4sQJHOPbfNqawA1IwBEsginqP4auDqvw/s1280/%25231FLOM.jpg" style="font-family: Times; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="831" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbHZ8dUdKuLolm6wlv5rQmEDYai6MSzdNvAt54Nsm9QYil5GMgcjn4GQsIZVYZ-oPe6R9n_m41Le_kjfXh4xiCW0hOApj3yXBo5gXssiqb1zy4sQJHOPbfNqawA1IwBEsginqP4auDqvw/w260-h400/%25231FLOM.jpg" width="260" /></span></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Mother and children, Victorian Railways, 1951</span></td></tr></tbody></table></span></div></span></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">Like Benjamin’s historical materialist, the filmmakers understand that historicism
favours the victor, and that their task, as feminist activists, is to take the documents
preserved by the victor and “brush history against the grain” (Benjamin, 248). This task
is made all the harder by the disjuncture between photographic representation and the
memory-image. As Kracauer reminds us, the recent past captured in the photographic
image can become comic, like recent fashion (<span style="color: #660000;">“Photography” in </span></span><span style="color: #660000; font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">Critical Inquiry</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';"><span style="color: #660000;">, 19.3,
1993: 430).</span> A wry montage of marriage proposals from Australian feature films in </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">For
Love or Money </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">exploits the comic effect of antiquated images of the recent past,
inviting sceptical laughter at an outdated nationalism. This contrasts with the
significance of the memory-image which “outlasts time because it is unforgettable”
<span style="color: #660000;">(Kracauer, 1993: 428).
</span></span></span></p>
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<p style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">At the time of its release in 1983, </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">For Love or Money </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">attracted vocal criticism for the
way its first-person plural voice-over : “</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">We remember her labour. We remember that
she gave. What we were to each other”</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">. “We” was heard, then, as producing a unified
female subject of history and eliding differences between women. A retrospective
viewing of </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">For Love or Money </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">offers another interpretation: that the collective “we” of
female unity is fragmented into multiple reminiscences which work against the unifying
voice of the narrator and against the linearity of historicist time. From this perspective,
modernity’s conflicting temporalities (of race, class and gender) undercut the
panoramic unity of the first-person voice-over in </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">For Love or Money</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">. Drawing on key
events of national history (such as the long struggle for equal pay and women’s rotation
in and out of the workplace at times of war) as the sites or loci of memory, the
filmmakers organised a wealth of archival images into a new temporal order. This
disruptive temporality serves to undercut the panoramic logic of a masculine, nation-
building history. The “we” of the narration, then, brings together a multitude of voices.
</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">For Love or Money </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">begins with anthropological footage of Aboriginal women whose
stories reverberate with the on-going consequences of their dispossession from the
land. Their colonised modernity is a different temporality from that of white, settler
women whose historical experience takes multiple forms under convictism, land
settlement, industrial, and digital economies.</span></span></p><p style="background-color: whitesmoke;"></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFTfpDcNVIFSg-0jAPAsYiR4bLGzueYzIipuZBXuX3sa3mJZNKFDAjSW0w-zMrAKPpEnb2tipw6sm7bjoZA3PVkgmREeYJ2yCt2dAF0P1tn4VLWJ50ZMMEGC62hBnT_sYzzJG6oAfla4E/s1023/Aboriginal+Day+of+Mourning+copy+2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1023" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFTfpDcNVIFSg-0jAPAsYiR4bLGzueYzIipuZBXuX3sa3mJZNKFDAjSW0w-zMrAKPpEnb2tipw6sm7bjoZA3PVkgmREeYJ2yCt2dAF0P1tn4VLWJ50ZMMEGC62hBnT_sYzzJG6oAfla4E/w400-h225/Aboriginal+Day+of+Mourning+copy+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aboriginal Day of Mourning, <i>Man </i>magazine, Sydney 1938</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p><p style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><span style="background-color: transparent; font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;">The 1890s, the 1920s and the Depression of the 1930s constitute significant events in white women’s temporality. While working class women engage in struggles for equal pay, union representation and access to better paid ‘male’ jobs, middle-class women appear in the public sphere as reformers and campaigners.</span></p><p></p>
<p style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">The influx of a labour force of immigrants after World War II produces the greatest
temporal shock since colonisation: southern European rural time is traded for the
industrial time of the assembly line and its promise of mobility expressed in the
anonymous voice-over, “</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">Sometimes I dream I will be coming out of that bloody
factory.”
</span></span></p>
<p style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">In the 1920s and again in the 1950s, as the commodification of housework and child
care intensifies, women enter new temporalities as consumers of modern, privatised
lifestyles. In the 1960s access to higher education propels the postwar generation of u</span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">pwardly mobile young women (including the filmmakers) into an oppositional public
sphere defined by the New Left and the liberation movements.</span></span></p></div></div></div></div><div class="page" title="Page 5"><div class="section" style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column">
<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">How, then, is a feminist narration of history to end if not in the present as a redemptive
awakening through women’s liberation? In the interests of a united women’s
movement, </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">For Love or Money</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">, at one level, attempts to subsume the film’s multiple
reminiscences into one temporality. It stages the present as “a state of emergency”
<span style="color: #660000;">(Benjamin, Theses 248),</span> a disruptive “now-time” that appears in modernity’s ultimate
eruptive image: Hiroshima. The narrator declares: </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">“We are the daughters of the atomic
age: numb, silent, grieving.” </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">While this is a point of unity in the film, multiple endings
pile up as different histories are brought to a standstill by the image of the atomic
mushroom cloud.
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">The first of the film’s endings begins with footage of a women’s demonstration,
accompanied by a voice-over which seeks </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">“new meanings for work,</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">” challenging </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">“work
ruled by profit, efficiency, progress, war.” </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">The film acknowledges its own historicist
impasse when its careful documentation of the ninety-year struggle for equal pay ends
with the statement, “</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">Progress, but it didn’t really change things.”
</span></span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">The second ending begins with a slow motion shot of women in black, arms linked,
faces quietly determined, as they participate in the first Anzac Day commemoration of
women raped in war. The voice-over declares, “</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">We are women of the nuclear age. We
resist. We place our bodies in the way.”
</span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjOLdTjrr9VmmPOszotZYxDUIN1XvXcvRgKTImsInCRb9cU_CiotaYw-ZjARwLXIkgg2FWCGVZ_9y-9p6AqM_TK_GUlfvbJeCNbGlfiyPLyGGeNe3aALEYC2b6K3w5Ro5FX8uiocR83nw/s663/6.+S8+raped+in+war+2jpg.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="517" data-original-width="663" height="313" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjOLdTjrr9VmmPOszotZYxDUIN1XvXcvRgKTImsInCRb9cU_CiotaYw-ZjARwLXIkgg2FWCGVZ_9y-9p6AqM_TK_GUlfvbJeCNbGlfiyPLyGGeNe3aALEYC2b6K3w5Ro5FX8uiocR83nw/w400-h313/6.+S8+raped+in+war+2jpg.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Sydney Women Against Rape in War Collective, Anzac Day, <br />George St Sydney 1983</td></tr></tbody></table><p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">The image track cuts abruptly to a third ending with a shot of Aboriginal artefacts
hanging on a wall, followed by an aged photograph of Aboriginal women. A new voice
speaks over the Aboriginal song: </span></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;"></span></span></p><blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">“Listen to us. Our country is very beautiful. It is our
grandfathers’ country and our grandmothers’ country from a long time ago. It is the
sacred soil of the dreamtime. Why do you never understand?</span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">”
</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';"></span></span><p></p>
<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">A fourth ending begins with stills of the filmmakers, seeking to construct a new,
feminist temporality, as they work with images and stories they have uncovered. This
ending contrasts the daughter’s story of resistance with the mother’s </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">“story of the
kitchen, the story of the clean house.” </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">A compilation of mother-daughter photographs, </span><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';">accompanied by a ‘hymn to the mother’ is followed by shots of men holding their
children: </span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: medium; font-style: italic;">“We ask what might happen if men learnt the story of women’s work.”</span></p></div></div></div></div><div class="page" title="Page 6"><div class="section"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column">
<p style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: medium;">At this point the film seems to be over, but the return of the problem of women’s work
and the maternal is displaced by a last-minute reprise of the activist ethos in the
resonant image of the Anzac Day memorial march for women: an image that fades,
blurs, turns to blue and finally to black. What is the future of this deeply mournful
image – an image of feminists born under the sign of Hiroshima, mourning unknown
women raped in war?</span></p><div class="page" style="background-color: whitesmoke;" title="Page 2"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><div class="page" title="Page 3"><div class="section"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifszAnopKCsEhANSfNmPJzlYCrJ0FYaPhtndc3lXQPJsgmSzAxrhUfGFpzN-3FmXx-UHK1udLrGK5h-H2jA7twbS_K0ttQLjFdkMJmdsU1z5D3sG_mj2n5zl3n3GTqruhsgfSHVvKLlZg/s400/S8+women+raped+in+war+final+frame+FLOM+2.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="400" height="301" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifszAnopKCsEhANSfNmPJzlYCrJ0FYaPhtndc3lXQPJsgmSzAxrhUfGFpzN-3FmXx-UHK1udLrGK5h-H2jA7twbS_K0ttQLjFdkMJmdsU1z5D3sG_mj2n5zl3n3GTqruhsgfSHVvKLlZg/w400-h301/S8+women+raped+in+war+final+frame+FLOM+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Georgia; font-size: small;">Women's march against rape, Anzac Day Sydney, 1983<br /> [super8 frame]</span></td></tr></tbody></table><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia';"></span></span></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><p style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-size: medium;"></span></p><span style="font-family: georgia; font-size: medium;"><i>For Love or Money </i>ends in a nuclear present where the cessation of history (and its modernist myth of continual progress) threatens to be apocalyptic rather than redemptive. Osborne is critical of the persistence of apocalyptic narrative in Benjamin’s thinking, especially the emphasis on a “generalized sense of crisis, characteristic of the time-consciousness of modernity as perpetual transition” <span style="color: #990000;">(Osborne, <i>The Politics of Time,</i> 1995: 157). </span>Osborne revives the discourse of political modernism when he argues for now-time “as an integral moment within a new, non-traditional, future-oriented and internally disrupted form of narrativity” which cannot be co-opted into reactionary refiguration “of history as a whole” (158-9).</span></div></div></div>
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<p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: 'Georgia'; font-style: italic;">For Love or Money </span><span><span style="font-family: Georgia;">occupies a space between historicist and materialist forms of
narrative: it draws on multiple temporalities to refigure “history as a whole” in order to
bring it within the grasp of the present moment. Yet, the attempt to grasp history in the
present (to arrive at a future-oriented ending) is precisely the point at which narratives
of crisis, redemption, or apocalypse fall into ruin. This breakdown of historical
narrative, in the present, marks the moment of skepticism in feminism’s experimental
practice of history. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span></span></span></p><p><span style="font-family: georgia;"> </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">©<i> <a href="https://www.screeningthepast.com/" target="_blank">Screening the Past </a> </i></span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div><blockquote style="border: none; margin: 0px 0px 0px 40px; padding: 0px;"><div class="page" title="Page 2"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><div class="page" title="Page 6"><div class="section" style="background-color: whitesmoke;"><div class="layoutArea"><div class="column"><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><i>Screening the Past </i>p</span><span style="font-family: georgia;">ublishes material of interest to historians of film and media, to film and media scholars, to social historians interested in the place of film and media within general history, to film makers interested in the history of their craft or in representing history through their productions, to film and media librarians and archivists. </span></p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote><p><br /></p><span style="color: #666666; font-family: times; letter-spacing: -0.2px; word-spacing: 0.5px;"></span><p></p>jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-78166583973660974092021-08-31T20:14:00.012-07:002021-09-02T18:34:33.092-07:00 "For Love or Money" IWD Avoca Cinema 2013 "Thank you it is a real pleasure to be here and introduce <i><a href="http://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/love-or-money/" target="_blank">For Love or Money.</a> </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxGrCaqUJ8emoq0sXahdRRhM94QEyFXj1ad5Fm7PIM6uA0XOH_kY7MnsOuRR4DLjdbYCD8cZE8w6cH6ep9wtdsFdKsw_ty2Byr8V7sUwlxwM7NVSVGjkyEiYHjBsq0V7aUsSSSWrR5uVA/s1600/for+love+or+money-poster+mcKay.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxGrCaqUJ8emoq0sXahdRRhM94QEyFXj1ad5Fm7PIM6uA0XOH_kY7MnsOuRR4DLjdbYCD8cZE8w6cH6ep9wtdsFdKsw_ty2Byr8V7sUwlxwM7NVSVGjkyEiYHjBsq0V7aUsSSSWrR5uVA/s320/for+love+or+money-poster+mcKay.jpg" width="214" /></a></div>
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I would like to show my respect and acknowledge the Traditional Custodians of the Land, the <a href="http://www.darkinjung.com.au/" target="_blank">Darkinjung,</a> their Elders past and present on which this special <a href="https://www.avocabeachtheatre.com.au/" target="_blank">Avoca Cinema</a> IWD event is taking place.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZUohY_sonP-Vy8WkYmo3RPTiX6ME_81mA-4i-QgjWgfSp721WZB7JkNW19dJw24JdLzOkfC5HGaBROWF9x32WoRr0wbb7qCKun8xrzOhufWXNBLl_-rkO3Oc8pOKhVfmgdk7UOubDsp8/s1600/Avoca+logo.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="65" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZUohY_sonP-Vy8WkYmo3RPTiX6ME_81mA-4i-QgjWgfSp721WZB7JkNW19dJw24JdLzOkfC5HGaBROWF9x32WoRr0wbb7qCKun8xrzOhufWXNBLl_-rkO3Oc8pOKhVfmgdk7UOubDsp8/s320/Avoca+logo.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndall_Ryan" target="_blank">Lyndall Ryan </a> asked if I could say a few words about the making of the film, its purpose as a feminist film and how it stands today... and I hope Lyndall will also say a few words to on how the film fares today!<br />
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So firstly I would like to acknowledge my collaborators, <a href="http://www.roninfilms.com.au/person/267/megan-mcmurchy.html" target="_blank"> Megan McMurchy</a>, <a href="https://www.margotnash.com/" target="_blank">Margot Nash, </a><a href="https://ednaryan.net.au/recipients/margot-oliver/" target="_blank">Margot Oliver </a>and Lyndall (who was the historical consultant on our Penguin tie-in book); also Lyndall’s mother <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edna_Ryan_(activist)" target="_blank">Edna Ryan</a> – feminist activist and labour historian who is interviewed in the film, and whose analysis contributes much to the film’s economic analysis of women’s position.<br />
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Really, the purpose of the film was to create a visual, moving story about Australian women’s campaigns for wage justice and gender equality – campaigns for a just society, a civil society.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGZ6TYYemY3Ln_nhmZlUaA0VFk5EDtt3v-1UD453RpK-3j_Pk5-Z34HIEW5KMM2XCj80jRj-cmdFK9KCLBXPvi0zV9ActnWIrciMXa3nba0Ea-7vrnI4Bh3d9Giwj4XTLJzw8LhFi4geY/s1600/FLOM+short+shifts+copy+blog.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGZ6TYYemY3Ln_nhmZlUaA0VFk5EDtt3v-1UD453RpK-3j_Pk5-Z34HIEW5KMM2XCj80jRj-cmdFK9KCLBXPvi0zV9ActnWIrciMXa3nba0Ea-7vrnI4Bh3d9Giwj4XTLJzw8LhFi4geY/s320/FLOM+short+shifts+copy+blog.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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And we also wanted to make a film that interrogated and subverted the representation of women in Australian cinema. In the 70s there were few female film directors. The depiction of women tended to place women in passive, subservient roles. The daily experiences of ‘real women’ in the work place or at home were ignored.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLEbPJO3eEOPqKH59Vpn904aHwawv9TcMrQYHVbbANMNw34JloYvfqTD0cmMZi2lCHTJqF_EKaKJ8hrdZuq2bUFdBQfCn0YR9jmAxppPsW6wq3waMmzSOdeB50i92zNwih0BWOfkfSe0o/s1600/1937_TALLTIMBERS.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLEbPJO3eEOPqKH59Vpn904aHwawv9TcMrQYHVbbANMNw34JloYvfqTD0cmMZi2lCHTJqF_EKaKJ8hrdZuq2bUFdBQfCn0YR9jmAxppPsW6wq3waMmzSOdeB50i92zNwih0BWOfkfSe0o/s320/1937_TALLTIMBERS.JPG" width="146" /></a></div>
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<b>Making the film</b><br />
Ours was a spirited and long collaborative six year process - beginning with the <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/work/9562856?versionId=11096087" target="_blank">1978 Women and Labour Conference;</a> the groundbreaking work of feminist historians was tumbling out in print form: books, articles – but there was no film that documented Australian women and work with any historical perspective or economic analysis, or that documented women’s radical activism to achieve, the vote, equal pay, property rights, legal abortion and child care.<br />
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We began our work in the archives - <a href="http://www.nfsa.gov.au/" target="_blank">National Film and Sound Archive</a>. Megan and I saw almost every Australian documentary and feature film produced - and we analysed every film from the perspective of how it represented women - selecting sequences to create the film. Meanwhile Margot Oliver joined us, and with a socialist feminist labour history perspective, starting recording interviews with women across Australia. The impulse was to seek out activist women, like <a href="https://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0523b.htm" target="_blank">Zelda D’Aprano,</a> Edna Ryan and many others, like the great Aboriginal activist <a href="http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/gibbs-pearl-mary-gambanyi-12533" target="_blank">Pearl Gibbs</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKxtCOYIz2Cau1yCuO8nzv1TeHqPdGbZmOb05cHImCLNeC-muKu-nqdeICmbeCSPnK9hUUC-ITiMEMxmbJrQXFXm-ytA1VnxR9IMDg4lo1u5EdggXp6ElPRcWpLf60LucgpHbhe9RVNuY/s1600/Pearl+Gibbs.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKxtCOYIz2Cau1yCuO8nzv1TeHqPdGbZmOb05cHImCLNeC-muKu-nqdeICmbeCSPnK9hUUC-ITiMEMxmbJrQXFXm-ytA1VnxR9IMDg4lo1u5EdggXp6ElPRcWpLf60LucgpHbhe9RVNuY/s320/Pearl+Gibbs.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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Margot Nash joined us as the film's editor and <a href="https://www.elizabethdrake.com.au/" target="_blank">Elizabeth Drake</a> came on board as composer. We recorded over 35 interviews (film and audio), printed footage from our selected archival film and photographic collections, did extensive manuscript research and wrote many versions of the script and narration! Through all this was raising the budget to make the film. See the end credits and you will get a sense of scale.<br />
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<b>How is the film relevant to today?</b><br />
Well, first, let’s consider local IWD’s 2013 demands:<br />
•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>stop violence against women<br />
•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>end breastfeeding discrimination<br />
•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>affordable childcare<br />
•<span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span>ratify the migrant workers' convention<br />
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And from one spectrum to the other: In the board room only 5% of CEO’s are women. And in many Aboriginal communities the position of women is totally vulnerable due to both endemic historical racism – white privilege creating exclusionary work place practices; add to that the complexities of domestic violence, poverty – these are basic human rights issues needing urgent attention.<br />
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<i>For Love or Money,</i> provides a broad historical and economic analysis, still relevant today – especially our analysis of ‘the double day’ and women’s unpaid work in the home – which we named "the work of loving" in the film.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXcMgvIPKbgC3zGNnT7L8AeXlDxCM-gcFuKUjj-axsJ4XqjrqXhkd63L8FgLcGPBG1U2pMdEttl5ncXa8C3-vjuOMDugFqDlw8T3WC3eQLfVBqGlWYQTTFlxHnuI26noIB7yGn4jeYX0Q/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1280" data-original-width="831" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXcMgvIPKbgC3zGNnT7L8AeXlDxCM-gcFuKUjj-axsJ4XqjrqXhkd63L8FgLcGPBG1U2pMdEttl5ncXa8C3-vjuOMDugFqDlw8T3WC3eQLfVBqGlWYQTTFlxHnuI26noIB7yGn4jeYX0Q/w260-h400/%25231FLOM.jpg" width="260" /></a></div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">We analyse step by step – the way gender inequality is structured into the economic system: psychologically laid down in the family…where violence against women is born…and we are witnessing this today on a horrific global scale.</span></div>
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I think the film is important, too, because it reminds us that advances we make as women can be fragile.<div><br /></div><div> Currently we have a female PM and some terrific women cabinet members. But a change of government will unfold a different map. Quite a worrying map, in fact, if it happens!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyFsrLUE9zbCildBDlS85BFwTfMmckatL5_lmGzqUF3m4auqnUGhq0nTG_Tv6STP43R3oVcrg8srXbW1Mqdk2iruq1CpU9gEPX36MQwT3iT0JT2fUYI0i40dABYxotA_x0qhqBQONRhhI/s1600/women+in+the+cabinet.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhyFsrLUE9zbCildBDlS85BFwTfMmckatL5_lmGzqUF3m4auqnUGhq0nTG_Tv6STP43R3oVcrg8srXbW1Mqdk2iruq1CpU9gEPX36MQwT3iT0JT2fUYI0i40dABYxotA_x0qhqBQONRhhI/w379-h180/women+in+the+cabinet.jpg" width="379" /></a></div>
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In my view <i>For Love or Money </i>could have a new chapter, Chapter 5, to bring it up to the present. Perhaps as an online collaborative documentary that is open for all women to contribute to - for all of us to tell stories that are relevant today – and to network with each other around our concerns. I see our<i> <a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/For-Love-or-Money/172228242822157" target="_blank">For Love or Money facebook</a></i><a href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/For-Love-or-Money/172228242822157" target="_blank"> </a>page as a stepping stone to this kind of interactive website; we can all make it relevant to now!<br />
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<i>For Love or Money </i>is streaming online at <a href="https://vimeo.com/ondemand/forlove" target="_blank">Ronin films </a>; and DVD's can also be purchased via <a href="http://www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/757/for-love-or-money-women-work.html" target="_blank">Ronin</a>; also copies of the <a href="http://www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/2233/for-love-or-money-pictorial-history.html" target="_blank"><i>For Love or Money </i>Penguin tie-in book</a> are at Ronin.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4AVG5zbj44Nbg2bszNmOKquYuh6o53Tg-xheHJTdEWBFwCoSc58pXYzQpUF2Q5L06ff7k5roi6Lc8B4lUWAsbtGYQOsuS4t5roZQN7NEJ14QD0p-MtAgTC-7rrBa6pNaeGay8Y_kt6ik/s1600/FLOM+book.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4AVG5zbj44Nbg2bszNmOKquYuh6o53Tg-xheHJTdEWBFwCoSc58pXYzQpUF2Q5L06ff7k5roi6Lc8B4lUWAsbtGYQOsuS4t5roZQN7NEJ14QD0p-MtAgTC-7rrBa6pNaeGay8Y_kt6ik/s1600/FLOM+book.jpg" /></a></div>
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<br /></div>jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-79326238813655203782019-04-15T17:49:00.006-07:002022-03-24T22:52:31.655-07:00Journey Among Women #me too<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i><a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/features/journey-among-women/" target="_blank">Journey Among Women</a>, </i>1977 (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Cowan_(director)" target="_blank">Tom Cowan</a>, dir. and <a href="https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0918030/" target="_blank">John Weiley</a> prod.) screend as part of a retrospective of Australian feature films, <i><a href="https://www.filmmuseum.at/en/film_program/scope?schienen_id=1551791568928" target="_blank">Film Continent Australia</a>,</i><i> </i>at the <i><a href="https://www.filmmuseum.at/en_1" target="_blank">Film Museum, Vienna</a>, </i>April 4 to June 4, 2019.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ndODynDEMp_S_DwlzjFMawsUnkbMFq-ZTeOBICWhjgXuqxbRGyPh3y5Wh_bq8VnlAi34M1_vsg7loHGoj7VIevbVu8-ZYS0ho_MBQRssYk5Hz1Lbl4YSXjIw_sXFdTLozM-IVozJat8/s1600/JAW+vienna+program.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3ndODynDEMp_S_DwlzjFMawsUnkbMFq-ZTeOBICWhjgXuqxbRGyPh3y5Wh_bq8VnlAi34M1_vsg7loHGoj7VIevbVu8-ZYS0ho_MBQRssYk5Hz1Lbl4YSXjIw_sXFdTLozM-IVozJat8/s400/JAW+vienna+program.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nell Campbell, Robyn Moase, Theresa Jack, Lisa Peers,<br /><i>Journey Among Women<br /><br /></i></td></tr>
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<b>A 'Complicated Legacy'?</b></div>
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<i>Journey Among Women </i>was a controversial film in its time, and it continues to provoke debate and discussion.<i> </i>The <i>Vienna Film Museum's </i>program indicates something of its 'complicated legacy', referring to the film as a 'borderline case...a wild, feminist historical piece'. SBS's film reviewer, Simon Foster (2009), also suggests the film has been difficult to categorise in his <i><a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/movies/review/journey-among-women-review" target="_blank">Journey Among Women Review, A brutal, lost Australian classic</a>:</i></div>
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<i>"Journey Among Women</i> is the black sheep of the family. Insanely uninhibited, the convict survival story is too steeped in graphic nudity and violence to sit alongside critic's darlings like <i>My Brilliant Career</i> (1979), <i>Picnic at Hanging Rock </i>(1975) or <i>The Getting of Wisdom </i>(1978). But it is also too artistically and intellectually noteworthy to be embraced by the genre B-movie aficionados."</div>
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In 1976 I was one of two camera assistants on the film and I shared a desire, along with other participants, to be involved in an emancipatory film project about women and freedom. As camera assistant I saw every moment flowing into the camera; yet in the end I witnessed a film that seemed to lean more towards the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozploitation" target="_blank">'Ozploitation'</a> genre. This is perhaps the film’s 'complicated legacy'. Yet perhaps the contributions of the feminist and professional actors, the co-writer, and the director's original intention, bring an embedded layer of ‘real’ revolt and <a href="https://www.nosubject.com/index.php/Jouissance" target="_blank">jouissance</a> into the text, beyond any surface <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performative_utterance">performativity</a> or actual sexism?</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i> </i>Camera assistant, Jeni Thornley, <br /><i>Journey Among Women, </i>Super8 screen shot</td></tr>
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In 1970s Australia the <a href="http://www.womenaustralia.info/leaders/biogs/WLE0139b.htm" target="_blank">women's liberation movement</a> was in full swing, and so the historically <a href="http://www.convictconnections.org.au/main/articles/female-factories/" target="_blank">true stories of convict women</a> of the 1820-30s, overthrowing their male captors to escape prison and seek freedom in the bush, had potent and mythic resonance. Director Tom Cowan was attuned to this zeitgeist and involved <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Hewett" target="_blank">Dorothy Hewett</a> – libertarian, feminist poet, novelist and playwright – as co-scriptwriter. Then he cast the convict women, quite intentionally, from amongst local radical feminist lesbians (some from <a href="https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/feminist-rockers-youve-never-heard-about" target="_blank">Clitoris</a> rock band) with professional women actors from the mainstream industry. He combined this with a 'psycho-drama' workshopping approach.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jude Kuring, Di Fuller, <i>Journey Among Women<br /><br /></i></td></tr>
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Camped out in the bush, eventually this potent mix exploded when several cast members refused to perform in 'sexist' shots (being naked after the escape). The cooks downed tools, and me too. The breakdown in filming evolved into a sit-down discussion of all cast and crew. This was filmed, but not included in the final film.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuhaJ3b9rsEEayadBUl1qSZ1xyjKrDvLUJtiYVihoPb30IZWWxIqxTohguHlFJNLRf9qda9M8j0u6fL_5_K50R1BSTRx9I_LuppWdUBagcBw3F1mniKhpPjzAXoRNJkHSTmkpuEi2c4yk/s1600/journey-among-women-cinema-australia-2+copy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuhaJ3b9rsEEayadBUl1qSZ1xyjKrDvLUJtiYVihoPb30IZWWxIqxTohguHlFJNLRf9qda9M8j0u6fL_5_K50R1BSTRx9I_LuppWdUBagcBw3F1mniKhpPjzAXoRNJkHSTmkpuEi2c4yk/s320/journey-among-women-cinema-australia-2+copy.jpg" width="256" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Nell Campbell, Lisa Peers, </span><i style="font-size: 12.8px;">Journey Among Women</i></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Does the term, 'wild feminist historical piece' suit this film? In my view, (influenced by Claire Johnston's 1973 <a href="https://trove.nla.gov.au/version/26030092" style="font-style: italic;">Notes on Women's Cinema</a>), a feminist film is when women creatively participate in the development, production and distribution of a film, sharing authorship. In <i>Journey Among Women,</i> the film's gaze, its desire, was in the director and producer's hands; it was their gaze, not the women's gaze; yet, with such a complex film set, was there ever one unified group of women who could have delivered a <i>women's gaze</i>?</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9JdqoR6f-PMxvoEgI48hFIDpC6NN14E6I44eBwGCUbN-H2YN0L_NLIUzMKOMWVerbqF2EZov_STrvPCDGQYxocqnFXwO972DRV4EGYlbEsNV_Nc6Uz0F3c1kd2vvck6t7n_MWFwADFVQ/s1600/Tom+and+cast+and+crew+b%2526W.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9JdqoR6f-PMxvoEgI48hFIDpC6NN14E6I44eBwGCUbN-H2YN0L_NLIUzMKOMWVerbqF2EZov_STrvPCDGQYxocqnFXwO972DRV4EGYlbEsNV_Nc6Uz0F3c1kd2vvck6t7n_MWFwADFVQ/s400/Tom+and+cast+and+crew+b%2526W.jpg" width="318" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">L-R Nell Campbell, Robyn Moase, Tom Cowan, Rose Lilley,<br />
Peter Gailey, Jeni Thornley, <i>Journey Among Women<br /><br /></i></td></tr>
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Debates around the film reverberate into the current <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Too_movement" target="_blank">#metoo movement</a> today. One of the youngest of the <i>Journey Among Women</i> actors, whose role involved being raped in the convict cell, spoke at the <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/" target="_blank">Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse</a> in 2015 (in reference to the 'Entertainment Industry'). She included her experiences and her 'partially nude (topless) appearances' as part of her discussion.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs0NyLl8mHplzM3BxtBIsEVzBQUjR9DMKc_I6sZTGABnAZ3ciNdzMkce6CxXoYc0wUJb3sCQO5AmyNmOlU8ooiSxnd-dJf5EANYPufweCPCbwhsD8H-4YXjY8YLgenTDPgaTwZ6BFIztE/s1600/me_too_web.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs0NyLl8mHplzM3BxtBIsEVzBQUjR9DMKc_I6sZTGABnAZ3ciNdzMkce6CxXoYc0wUJb3sCQO5AmyNmOlU8ooiSxnd-dJf5EANYPufweCPCbwhsD8H-4YXjY8YLgenTDPgaTwZ6BFIztE/s320/me_too_web.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Uni of SA 2018</td></tr>
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<b>A Betraying Camera?</b><br />
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Film scholar, <a href="https://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/about-us/people/jane-mills/" target="_blank">Jane Mills</a>, in an essay for the 2009 DVD release of the film, '<i><a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120328095253/http://www.acmi.net.au/journey_among_women_essay.htm" target="_blank">Journey Among Women: Special and Electric'</a>, </i>discusses the film<i> </i>through the prism of a 'betraying camera'. I find it a most thoughtful essay and was pleased that the producers had commissioned it for the DVD, as Mills' incisive contribution suggests they, too, recognised the film's complex legacy. Mills' writes:</div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: left;">
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"Betrayal is the theme that keeps rising to the surface in this extraordinary film. Did the director, producer and cinematographer betray the women cast and crew members? Were the women divided amongst themselves, as was rumoured, with the lesbian and radical separatist and the non-separatist women each feeling themselves betrayed by the other group or by women who crossed from one group to another? If you look closely you can see all these questions as well as the answers. By placing betrayal at the centre of concern, <i>Journey Among Women</i> reveals the diversity of ideas and opinions among the cast and crew. What is fascinating is that these fissures can all be seen inside the film's frames."</div>
</blockquote>
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</blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmazIOanMgBkkS7usy_90fy1TBR74cFm5Vr2XJQvZqVBs7Zv6zXc62-Zqwh-JCD7NuiDXkAnb1sR_j9iLyrS4GtZmLISVA00D88EmxWbWRbSfPMRHCchglg_D0ZH67MC7sGtoyOiXMXpE/s1600/jeune+with+gun.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgmazIOanMgBkkS7usy_90fy1TBR74cFm5Vr2XJQvZqVBs7Zv6zXc62-Zqwh-JCD7NuiDXkAnb1sR_j9iLyrS4GtZmLISVA00D88EmxWbWRbSfPMRHCchglg_D0ZH67MC7sGtoyOiXMXpE/s400/jeune+with+gun.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span>Jeune Pritchard, </span><i>Journey Among Women</i></td></tr>
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<b>Outside the film's frames – "the charge of the real"</b></div>
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In 2016 the National Film and Sound Archive (Canberra) acquired and digitised my personal Super8 collection (1976-2003). Of 143 rolls, about 13 rolls were filmed on <i>Journey Among Women. </i>Some of this footage I used in my film<i> <a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/maidens/" target="_blank">Maidens</a> </i>back<i> </i>in 1978 to represent my own intense experience of utopian liberatory feminism, in part catalysed on the set of <i>Journey Among Women </i>in 1976<i>.</i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEindgAl2FOiF9d1Rx-K4mas6AX4vxJrWJI2ItFU1MtDwpKqRC6C5h1r2WVQ3Ym7kfrEYPIZg_6hrr6IhjGCIowNHt6PkLpnZjaNYmg3Q-ob5b7Cs0tyWS2hLFWo8u8VmV-n3vzRQ39Ih30/s1600/Christina+NFSA++digitising.jpeg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEindgAl2FOiF9d1Rx-K4mas6AX4vxJrWJI2ItFU1MtDwpKqRC6C5h1r2WVQ3Ym7kfrEYPIZg_6hrr6IhjGCIowNHt6PkLpnZjaNYmg3Q-ob5b7Cs0tyWS2hLFWo8u8VmV-n3vzRQ39Ih30/s400/Christina+NFSA++digitising.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Christina Sparrow, NFSA Film Services, 2016<br />
grading the <i>Journey Among Women</i> Super8<br /><br /></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
In a <a href="http://jenithornleydoco.blogspot.com/2019/03/intertextuality-in-margot-nashs-silences.html" target="_blank">recent essay (2018)</a> I suggest that this kind of intertextuality, juxtaposing fictional excerpts into the documentary mode (or vice-versa) produces what documentary theorist <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/stella-bruzzi-FBA" target="_blank">Stella Bruzzi</a> refers to as "the charge of the real" (quoting film scholar <a href="https://epdf.tips/carnal-thoughts-embodiment-and-moving-image-culture.html" target="_blank">Vivian Sobchack</a>, 1997). Now we read fiction as documentary evidence – striking in its affect. In fact, my film practice always involves re-cycling images and scenes from my super8 collection in each film: <i><a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/maidens/">Maidens</a>, <a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/love-or-money/">For Love or Money</a>, <a href="http://jenithornley.com/archive/">To the Other Shore</a> </i>and <i><a href="http://jenithornley.com/island-home-country/">Island Home Country</a></i>. My current project <i><a href="http://jenithornleydoco.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-memory-film-project-is-evolving.html" target="_blank">memoryfilm</a>,</i> (in post-production)<i> </i>is constructed entirely from my 143 rolls Super8 collection. It's interesting, too, that in my documentaries (above) the journey towards liberation continues to unfold as a theme.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
In the collaborative feature documentary <i><a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/love-or-money/" target="_blank">For Love or Money</a> </i>(McMurchy, Nash, Oliver, Thornley 1983) we juxtaposed the <i>Journey Among Women</i> prison cell-escape scenes, with my Super8 of the wall of the <a href="http://www.parragirls.org.au/female-factory.php">Female Factory in Parramatta</a>, to represent an actual revolt by convict women in 1827. Later in the film we used my Super8 footage of the 1983 Anzac Day March, when the <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/the-forgotten-anzac-day-protests-of-the-%E2%80%9980s/ar-AAwg42V">Sydney Women Against Rape Collective</a> was denied the right to march under their banner, <i>"In memory of all Women Raped in all Wars".</i> I filmed the women bravely marching direct into the police paddy wagons.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0LYrgI_xO7lE_YCHzyyObpyZcGQlTt65DQOI1Inr1ZBK5JH_naZixPjZVxlcuk8X3_Yl0cK3xBWQ2ffUVVXr5oX95GmEAxqYBwy0blciPZxVrpqFGlH6UozrGU7If8r2OSIBEWv828ns/s1600/women+raped+in+war+pic+82.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="282" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0LYrgI_xO7lE_YCHzyyObpyZcGQlTt65DQOI1Inr1ZBK5JH_naZixPjZVxlcuk8X3_Yl0cK3xBWQ2ffUVVXr5oX95GmEAxqYBwy0blciPZxVrpqFGlH6UozrGU7If8r2OSIBEWv828ns/s400/women+raped+in+war+pic+82.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Sydney Women Against Rape Collective, Anzac Day March, Sydney 1983</span></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
The closing scene of <i>For Love or Money </i>uses a close-up of one of the protestors from this Super8 footage. She gazes direct into the camera just before she is arrested, with narration from Dorothy Hewett's 1958 novel <i><a href="https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/archive/2016/186-october-2016-no-385/3605-bobbin-up-by-dorothy-hewett-by-nicholas-jose" target="_blank">Bobbin Up</a>, </i>narrated by actor Noni Hazelhurst:</div>
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"She'd seen women fight, she'd seen them unite, she'd seen them show courage and resourcefulness. Give them a clear issue and they cut right through to the bone of it and stood solid as a rock."</div>
</blockquote>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9DvLd0IJ2w1omeHD75vuucSmu3tPI0Lsa5ngeLhRkXunQWPZeXr8dcAJQCzdMFpqBC9j4JxOeJ7ddBTu5yMdBZ1pWZvGbY8cL_UD3mSYaeZeSJPylDU3037ZQk38dk5-5aNhivL0X0cE/s1600/FLOM+final+frame+copy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9DvLd0IJ2w1omeHD75vuucSmu3tPI0Lsa5ngeLhRkXunQWPZeXr8dcAJQCzdMFpqBC9j4JxOeJ7ddBTu5yMdBZ1pWZvGbY8cL_UD3mSYaeZeSJPylDU3037ZQk38dk5-5aNhivL0X0cE/s400/FLOM+final+frame+copy.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Anzac Day "We Mourn all Women Raped in all Wars", Sydney 1983<br />
Super8 screen shot</span></td></tr>
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<b><br /></b><div><b>Postscript</b><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In 2017 I went to a screening of <i>Journey Among Women </i>(Q/A with Tom Cowan and John Weiley) during Sydney's annual <a href="https://www.vividsydney.com/" target="_blank">Vivid Festival</a>. It was part of a community film event on the top floor of a well known Kings Cross pub. It was a good night and the audience really appreciated the film. I felt more fondly towards the film (40 years later), being much less in the 1970s feminist rage part of my mind and now appreciating the complex multi-layers of this film. Later I wrote:</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
"Let's also honour Dorothy Hewett who wrote the screenplay with Tom Cowan and John Weiley. Watching the film, I could sense Dorothy's mind at work and the women actors intense contributions; I really valued the film more than I ever have – rather more as a documentary archive, if you like, than a drama." </div>
</blockquote>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Recently, while writing this article, I read an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_Among_Women">interview with Tom Cowan</a> on the making of the film which helped me understand his original intention more keenly. Tom says:</div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="text-align: justify;">
"I was living in the bush, in Berowra Waters, and it was so powerful. I happened to read this French science-fiction story called <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Gu%C3%A9rill%C3%A8res"><i>Les Guérillères</i> </a>(Monique Wittig 1969) about a future society of women - like an Amazon society - who were at war with the rest of society. Somehow in the combination of the wildness and strangeness and beauty of the bush and this story of wild women, I saw a parallel in how we perceived the bush and how the British first saw the bush as ugly. Well, we now see it as beautiful. And how the sort of excesses of radical feminism, when it began, were seen as ugly - ranting and raving and being abusive and so on. But, in fact, behind it were very beautiful things - not just the women, but the humanist ideas."<b><br /></b></blockquote>
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<b><span style="color: #674ea7; font-size: medium;">In Memoriam Rest in Peace – cast and crew members </span></b></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/poets/hewett-dorothy" target="_blank">Dorothy Hewett </a>1923-2002</b></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><b></b>Co-Writer <i>Journey Among Women</i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVxwvzyVHD09M0PSoFLq9n8P809QShBrtIX_9WIqe7SYCF5unf_K0zjklwQftf0HGlTEuss4fxk-ETNYbt8VrYpR7q0XcvS9KBaJ4O6ejwDe2F-Kt8EK5mGE_7PFqUtz_8Ca63C9pykcU/s1600/dorothy+hewstt+with+Tom.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVxwvzyVHD09M0PSoFLq9n8P809QShBrtIX_9WIqe7SYCF5unf_K0zjklwQftf0HGlTEuss4fxk-ETNYbt8VrYpR7q0XcvS9KBaJ4O6ejwDe2F-Kt8EK5mGE_7PFqUtz_8Ca63C9pykcU/s400/dorothy+hewstt+with+Tom.jpg" width="315" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Dorothy Hewett and Tom Cowan<br />on location <i>Journey Among Women<br /><br /></i></span></td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: medium;"><b><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norma_Moriceau" target="_blank">Norma Moriceau</a> 1944-2016</b> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;">Costume Designer <i>Journey Among Women</i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhOejFHDLwAmiKaXumB9ZDmc5jTjZIn16AAxv3_zHg-L6W0QenFkC4lhnmrEyFLcnKGjoeM0LbDrB3HJuJJOEyGx9dI7p1NLFUZv_EnHzyZR6ABxrHEY54rh5VPgzmnXnMvYMQF5WomTg/s1600/Norma+1976+JAW.jPG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhOejFHDLwAmiKaXumB9ZDmc5jTjZIn16AAxv3_zHg-L6W0QenFkC4lhnmrEyFLcnKGjoeM0LbDrB3HJuJJOEyGx9dI7p1NLFUZv_EnHzyZR6ABxrHEY54rh5VPgzmnXnMvYMQF5WomTg/s400/Norma+1976+JAW.jPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div class="p1">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Jeune Pritchard,</span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Norma Moriceau, <i>Journey Among Women </i></span><span style="font-size: 12.8px;"> </span></div>
<div class="p2"><span style="font-size: x-small;">
Super8 screen shot</span></div>
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<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
<b><a href="https://www.heavenaddress.com/whiteladyfunerals/Michele-JOHNSON/1973700/" target="_blank">Michele Johnson</a> 1952-2019 </b>Actor</span></div><div style="text-align: center;"> <i>Journey Among Women</i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLbx2YduF7NliPiUd4QM7RXqj2jTAaGwuzHZjSUXtiLHM3CsHvWeWFki4GW3RDIu4k1i5iBuDl8y_8b1jYHAa4zFYKAnt0W1LbmrMsu6zvUYFvsQD1VPuZsRiDOKPgI-TFp932YEX32Rk/s1600/Michelle+Johnson.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="256" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLbx2YduF7NliPiUd4QM7RXqj2jTAaGwuzHZjSUXtiLHM3CsHvWeWFki4GW3RDIu4k1i5iBuDl8y_8b1jYHAa4zFYKAnt0W1LbmrMsu6zvUYFvsQD1VPuZsRiDOKPgI-TFp932YEX32Rk/s320/Michelle+Johnson.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Michele <i>Journey Among Women</i><br />
Super8 screen shot</span></td></tr>
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<b>References</b><br />
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Luke Buckmaster (2015), '<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/dec/20/journey-among-women-rewatched-savagery-in-racy-revenge-drama" style="font-style: normal;" target="_blank">Journey Among Women rewatched – savagery in racy revenge drama'</a>, <i>The Guardian</i>, 20th December. </div>
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<span style="text-align: start;">Simon Foster (2009), </span><i style="text-align: start;"><a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/movies/review/journey-among-women-review" target="_blank">Journey Among Women Review, A brutal, lost Australian classic</a>, SBS Reviews, </i><span style="text-align: start;">7th December.</span><br />
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Jane Mills, (2009), 'Journey Among Women - Special and Electric': booklet accompanying Collectors Edition DVD, <i>Journey Among Women, </i><a href="https://www.umbrellaent.com.au/movies/2625-journey-among-women.html">Umbrella Entertainment</a>.<br />
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Claire Johnston (1973), <i>Notes on Women's Cinema, </i>London, Society for Education in Film and Television.<br />
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Benjamin Law and Beverley Wang (2019), '<a href="https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/stop-everything/me-too-tarana-burke-josh-thomas/11705212" target="_blank">Going beyond the hashtag with Me Too founder Tarana Burke',</a> <i>Stop Everything, </i>ABC Radio National, 15th November 2015.<br />
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Dr. Jeni Thornley</div>
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Hon Research Associate</div>
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School of Communication</div>
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Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UTS</div>
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http://www.jenithornley.com/</div>
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mb 0414 9908951</div>
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</div>jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-14559213395026053332019-03-11T20:14:00.000-07:002019-03-25T13:51:00.260-07:00Intertextuality in Margot Nash's 'The Silences'. <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Last year Margot Nash invited me to introduce her personal essay film <i><a href="https://www.margotnash.com/the-silences" target="_blank">The Silences</a> </i>as part of her farewell seminar program: <i><a href="https://margotnashfarewell.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Stepping into the Unknown - The work and legacy of Margot Nash</a> </i>in the School of Communication, FASS,<i> </i>UTS,<i> </i>December 6-7 2018.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxB1MiHKfECM9fUMuwAvdMfBVZpLX2BnIfAbOyuauvM6WicYbgSudHT5x5EOvp2LgJVHIgVKK15LbiQlILXdVwYqZtYpD7NBFt5m8eqZfiWfwbYsQM1zWtenncBd3NVYWhZR8mNwgcD4c/s1600/the+silences.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxB1MiHKfECM9fUMuwAvdMfBVZpLX2BnIfAbOyuauvM6WicYbgSudHT5x5EOvp2LgJVHIgVKK15LbiQlILXdVwYqZtYpD7NBFt5m8eqZfiWfwbYsQM1zWtenncBd3NVYWhZR8mNwgcD4c/s400/the+silences.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still from <i>The Silences</i></td></tr>
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I was happy to participate as a colleague and friend of Margot's and also because <i>The Silences </i>is a very special and tender film. Margot has given much in her teaching at UTS over many decades, so it meant a lot to be part of this significant moment in her life's journey. As well, I am a practitioner of the personal essay film and love this form of film-making. Autobiographical and essay filmmaking were so much part of <i>Issues in Documentary, </i>(a post-graduate unit I taught at UTS during 2002-2013)<i>, </i>so I like to keep connected to the genre. Personal documentaries have really flourished in the last few decades with the impact of digital technologies and social media; there is now a significant corpus of texts.<br />
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<b>
Here are the edited notes to my talk:</b><br />
"Firstly I am going to
contextualise <i>The Silences</i> in its
genre or mode and then talk a little about the film itself. <i>The Silences</i> takes it place in the rich
and diverse genre of the essay film, the autobiographical film and the personal
film. As well, we can place it in the dynamic tradition of women’s and <a href="https://www.nfsa.gov.au/latest/feminist-filmmakers" target="_blank">feminist filmmaking</a> which erupted during the 1970s women’s liberation movement – which Margot
and I were both so strongly involved.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLF0uGE4vMaSlsYB4jj4bJWAXQ3QIenbOqZxViYpMXNtuCxNbevoWOEXZVtfoqyvMpeKPLB9M-GgyUgFGt2bu1W7jWXxzZN_n8mMo6EceaNd0o-vtueZ2fGsrIKXlaVk56ocQ2lcZAw4k/s1600/womens+lib.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLF0uGE4vMaSlsYB4jj4bJWAXQ3QIenbOqZxViYpMXNtuCxNbevoWOEXZVtfoqyvMpeKPLB9M-GgyUgFGt2bu1W7jWXxzZN_n8mMo6EceaNd0o-vtueZ2fGsrIKXlaVk56ocQ2lcZAw4k/s400/womens+lib.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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International filmmakers working in these modes were influential on our own filmmaking, too. From the 1950s-1960s French New Wave, with master essayists Agnes Varda and Chris Marker; the New German filmmakers, Helma Sanders-Brahms and her film <i><a href="https://www.goethe.de/ins/au/en/kul/mag/20397223.html">Germany, Pale Mother</a> </i>and Jutta Bruckner’s film on her mother, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://mubi.com/films/do-right-and-fear-no-one" target="_blank">Do Right and Fear No-one</a>, </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to name just a few. </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDV3JPUlSlSy9K5TJtrMSDTCIdn3TLyMdGz_rQmLxN1m_6E04AbM2b1kMaJPtqOVap_hcbNy9Mx2E6qOxfsV3UKkaUWthU2zYNy2vMYqttf_vrIHSCE8zlC0Z7M7qUyFMapLBJXf7zsx0/s1600/Margot+Nash%252C+Jeni+Thornley+with+Agnes+Varda%252C+Creteil+Women%2527s+Film+Festival%252C+Paris+1999.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDV3JPUlSlSy9K5TJtrMSDTCIdn3TLyMdGz_rQmLxN1m_6E04AbM2b1kMaJPtqOVap_hcbNy9Mx2E6qOxfsV3UKkaUWthU2zYNy2vMYqttf_vrIHSCE8zlC0Z7M7qUyFMapLBJXf7zsx0/s400/Margot+Nash%252C+Jeni+Thornley+with+Agnes+Varda%252C+Creteil+Women%2527s+Film+Festival%252C+Paris+1999.jpeg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Margot Nash, Jeni Thornley with Agnes Varda<br />
Creteil Women's Film Festival, Paris 1999</td></tr>
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The development of such personal films was extensive over subsequent decades with American filmmakers like Michelle Citron and her film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://www.wmm.com/filmcatalog/pages/c356.shtml">Daughter Rite,</a> </i> Canadian filmmakers, Anne Claire Poirier with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://onf-nfb.gc.ca/en/our-collection/?idfilm=33603">Tu as Crie</a> </i>and Sarah Polley and her film documentary <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/memorys-chorus-stories-we-tell-and-sarah-polleys-theory-of-autobiography/">The stories we tell</a></i> – influencing Margot's thinking around the <i>The Silences.</i><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje_AbiYHuswHI4PfigSOf8fmBly3MJk1WrqqznRfhORpaAgdsB5OV0S7SPJ-hrh13KstV8gAyHJDsnAA0r9ylyVVRM7ph0af0UTOI-9obWLJ5PBAuAUhIIGM76c9r4pJMTVHd_bnHR_ZY/s1600/Tu+as+crie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje_AbiYHuswHI4PfigSOf8fmBly3MJk1WrqqznRfhORpaAgdsB5OV0S7SPJ-hrh13KstV8gAyHJDsnAA0r9ylyVVRM7ph0af0UTOI-9obWLJ5PBAuAUhIIGM76c9r4pJMTVHd_bnHR_ZY/s400/Tu+as+crie.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">Still from <i>Tu as Crie</i></td></tr>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">In Australia, many </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> women filmmakers have been increasingly drawn to this expressive mode of autobiography – its subjective and personal style allowing for deep introspection, often crossing the borders between fiction and nonfiction, public and private, by using an array of self- reflexive techniques. </span>These films include my own 1978 film <a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/maidens/notes/" style="font-style: italic;" target="_blank">Maidens</a>, along with many other local films.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIjMDAdcJOuRQNXiGPAbMxfN-vk_Gpz1rFhqJ5RiXDEqrO9_mQ8hF-PJgDwDB3YBfIJxnIW2GQNFW2Pw13SndrKCoZRxBfRzkUWgZrrvdygC1fXLBIeppc2zn-uOSOSW8DfjjCFfdb1uI/s1600/maidens.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="91" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIjMDAdcJOuRQNXiGPAbMxfN-vk_Gpz1rFhqJ5RiXDEqrO9_mQ8hF-PJgDwDB3YBfIJxnIW2GQNFW2Pw13SndrKCoZRxBfRzkUWgZrrvdygC1fXLBIeppc2zn-uOSOSW8DfjjCFfdb1uI/s400/maidens.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still from <i>Maidens</i></td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Essie Coffey’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/my-survival-aboriginal/">My Survival as an Aboriginal,</a></i> Corinne
Cantrill’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://sensesofcinema.com/2010/arthur-and-corinne-cantrill-dossier/times-relentless-melt-corinne-cantrills-in-this-lifes-body/">In this Life’s Body</a>, </i>Mitzi
Goldman’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/439/hatred.html">Hatred</a>, </i>Tracy Moffat’s<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>auto-ethnographic <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/shorts/night-cries/">Night Cries</a>, </i>Gill Leahy’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/short-features/my-life-without-steve/">My Life without Steve</a>. </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">M</span>ore recently we have Sophia Turkiewicz’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://oncemymother.com.au/" target="_blank">Once My Mother,</a> </i></span>Su Goldfish’s <i><a href="http://reviewsbyamoslassen.com/?p=62997" target="_blank">The Last Goldfish</a>,</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>and Jane Castle’s documentary (currently in post production) about her filmmaker mother Lilias Fraser,<span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><i> </i><a href="http://www.documentaryaustralia.com.au/films/690/when-the-camera-stopped-rolling" style="font-style: italic;">When the Cameras Stopped Rolling</a>; a</span>nd not to forget, William Yang’s unique autobiographical performance and film works, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/sadness/">Sadness,</a> </i>in particular.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilcAB8dVJ1jnoOWQQZyJiiKOr8Mgi8_aNedG5Ej8Fj6uiWUgAJHOHppCMW0pvKbN92eLf_H96MbxglSZZ0FkUZAEHGjni5uIDtWF2Np-uX6Fhnb2Sc0kQP8M56zGsChRmOZSfCmbPpOIw/s1600/in+this+life%2527s+body.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilcAB8dVJ1jnoOWQQZyJiiKOr8Mgi8_aNedG5Ej8Fj6uiWUgAJHOHppCMW0pvKbN92eLf_H96MbxglSZZ0FkUZAEHGjni5uIDtWF2Np-uX6Fhnb2Sc0kQP8M56zGsChRmOZSfCmbPpOIw/s400/in+this+life%2527s+body.jpg" width="400" /></a><br />
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">The Silences </span></i><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">enters this corpus of innovative films and shares, too, many of their textual strategies–piercing into the heart of repression – the filmmaker peeling back layers one by one – to gaze directly into the mirror of self, family and society. Frequently, in these films, there is a personal, subjective narration – the “I” voice. </span>And often they are inter-textual, drawing on film and photographic sources from the filmmaker’s personal archive and film work.<br />
<br />
Agnes Varda’s <i><a href="http://sensesofcinema.com/2013/feature-articles/ageing-and-memory-in-agnes-vardas-les-plages-dagnes/">Beaches of Agnes</a></i> and Sophia Turkiewicz’s <i>Once my Mother</i> are distinctive inter-textual films, as is <i>The Silences. </i>In <i>The Silences </i>Margot draws on her own family photographs and skilfully weaves scenes from her previous films, such as <i>Vacant Possession</i>, and takes, if you like, a second look at these texts, in the context of her family and its secrets.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGD39doa-1XnzWIkZThTl2qdT_YU5BoE4J81C8uqEX2kGQGarMcPwhb-y1jq7Vy8XNkinAkd6WteCl7hi2UaenMLsVhEOxeZeq73p9csTXbQc8rsGvRIUE84o89q2ErYQBY4dK2v9J4vw/s1600/vacant+possession.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiGD39doa-1XnzWIkZThTl2qdT_YU5BoE4J81C8uqEX2kGQGarMcPwhb-y1jq7Vy8XNkinAkd6WteCl7hi2UaenMLsVhEOxeZeq73p9csTXbQc8rsGvRIUE84o89q2ErYQBY4dK2v9J4vw/s1600/vacant+possession.jpg" /></a><br />
We, the viewers, might now
experience the original text on a deeper layer, looking back along with the
filmmaker’s probing, self reflexive, gaze. This inter-textuality reveals, as Margot
writes (quote) “<i><span lang="EN-US">the psychological context in which the earlier films
were produced, allowing the viewer to understand the relationship of creativity
to experience”. </span></i></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">I also suggest that this
intertextuality – because it involves juxtaposing excerpts from fictional films
into the documentary mode – produces what documentary theorist <a href="https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/fellows/stella-bruzzi-FBA">Stella Bruzzi</a> refers to (quoting <a href="https://epdf.tips/carnal-thoughts-embodiment-and-moving-image-culture.html">Vivian Sobchack</a>) as <i>“the charge of the real”. </i>Now we read fiction as documentary evidence of
family trauma – such fleshy bodies – viewer, filmmaker and persons filmed – all joined together; this <i>affect </i>is<i> </i>striking in its intensity.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO81h0hxSf7SfxV_btqmEgYXf5eetPPnEQtCrX3YJfsAj27jj6Qg32rGN_W3uW3PnjYJjz-02cSKscuUheNsULa1Ewyis9kignrpIKH8Y17Qzq79Pm7NAsAqyfMSQiSE0-xokxZqTHGX4/s1600/Once-My-Mother-Sophia-Turkiewicz-and-her-mother-Helen-%25C2%25A9Mayu-Kanamori-IMG_1375.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="208" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiO81h0hxSf7SfxV_btqmEgYXf5eetPPnEQtCrX3YJfsAj27jj6Qg32rGN_W3uW3PnjYJjz-02cSKscuUheNsULa1Ewyis9kignrpIKH8Y17Qzq79Pm7NAsAqyfMSQiSE0-xokxZqTHGX4/s320/Once-My-Mother-Sophia-Turkiewicz-and-her-mother-Helen-%25C2%25A9Mayu-Kanamori-IMG_1375.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sophia Turkiewicz (R) and her mother (L)</td></tr>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><a href="http://www.syberberg.de/Syberberg4_2010/Susan-Sontag-Syberbergs-Hitler-engl.html">Susan Sontag</a>, when writing
about Hans Syberberg’s monumental film, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler:_A_Film_from_Germany">Our Hitler, a Film from Germany</a>, </i>refers to Syberberg’s process as undertaking <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“the work of mourning”,</i> after Freud’s
famous essay <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="https://thinkingthoughtsdotorg.wordpress.com/2013/05/13/freud-on-mourning-and-melancholia/">Mourning and Melancholia</a> </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">(</span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">1917).</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvA-9Lt0TMJRegdq_ijJxJIUVrjXiuNGMvCJ15ECuOMO4_R1EZn9GjudMeo2NWun1f7PTPsumYZZFSdeNhhyphenhyphencV_R8qYHRUb52dI9GjG43I104kOXaquIZ9Nzjf65pj9qbopnZa9lNJNC8/s1600/hitler-ein-film-aus-deutsc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="225" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvA-9Lt0TMJRegdq_ijJxJIUVrjXiuNGMvCJ15ECuOMO4_R1EZn9GjudMeo2NWun1f7PTPsumYZZFSdeNhhyphenhyphencV_R8qYHRUb52dI9GjG43I104kOXaquIZ9Nzjf65pj9qbopnZa9lNJNC8/s400/hitler-ein-film-aus-deutsc.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still <i>Our Hitler</i></td></tr>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Here<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Syberberg</span> develops an aesthetics of
repetition and recycling. It takes <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i>time</i></span>
to work through grief, argues Sontag – a process of <i><a href="https://www.encyclopedia.com/psychology/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/remembering-repeating-and-working-through">remembering, repeating and working through</a> </i>(Freud, 1914)</span><br />
<br />
In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Silences</i> we sense this aesthetics at work too; certain key images in family
photographs are examined and re-examined for clues – the clues reverberating
into the excerpts from Margot’s archive of constructed dramatic films.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNkfsysJtS-8Xo7zT6jzu6-UPO1B8GWhwBn7f3r49fxkpxjoUBCpYNyRHwp1uSmZOY06geGPMFHLZnNF7B5aOGgCngBy3agTEtaXxzIukorZvXU1lfVTnwtrDWRC64pcM7lgXzUt1fOxo/s1600/Margot+still+from+the+silences.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNkfsysJtS-8Xo7zT6jzu6-UPO1B8GWhwBn7f3r49fxkpxjoUBCpYNyRHwp1uSmZOY06geGPMFHLZnNF7B5aOGgCngBy3agTEtaXxzIukorZvXU1lfVTnwtrDWRC64pcM7lgXzUt1fOxo/s320/Margot+still+from+the+silences.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still <i>The Silences</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Sontag’s reflection on
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">duration</i> is also relevant to Margot’s
way of working. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Silences</i> was self
financed and produced </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">over some years,</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"> </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">outside any traditional film financing organisations
and linked creatively alongside Margot’s UTS affiliation and several
artist/filmmaker residencies, both local and international. The film is
really made in the spirit of independence – free from the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">so often</i> formulaic expectations that the state financing
bureaucracies and broadcasters impose. As well, it requires a lot of trust and
stamina to work in this way; and so often films produced like this really do have
a unique quality.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">The introspective
autobiographical essay form, which women filmmakers seem particularly drawn to,
also offers what scholar <a href="https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/0439.htm">Frances Lionnet</a> calls a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘space of possibility’</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">:</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i> a space to reflect, to consider anew. Here
the filmmaker </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">sees her
own personal history implicated in larger social processes – marking </span><span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">a dynamic shift where <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">she</i> becomes the agent of transformation.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgojw370gpq6spvUN5vAJkf_gUIZF6viT3GUl4ktFJR3DYJLa6fd5IXND-1vvS-VWgb2HnKxVhURzYT8-wHkX8n_7zOMGwtsZ5c_DfWkVT-v23PQbrJnNGAd8i8dlNn53mfOAj1u_v1RNw/s1600/varda.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgojw370gpq6spvUN5vAJkf_gUIZF6viT3GUl4ktFJR3DYJLa6fd5IXND-1vvS-VWgb2HnKxVhURzYT8-wHkX8n_7zOMGwtsZ5c_DfWkVT-v23PQbrJnNGAd8i8dlNn53mfOAj1u_v1RNw/s320/varda.jpeg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still <i>Beaches of Agnes</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"></span></div>
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<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The intention<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> and</i> capacity to look directly into the trauma of the family is
served well by the personal essay form, too. The very definition of essay is
“to try”, to weigh up, and in a film like <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Silences</i> this reflective<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> and
reflexive</i> process forms Margot’s inner landscape. This is an intimate
journey into Margot’s family history and we move with her to a deeper
understanding of the silences buried deep beneath the surfaces of family life. </span><br />
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;"><br /></span>
<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-AU;">Documentary
film theorist, <a href="http://www.forgacspeter.hu/prev_version/eng/main/press/articles/bill_nichols.html" target="_blank">Bill Nichols</a>, in dialogue with the home movie essayist <a href="http://www.screeningthepast.com/2012/12/cinema%E2%80%99s-alchemist-the-films-of-peter-forgacs/">Peter Forgács </a>said, "I experience your films as a gift, an unexpected act of generosity or
love..." And I feel that too about <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Silences. </i></span>We are really
privileged tonight to join with Margot on this journey and to watch the film with
her here! Thankyou."<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIXljbDvlVGumDP9vpNeT_sb5_UYlNeT1UQBecB3oYin4CVOaE-DmWRYY4pNkFh4DDwOm2v5EgZiVsErnmmODeulnVySQA6AEp069ozQpUVAJfuxGQEvIkGbGVW8Z2oQ3DIJSYpFiRY8o/s1600/The-Silences-750x400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIXljbDvlVGumDP9vpNeT_sb5_UYlNeT1UQBecB3oYin4CVOaE-DmWRYY4pNkFh4DDwOm2v5EgZiVsErnmmODeulnVySQA6AEp069ozQpUVAJfuxGQEvIkGbGVW8Z2oQ3DIJSYpFiRY8o/s400/The-Silences-750x400.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still <i>The Silences</i></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="https://www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/13428/silences.html" target="_blank">Ronin Films </a> is the distributor. You can stream the film via their site or buy the DVD from them. https://www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/13428/silences.html<div class="p1">
<br />
Dr. Jeni Thornley</div>
<div class="p1">
Hon Research Associate</div>
<div class="p1">
School of Communication</div>
<div class="p1">
Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences</div>
<div class="p1">
University of Technology, Sydney</div>
<div class="p1">
http://www.jenithornley.com/</div>
<br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />
11 March 2019<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-7270059098762550922018-04-23T23:13:00.000-07:002018-04-23T23:13:06.004-07:00Militarism, Projection and Anzac Day - a few reflections.<div style="color: #800040; font-family: georgia, serif; font-weight: normal; line-height: 1.4em; margin: 0.25em 0px 0px; padding: 0px 0px 4px; text-align: left;">
<span style="text-align: justify;">Dear Reader, I wrote this blog for Anzac Day in 2014. I re-post it as it is as relevant today as then. To work towards peace is for me the path. I honour our Grandpa who fought in France; he was no lover of war- and his letters home to our beloved Nana are testament of that. So, rather than a photo of him in war uniform I post this photo of him diving from the bridge at the Gorge, Launceston (he is 3rd from our left).</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguy9vYLO4mytK5WQAi79AvC-mieQodCmXBQI75TvgoRe61PYE5ksD0LY-zgI2nyMmC3p0s6rL0VoVypY6XgRdVqozBHHU_kFmrw-k5KEtVR0_EPCZ2wwG-AKDPPzUC_-OhDZvH0dZPxBY/s1600/pa+diving+Gorge+Bridge,+launceston.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguy9vYLO4mytK5WQAi79AvC-mieQodCmXBQI75TvgoRe61PYE5ksD0LY-zgI2nyMmC3p0s6rL0VoVypY6XgRdVqozBHHU_kFmrw-k5KEtVR0_EPCZ2wwG-AKDPPzUC_-OhDZvH0dZPxBY/s1600/pa+diving+Gorge+Bridge,+launceston.jpg" width="206" /></a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;"><i><br /></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Freud wrote his essay '</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.freudarchives.org/index.html" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Remembering, </a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.freudarchives.org/index.html" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">'Repeating and Working Through'</a> (1914) on the eve of World War 1. Although not addressing the specific politics of war and Europe, in the essay he suggests that what is repressed will repeat endlessly and project itself onto other places, people and things, unless one undertakes <a href="http://otherreality.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/mourning-together/" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">'the work of mourning'.</a></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOSn3qwEbsVZYbIYDwj72Whga3gjMManX-30cM8Y7fvf7w0IyMi6QEjiciv9tltNoKgRQ6LNnQv5GKM9BXCYcXi0tgxhL5GeEgSRFBx1ERzRRuRehzkldWurMR06hF-5sa0Nd2ERb-Lls/s1600/freud+and+dogs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #048994; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOSn3qwEbsVZYbIYDwj72Whga3gjMManX-30cM8Y7fvf7w0IyMi6QEjiciv9tltNoKgRQ6LNnQv5GKM9BXCYcXi0tgxhL5GeEgSRFBx1ERzRRuRehzkldWurMR06hF-5sa0Nd2ERb-Lls/s1600/freud+and+dogs.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 4px;" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">During World War 2 in 1938 Freud and family members escaped the Nazis by re-settling in London; four of his sisters died in Nazi Germany's concentration camps (see <i><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-m-cohen/freud-nazi-germany_b_1392377.html" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Nazi Who Saved Sigmund Freud</a>).</i></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk-xAVnzxfXAALwZjViM9dQRcHdbmt-HKKZwkSqP6bHD8j5WRLsHHlcC9agGozm4vD-fSFJODCBCfirgYpxQqVlu1wXZacgdJc8NqI2jkrYsxeqdH6KrTlHFPB653m9fIxumMLBf8p3NI/s1600/freud's+sisters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #048994; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk-xAVnzxfXAALwZjViM9dQRcHdbmt-HKKZwkSqP6bHD8j5WRLsHHlcC9agGozm4vD-fSFJODCBCfirgYpxQqVlu1wXZacgdJc8NqI2jkrYsxeqdH6KrTlHFPB653m9fIxumMLBf8p3NI/s1600/freud's+sisters.jpg" style="border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 4px;" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">German psychoanalysts </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Alexander and Margarethe Mitschterlich subsequently applied Freud's insights to Germany in their book <a href="http://www.dw.de/germany-mourns-outspoken-therapist-mitscherlich/a-16019380" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><i>The Inability to Mourn: Principles of Collective Behaviour</i> </a>(</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">1967). Here they discuss why the Holocaust, the war crimes, and national guilt was not dealt with adequately in post-war German society: 'The Mitscherlichs confronted Germany with a bitter testimonial that many found difficult to bear: Germans, they wrote, are indifferent and lethargic; they lack empathy for the victims of the Nazi genocide and are caught up in "nationalist self-centeredness.' </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> '<b>Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes'</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> (Brecht, <i>Life of Galileo</i>,<b> </b>1943)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">As the war drums beat all around and on this Anzac Day 2017, I sense the need for caution; we need analytic thinking around war and violence (in all its forms) at this time; our mainstream media and government offer little deep analytic thinking. Lest we forget all who suffer in war – the victims and the perpetrators on all sides. Let us not go down the path of an uncritical patriotism. Let us not forget</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> that the military take-over of Aboriginal lands by the Bri</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">tish, from 1788 on - and the war waged by Aboriginal warriors - is not acknowledged officially by Australia or the Australian War Memorial.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>To our dear Pa</b></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I honour and remember our Pa (Mum's dad) who was a Digger in World War 1. He </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">wrote many letters home with details of the war and how it affected him and others - fellow soldiers, nurses, civilians. Perhaps his story has contributed to me becoming a pacifist.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxyaWUpyNBJEQN4FTKm3bHp7X92rY2szzycyssvuFEP-euVNku6QrZiuZT4skPJSB60wwM0KWnVvgIKMxSdQnorQLJ1F11RSQbgrR6v_Pu4lSpJ6K13R5bxkXgl0-H2R_LWNznpIrwhs/s1600/pa+Butcher+Copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #048994; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxyaWUpyNBJEQN4FTKm3bHp7X92rY2szzycyssvuFEP-euVNku6QrZiuZT4skPJSB60wwM0KWnVvgIKMxSdQnorQLJ1F11RSQbgrR6v_Pu4lSpJ6K13R5bxkXgl0-H2R_LWNznpIrwhs/s1600/pa+Butcher+Copy.jpg" style="border: 1px none rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0px;" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 11px;">Our Pa, (Tom William Butcher) and his postcard sent to our Nan<br />
in Tasmania (Wynne Ila Lette), from France 10th Dec.,1917 </td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I have never marched formally on Anzac Day (one day I will before I die to honour Pa). But I do feel strange about it. I don't relate to nationalism, patriotism or war; and the fact that the military take-over of Aboriginal lands by the Bri</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">tish from 1788 on-and the war waged by Aboriginal warriors - is not acknowledged on this day. Why? </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Some of these difficult issues have been addressed </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">by</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> journalist Michael Green</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> in an essay</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://wheelercentre.com/dailies/post/f261bb085eb4/" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> 'Lest We Remember: the Australian War Memorial and the Frontier Wars'</a>. 'It follows an ongoing argument concerning Aboriginal Warriors who lost their lives in the wars against colonial forces'.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>'no we don’t want to be stuck alongside you mob,</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>we had to fight you'. </b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 18px;">Jim Everett, pura-lia meenamatta</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">'Near the end of his latest book, <i><a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/frontier-wars-and-history-wars/" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Forgotten War</a></i> Henry Reynolds makes a demand: the Australian War Memorial must commemorate the frontier wars. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The book examines Australia’s violent colonial history, and reaches into some of our most challenging public debates – about land rights, sovereignty, and reconciliation...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I also spoke to playwright<a href="http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A26981" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> Jim Everett, a Plangerrmairreenner man<b>,</b></a> of the Ben Lomond people in northern Tasmania. ‘If they asked me, I’d say “no we don’t want to be stuck alongside you mob – we had to fight you”. If we want to remember our heroes, then we should be doing it ourselves,’ he says. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">‘We should be dedicating a part of country to our fallen heroes – perhaps we could mark it with a rock. I don’t like the idea of statues.’</span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_-DYD-NVtTSbRQ3mLIb82VYAUdReW90m30s4nhCtSyLQ08qhJUvm1WruAYLdhgmkhHmMS90_tjn_Q1kSosbiRiNGsDutDWWVu4eYcxpt_gDWyJ10EuwlzBpJeYursxEKP6oMdd6AdEbs/s1600/jim++arrest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #048994; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_-DYD-NVtTSbRQ3mLIb82VYAUdReW90m30s4nhCtSyLQ08qhJUvm1WruAYLdhgmkhHmMS90_tjn_Q1kSosbiRiNGsDutDWWVu4eYcxpt_gDWyJ10EuwlzBpJeYursxEKP6oMdd6AdEbs/s1600/jim++arrest.jpg" style="border: 1px none rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0px;" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10px;">Jim Everett (arrested) while protecting the kutalayna site, April 2011</td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>"In memory of all women of all countries, </b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>raped in all wars" </b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The only time I ever went to an Anzac Day March was when women marched under a banner: "In memory of all women of all countries, raped in all wars" c1981. I filmed it on super 8: the women's faces with gravitas and dignity marching straight into the waiting police paddy wagons, as the Anzac Day organisors wouldn't give permission for us to march with that banner. The great unspoken of war.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCQbPtGXci9pAdxACOelUvhXAVqr9bplMdGqVllLg4N_gySUc47brMWISgTGUE8XntCj8mORmc7xQ24ikom6Ed37Os2zAty8T3ooma1ioVIraCLyzM0vFmRVY7OxpOcaKVOkIQfyC8fXI/s1600/rape+image.png" imageanchor="1" style="color: #048994; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCQbPtGXci9pAdxACOelUvhXAVqr9bplMdGqVllLg4N_gySUc47brMWISgTGUE8XntCj8mORmc7xQ24ikom6Ed37Os2zAty8T3ooma1ioVIraCLyzM0vFmRVY7OxpOcaKVOkIQfyC8fXI/s1600/rape+image.png" style="border: 1px none rgb(204, 204, 204); padding: 0px;" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"> Canberra 1981 (?) (</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">re the red circled person in the pic- I have no idea who it is!). </span></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">For further discussion see Catriona Elder's essay, ' "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/476465/_I_Spit_on_Your_Stone_national_identity_Women_Against_Rape_and_the_cult_of_Anzac" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">I Spit on Your Stone": National Identity, Women Against Rape and the Cult of Anzac' </a>; it is also in Maja Mikula's book (ed), <a href="http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415479837/" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><i>Women, Activism and Social Change</i>,</a> Routledge, London, 2005, pp. 71-81.</span></span></div>
jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-10015561666767055452018-02-11T14:52:00.000-08:002019-07-11T15:41:05.021-07:00Intertextuality 'To The Other Shore' & 'Island Home Country'<div style="text-align: justify;">
In <i><a href="http://jenithornley.com/archive/" target="_blank">To the Other Shore</a> </i>(1996),<i> </i>an intimate meditation about motherhood, psychotherapy, family and society, I used my Super8 home movies to express the fragility of a mother's mind with a new baby, juxtaposed with excerpts from feature films and documentaries, including <i>Eva Braun's Home Movies, Woman of the Dunes, The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover </i>and <i>The Letters of Sylvia Plath. </i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgynRa6HkS8r8Pl67Qvlr583ITvnXVh0Cf-AeNmDMZAsvpXTVTUNP-U_obI5sDPmwU-nFTBR50Dy0ZuJH5rJN7lhnJcx1nENqbvK3Egd0PZehH7rfaCrBtzaSol3THqc-RTLlgkOawpBiM/s1600/1.+Anne+Tenney+%2528The+Woman%2529+in+therapy+9.12+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="277" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgynRa6HkS8r8Pl67Qvlr583ITvnXVh0Cf-AeNmDMZAsvpXTVTUNP-U_obI5sDPmwU-nFTBR50Dy0ZuJH5rJN7lhnJcx1nENqbvK3Egd0PZehH7rfaCrBtzaSol3THqc-RTLlgkOawpBiM/s400/1.+Anne+Tenney+%2528The+Woman%2529+in+therapy+9.12+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Anne Tenney as The Mother in <i>To The Other Shore</i>; pic Sandy Edwards</td></tr>
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In <i><a href="http://jenithornley.com/island-home-country/" target="_blank">Island Home Country</a> </i>(2008) I use my super8 footage intertextually to tell a post-colonising story of white settler instability in Tasmania in the face of Aboriginal sovereignty and their deep history on the island. Super8 footage of significant sites such as Cape Barren Island, The Freud Museum (London), Anzac Day and the Port Arthur Historic Convict Site are interwoven with stories from community members and family. </div>
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Port Arthur Historic Convict Site, Tasmania, Super8 screen shot</div>
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jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-45925285180864746422017-09-14T00:56:00.000-07:002017-09-14T00:56:02.025-07:00Film For Discussion, Sydney Women's Film Group 1973<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg09zLoJhI9zhf2JPJXxjrJ-A4y4afBgPTWRQtnJf-H1V-mvE62NOgs4XoVL007bicTkwzaW1L7fwLd_59llDAhZnXGALcaXBfvbh-t6R1fF7-Kq1Ct1T4zXiBpltTANsVpWwfpFWkILgU/s1600/washing+up+FFD+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="400" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg09zLoJhI9zhf2JPJXxjrJ-A4y4afBgPTWRQtnJf-H1V-mvE62NOgs4XoVL007bicTkwzaW1L7fwLd_59llDAhZnXGALcaXBfvbh-t6R1fF7-Kq1Ct1T4zXiBpltTANsVpWwfpFWkILgU/s400/washing+up+FFD+2.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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This is a still of me and screen mother Jovana Janson from <a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/a-film-for-discussion/" target="_blank"><span style="font-style: italic;">Film for Discussion</span> </a>a film Sydney Women's Flm Group made in the early 1970s. I play a young woman in a crisis about work, life and identity- triggered by her encounter with feminism. The film was nominated for Best Documentary, Greater Union Awards, Sydney Film Festival 1974. SWFG was one of the first Australian groups to establish itself in the name of 'Women’s Liberation'. <span style="font-style: italic;">Film For Discussion </span>is a docu-drama shot in 1970 and completed until 1973. The film sought to encapsulate in an experimental form issues that were under discussion within the Women’s Liberation Movement and so contribute to action for change. The link is to<i> <a href="http://www.balladfilms.com.au/Backcatalogue.html" target="_blank">Ballad Films</a></i><a href="http://www.balladfilms.com.au/Backcatalogue.html" target="_blank"> </a>the website of Martha Ansara, my friend and colleague. Martha was a key person in my becoming a filmmaker, alongside my Dad who was a film exhibitor. It was Martha who introduced me to the actual possibility of women making their own films. It doesn't seem that radical in 2017, but in 1969 it was! Go on this site and order a copy of the film and also see other films to purchase by Ansara.<i> Film For Discussion </i>screened this year (2017) in <i><a href="http://www.sff.org.au/2017-film-guide/feminism-film-sydney-women-filmmakers-1970s-1980s/" target="_blank">Feminism and Film: Sydney Women Filmmakers, 1970s-1980s</a></i> at Sydney International Film Festival.jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-80294549086831541942017-08-04T19:43:00.000-07:002017-08-04T19:48:36.821-07:00 'From archive into the future' <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoiNJZeysMsullGGmzDhHY1qUsvgvFLMgcyk1S048rvjtbL4zs6zl4BznpvN-genJ626l-1V64glrlJ1e9b7slSCk2Jhp9mQIZPocVPkX-VtoHy-fGEW3dORECvaTDyfagMMUbqfqZy14/s1600/SFF+Personal+Political+screening+June+2017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoiNJZeysMsullGGmzDhHY1qUsvgvFLMgcyk1S048rvjtbL4zs6zl4BznpvN-genJ626l-1V64glrlJ1e9b7slSCk2Jhp9mQIZPocVPkX-VtoHy-fGEW3dORECvaTDyfagMMUbqfqZy14/s400/SFF+Personal+Political+screening+June+2017.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Sydney Film Festival Retrospective June 2017<br />
<i>Feminism and Film Sydney Women Filmmakers, 1970s-1980s </i><br />
L-R filmmakers Jeni Thornley, Megan McMurchy, Susan Charlton (curator),<br />
Margot Nash, Martha Ansara<br />
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<b><span style="font-size: small;">'From archive into the future' </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"> <span style="text-align: justify;">A great review </span><span style="text-align: justify;">i</span><span style="text-align: justify;">n this latest issue of</span><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span><i style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://www.realtime.org.au/from-archive-into-the-future/" target="_blank">RealTime</a></i><span style="text-align: justify;"> by Lauren Carroll Harris. She writes about </span><i style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.roninfilms.com.au/feature/757/for-love-or-money-history-of.html" target="_blank">'For Love or Money' </a> </i><span style="text-align: justify;">(McMurchy, Nash, Oliver & Thornley 1983) and the recent Sydney Film Festival's Retrospective </span><a href="https://www.facebook.com/FeminismFilm/?hc_ref=PAGES_TIMELINE&fref=nf" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank"><i>Feminism & Film: Sydney Women Filmmakers, 1970s & 1980</i>s</a><span style="text-align: justify;"> </span></span></div>
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<i>"For Love or Money stands today as a major work of historical research, </i><i>a masterclass of montage editing and a classic essay film".</i> </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv7OoDavvjZbj8VAls-FJNbv8cAp_DEtxqJuKs_3Eok4_1aJ573T0SegnQ1C8fwEzxdq1qCkZ449RGyIlsThSwWg5Zj3BR4oRnlgzrcZoMduEdoHyT9Yuali3IqPepcluna7-JpZulgFk/s1600/Archival-still-for-For-Love-or-Money.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhv7OoDavvjZbj8VAls-FJNbv8cAp_DEtxqJuKs_3Eok4_1aJ573T0SegnQ1C8fwEzxdq1qCkZ449RGyIlsThSwWg5Zj3BR4oRnlgzrcZoMduEdoHyT9Yuali3IqPepcluna7-JpZulgFk/s400/Archival-still-for-For-Love-or-Money.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">still from <i>For Love or Money: </i>Barmaids Strike, Newcastle c 1962<br />
(Tribune Archives, thanks Martha Ansara)</td></tr>
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Harris also writes about <a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/shorts/we-aim-to-please/notes/" target="_blank"><i>We Aim to Please</i>,</a> <a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/my-survival-aboriginal/" target="_blank"><i>My Survival</i> as an<i> Aboriginal</i></a> and <i><a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/two-laws" target="_blank">Two Laws</a> </i>- as well as taking on the whole dilemma of archiving and distributing classic films, what she calls the<i> Lost Found Paradox</i>. She also writes about the demise of film making collectives and the slow moving pace of real gender equality both in our so called film industry and in society generally. A really insightful essay! A tribute to our era of filmmaking and also to this recent Sydney Film Festival curatorship by Susan Charlton. Congrats all!<br />
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Digging around in this past (and also our present) collective memories are faded for exact dates and the narrative around these early filmmaking days. After all I was 21 when, with Martha Ansara and the Sydney Women's Film Group, we started workshopping <i><a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/a-film-for-discussion/" target="_blank">Film For Discussion</a> </i>(1974), and now 44 years has passed!</div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="true" frameborder="0" height="266" mozallowfullscreen="true" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-2XOeU95rjM?feature=player_embedded" style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20.8px; text-align: center;" webkitallowfullscreen="true" width="320"></iframe><br />
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In a previous blog post <i><a href="http://jenithornleydoco.blogspot.com.au/search?q=film+for+discussion" target="_blank">"The archive of the self and deconstructing the national archive</a></i>" (2014) I wrote that this mirror shot was emotionally too much for me to deal with at the time, yet it became foundational in my subsequent turn to a kind of poetic, found-footage, autobiographical film-making style in<a href="https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/maidens/" target="_blank"> <i>Maidens, </i></a>and subsequent films, developing an ‘archive of the self’. This is what I mean by duration – how long it takes to gain insight into one’s intention with a piece of archival footage – as an internal process of the psyche.<br />
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Back to gathering the threads of what happened back then....what follows for now are a few rough notes on early women's filmmaking groups back in the 1970s (and thanks Carole Kostanich for your recent email).<br />
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We all see and experience this early history from our own perspective and involvement- so the dates and details will naturally differ. I remember being part of the SWFG formation, The Sydney Filmmaker's Co-op, Women Vision, The Women's Film Workshop 74; the lobby for 50% female intake into AFTRS in IWYear 1975, the International Women's Film Festival 1975, the Women's Film Fund (I became Manager in 1984-85); and later the Women's Film Units, FFW formation 1978; Film Action formation, and all the inter-related women's groups (like Women and Labour etc) and the many political organisations all connected.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWjmZYPQqjSOymWDcgB9xLnv33nRwd0DSRvZ2NHKStCggSACvSUXjl8TCvWKXwUNeg2y6ntA_HO78BO3-ehyphenhyphenepFnjn-Cog20HoQsx5yhKybnvBsS2NeQmJ9D-1S8F_VNNbvQDs37xjCx8/s1600/IWFF+cat+cover+2.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="379" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWjmZYPQqjSOymWDcgB9xLnv33nRwd0DSRvZ2NHKStCggSACvSUXjl8TCvWKXwUNeg2y6ntA_HO78BO3-ehyphenhyphenepFnjn-Cog20HoQsx5yhKybnvBsS2NeQmJ9D-1S8F_VNNbvQDs37xjCx8/s640/IWFF+cat+cover+2.png" width="640" /></a><br />
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<b>Summary</b><br />
<ul>
<li><b> </b> Feminist Film Workers formed in 1978 (as a splinter group of the Sydney Women’s Film Group). The membership of this seven member group was: L-R Beth McRae, Carole Kostanich, Sarah Gibson, Jeni Thornley, Martha Ansara, Margot Oliver, Susan Lambert</li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcIm1xnC-7L3kccDWiZ8WIIeUfLf-vmtPdd0dcNEMAT3UY9hPLZr7yeutSeDf5OsOdShIC2bit7IcgDkIlvoUeAdZvXkRDjg6JJAbnvvtrXHjL0apKVKl46Fz9_PMgJB9iS2ajIQ0agGQ/s1600/FFW+pic.png" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="211" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcIm1xnC-7L3kccDWiZ8WIIeUfLf-vmtPdd0dcNEMAT3UY9hPLZr7yeutSeDf5OsOdShIC2bit7IcgDkIlvoUeAdZvXkRDjg6JJAbnvvtrXHjL0apKVKl46Fz9_PMgJB9iS2ajIQ0agGQ/s400/FFW+pic.png" width="400" /></a></div>
<ul>
<li> With a Women's Film Fund Grant, FFW set up at the Women's Warehouse, Ultimo (Sarah Gibson became the full time distribution worker). <i>The Women and Work Film's </i>(later FLOM's ) first office was in WWH (me, Margot Oliver and Megan). Later we moved to edit the film with our editor Margot Nash at 'Lorraine', Redfern.</li>
</ul>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>For Love or Money </i>team: L-R Margot Nash, Megan McMurchy, Jeni Thornley, Margot Oliver.<br />
photo: Sandy Edwards 1983</td></tr>
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In <i>Film News</i> (vol 8, No 12, Dec 1978, p.7) the FFW "announced" their rationale. Also see Jeni Thornley and Sarah Gibson "Making Ends Meet- Theory and Practice: the Development of the Feminist Film Workers", <i>Scarlet Woman</i>, No.9. (nd., c1978 or 1979). <br />
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Also <i>Don't Shoot Darling : Womens Independent Filmmaking in Australia</i> (ed Blonski 1987) has several articles on women and film groups (by Jenni Stott and Jeni Thornley) incl photographs connected to the FFW (by Sandy Edwards).<br />
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"In 1979 the Minto Discussion Weekend was held where women filmmakers and theorists came together to debate film, politics and theory. It was an initiative of the Feminist Film Workers who formed in 1978 as a splinter group of the Sydney Women’s Film Group to focus specifically on education, distribution and exhibition of feminist films."<br />
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"In 1979 the <i>Catalogue of Independent Women's Films </i>was published by the SWFG (ed B.Allysen). Early in 1979, a full-time position in distribution at the Coop was secured for a women's filmworker, after the FFW were able to show that the rental of women's films accounted for 50% of the total rental income at the Co-op. In the same year, the FFW secured a grant of $20,000 from the Women's Film Fund to operate an office away from the Co-op and pay a full-time worker who would who would engage in the promotion of the feminist films in its collection, to increase print sales...The Co-op continued to handle the rental of FFW's films, however" (Stott in Blonski (ed) 1987: 120).<br />
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With the Women's Film Fund Grant, and with Sarah Gibson as full time distribution worker, some of the events and activities of FFW included:<br />
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<li>The Film/Theory practice weekend, Minto, Nov 1978 (Martha Ansara wrote a <i>Film News </i>essay</li>
<li>"Women propose a New Feminist Cinema", Season Sydney Film-Co-op, Dec 1978</li>
<li>"The Image of Women in Australian Feature Films" Forum, Sydney Film Festival June 1979 (Carolyn Strachan presenter).</li>
<li>Publication of FFW Discussion Papers No.1, 1979) (Thornley in Blonski (ed) 1987: 89-92).</li>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEkmUQ0R13JB_nmg7XfUsBDZ7s93P4F7i1o7PQPboTeNSptl8I4ClBzxtN1Eyqe66mcn7-qEXOKh6PK1jg3EylkJORXpVdbTc57gIE9y0X54ZpEAWN0YhXan05cUM55fogo2ytdz1Yo2I/s1600/FFW+present+a+Forum+1979.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEkmUQ0R13JB_nmg7XfUsBDZ7s93P4F7i1o7PQPboTeNSptl8I4ClBzxtN1Eyqe66mcn7-qEXOKh6PK1jg3EylkJORXpVdbTc57gIE9y0X54ZpEAWN0YhXan05cUM55fogo2ytdz1Yo2I/s640/FFW+present+a+Forum+1979.jpg" width="456" /></a></div>
<i><a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/result?q=scarlet+woman+magazine" target="_blank">Scarlet Woman</a></i> holdings (Trove NLA search)<br />
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A note: the 2017 <span class="s1">Melbourne Women in Film Festival (MIFF <a href="http://www.mwff.org.au/"><span class="s2">http://www.mwff.org.au</span></a>) tributed our 1975 International Women's Film Festival that toured all Australian capital cities. There were collectives in all states. I was involved as one of several National Co-odinators - the list of International films and Australian films we curated for the Festival is impressive. This Festival was a significant introduction to the history of international women's filmmaking which we had been so little exposed to in Australia. For many of the international films we negotiated distribution contracts with Sydney Filmmakers Co-op (Sian Mitchell MIFF Co-ordinator) and I are currently trying to locate the whereabouts of these prints).</span></div>
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The MIFF 2017 program included a program which revisited the aims of our original Festival (this meant a lot to me, as I spent more than a year working on this Festival). Also MIFF screened my first film (with Dasha Ross) <i>Still Life </i>1974 and linked the festival to <i>peephole</i> online film journal, which in March 2017 published several essays on the 1975 festival and women's filmmaking.</div>
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<i>"This edition of Peephole Journal looks to commemorate not only the launch of the Melbourne Women in Film Festival, but to give some attention to the diversity of women's filmmaking, the multitude of women's perspectives evident in its storytelling, and the place of women in criticism.</i><br />
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I wrote this essay, <i><a href="http://peepholejournal.tv/issue/07/07-thornley/" target="_blank">Looking at Women</a> </i>and <span class="s3">Festival Director <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sian.mitchell.5?hc_location=ufi"><span class="s4">Sian Mitchell</span></a></span><span class="s5"> </span><span class="s3">writes about the 75 Festival and MIFF in her <a href="http://peepholejournal.tv/issue/07/00-editorial/" target="_blank">editorial</a>;</span>and Loma Bridge writes about Anne Severson's <i>Near the Big Chakra</i> (1975) and Sharon Hennessey's<i> What I Want </i>(1971): <i><a href="http://peepholejournal.tv/issue/07/02-bridge/" target="_blank">Statu[t]es of Liberties</a></i>...<br />
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jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-70466117155971219612016-07-22T02:29:00.001-07:002016-07-22T03:53:14.892-07:00Curved Radio: Gayle Austin audio Interview with Jeni Thornley.Listen in to this audio conversation with Gayle Austin (2SER's Curved Radio, July 2016) and Jeni Thornley on the making of 'Island Home Country'. Gayle is interested in the use of music in the film; Jeni also discusses Sharon Jakovsky's work as composer and sound designer on the film.<br />
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This poetic 52min cine-essay, about race and Australia's colonised history and how it impacts into the present, is screening online Monday 25 July 10am - Tuesday 26 July 10am (AEST) anytime in that 24hours, and then weekly until December on the Culture Unplugged Film Festival site <a href="http://www.cultureunplugged.com/festival/storyteller/Jenithornley" target="_blank">here</a>:<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="344" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZV6JiZJU-mc" width="459"></iframe>jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-77387907484963760382016-04-09T20:40:00.000-07:002016-04-09T20:40:01.159-07:00Sites of Instability and Disturbance<br />
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<b>'Remembrance, in the wake of suicide'</b><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSEY4FtDWgUnXaBw2FnMgBQfOScksQu0hLVSueArJ9MlGkeDCqfBalRGBgB6gOQoTokmdYAotI4UBH2DOaQXQLTgfOOxH1XzLJnZfWcYab_rHBFozhObYJ-gEuqr7PDuwxAtbLhyV1ALw/s1600/aboriginal+suicide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSEY4FtDWgUnXaBw2FnMgBQfOScksQu0hLVSueArJ9MlGkeDCqfBalRGBgB6gOQoTokmdYAotI4UBH2DOaQXQLTgfOOxH1XzLJnZfWcYab_rHBFozhObYJ-gEuqr7PDuwxAtbLhyV1ALw/s400/aboriginal+suicide.jpg" width="400" /></a></h2>
If you haven't read any Deborah Bird Rose (anthropologist, eco-philosopher in environmental humanities) – her recent blog: <a href="http://deborahbirdrose.com/2016/03/28/remembrance-in-the-wake-of-suicide/" target="_blank">"Remembrance, in the wake of suicide"</a> is a confronting beginning: she offers her very thoughtful reflections on the disturbances in the ongoing colonising nation called Australia: "Gerry Georgatos, a specialist on Indigenous suicide, describes the problem as a ‘humanitarian crisis’. Also read Bird Rose's ground breaking 2004 book: <a href="http://www.australianhumanitiesreview.org/archive/Issue-August-2007/EcoHumanities/Plumwood02.html" target="_blank">"Reports from a Wild Country: Ethics for Decolonisation"</a><br />
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<b>'Discovery, settlement or invasion?'</b></h2>
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One might hope that the tired old (fundamentally racist) 'history wars' argument was a thing of the past, but no! Sydney's 'Daily Telegraph' front page (March 30) headlined: <a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-history-wars-reignite-57065" target="_blank">"WHITEWASH: UNSW </a>rewrites the history books to state Cook ‘invaded' Australia...Nutty professors want to Cook the record books". In another thoughtful essay in <i>The Conversation:</i> "D<a href="https://theconversation.com/discovery-settlement-or-invasion-the-power-of-language-in-australias-historical-narrative-57097" target="_blank">iscovery, settlement or invasion?" </a>Peter Kilroy (Postdoctoral Fellow, King's College London) argues for critical thinking around language: "there is a link between the language you use, the recognition of Indigenous peoples today and the redistribution of wealth, property and power to those peoples. It is not merely about being “politically correct” nor is it restricted to the past".</div>
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<b>'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times'.</b></h2>
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The other day I read of a new light show art installation by British artist Bruce Munro at Uluru:<a href="http://australia.etbtravelnews.com/273081/field-of-light-uluru-adds-sparkle-to-business-events/" target="_blank"> "Field of Light":</a> the tourist mecca – canapés and champagne while gazing at the wonders of the Red Centre at sunset...meanwhile <a href="http://goo.gl/5AgzHx" target="_blank">Rosalie Kunoth-Monks </a>(OAM, 2015 NT person of the year and Arrernte-Alyawarra Elder) says that Aboriginal people living in remote outstation Utopia are starving:<br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Utopia represents sixteen remote outstations 260 kms north east of Alice Springs. Rosalie lives in one of the outstations with her daughter Ngarla and grandchildren. Rosalie and Ngarla have reported that the elderly in the communities have not been receiving their regular daily meals as expected through the current aged care program. When meals have arrived they have not been nutritious".</span></blockquote>
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<span id="goog_1151782025"></span><span id="goog_1151782026"></span><br />jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-87946033195616917302015-04-24T15:01:00.000-07:002018-04-23T23:10:04.814-07:00 Militarism, Projection and Anzac Day - a few reflections.<br />
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Militarism, Projection and Anzac Day - a few reflections.</h3>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Dear Reader, I wrote this blog for Anzac Day in 2014. I re-post it as it is as relevant today as then. To work towards peace is for me the path. I honour our Grandpa who fought in France; he was no lover of war- and his letters home to our beloved Nana are testament of that. So, rather than a photo of him in war uniform I post this photo of him diving from the bridge at the Gorge, Launceston (he is 3rd from our left).</span></h4>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Freud wrote his essay '</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.freudarchives.org/index.html" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Remembering, </a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.freudarchives.org/index.html" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">'Repeating and Working Through'</a> (1914) on the eve of World War 1. Although not addressing the specific politics of war and Europe, in the essay he suggests that what is repressed will repeat endlessly and project itself onto other places, people and things, unless one undertakes <a href="http://otherreality.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/mourning-together/" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">'the work of mourning'.</a></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">During World War 2 in 1938 Freud and family members escaped the Nazis by re-settling in London; four of his sisters died in Nazi Germany's concentration camps (see <i><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-m-cohen/freud-nazi-germany_b_1392377.html" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">The Nazi Who Saved Sigmund Freud</a>).</i></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">German psychoanalysts </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Alexander and Margarethe Mitschterlich subsequently applied Freud's insights to Germany in their book <a href="http://www.dw.de/germany-mourns-outspoken-therapist-mitscherlich/a-16019380" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><i>The Inability to Mourn: Principles of Collective Behaviour</i> </a>(</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">1967). Here they discuss why the Holocaust, the war crimes, and national guilt was not dealt with adequately in post-war German society: 'The Mitscherlichs confronted Germany with a bitter testimonial that many found difficult to bear: Germans, they wrote, are indifferent and lethargic; they lack empathy for the victims of the Nazi genocide and are caught up in "nationalist self-centeredness.' </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> '<b>Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes'</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> (Brecht, <i>Life of Galileo</i>,<b> </b>1943)</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">As the war drums beat all around and on this Anzac Day 2017, I sense the need for caution; we need analytic thinking around war and violence (in all its forms) at this time; our mainstream media and government offer little deep analytic thinking. Lest we forget all who suffer in war – the victims and the perpetrators on all sides. Let us not go down the path of an uncritical patriotism. Let us not forget</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> that the military take-over of Aboriginal lands by the Bri</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">tish, from 1788 on - and the war waged by Aboriginal warriors - is not acknowledged officially by Australia or the Australian War Memorial.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>To our dear Pa</b></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I honour and remember our Pa (Mum's dad) who was a Digger in World War 1. He </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">wrote many letters home with details of the war and how it affected him and others - fellow soldiers, nurses, civilians. Perhaps his story has contributed to me becoming a pacifist.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em; text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxyaWUpyNBJEQN4FTKm3bHp7X92rY2szzycyssvuFEP-euVNku6QrZiuZT4skPJSB60wwM0KWnVvgIKMxSdQnorQLJ1F11RSQbgrR6v_Pu4lSpJ6K13R5bxkXgl0-H2R_LWNznpIrwhs/s1600/pa+Butcher+Copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #048994; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxyaWUpyNBJEQN4FTKm3bHp7X92rY2szzycyssvuFEP-euVNku6QrZiuZT4skPJSB60wwM0KWnVvgIKMxSdQnorQLJ1F11RSQbgrR6v_Pu4lSpJ6K13R5bxkXgl0-H2R_LWNznpIrwhs/s1600/pa+Butcher+Copy.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 11px; text-align: center;">Our Pa, (Tom William Butcher) and his postcard sent to our Nan<br />
in Tasmania (Wynne Ila Lette), from France 10th Dec.,1917 </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I have never marched formally on Anzac Day (one day I will before I die to honour Pa). But I do feel strange about it. I don't relate to nationalism, patriotism or war; and the fact that the military take-over of Aboriginal lands by the Bri</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">tish from 1788 on-and the war waged by Aboriginal warriors - is not acknowledged on this day. Why? </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">Some of these difficult issues have been addressed </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">by</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> journalist Michael Green</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"> in an essay</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://wheelercentre.com/dailies/post/f261bb085eb4/" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> 'Lest We Remember: the Australian War Memorial and the Frontier Wars'</a>. 'It follows an ongoing argument concerning Aboriginal Warriors who lost their lives in the wars against colonial forces'.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>'no we don’t want to be stuck alongside you mob,</b></span></div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>we had to fight you'. </b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 18px;">Jim Everett, pura-lia meenamatta</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.3em; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 20px; margin-right: 20px; margin-top: 1em;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">'Near the end of his latest book, <i><a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/frontier-wars-and-history-wars/" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Forgotten War</a></i> Henry Reynolds makes a demand: the Australian War Memorial must commemorate the frontier wars. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The book examines Australia’s violent colonial history, and reaches into some of our most challenging public debates – about land rights, sovereignty, and reconciliation...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I also spoke to playwright<a href="http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A26981" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"> Jim Everett, a Plangerrmairreenner man<b>,</b></a> of the Ben Lomond people in northern Tasmania. ‘If they asked me, I’d say “no we don’t want to be stuck alongside you mob – we had to fight you”. If we want to remember our heroes, then we should be doing it ourselves,’ he says. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">‘We should be dedicating a part of country to our fallen heroes – perhaps we could mark it with a rock. I don’t like the idea of statues.’</span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_-DYD-NVtTSbRQ3mLIb82VYAUdReW90m30s4nhCtSyLQ08qhJUvm1WruAYLdhgmkhHmMS90_tjn_Q1kSosbiRiNGsDutDWWVu4eYcxpt_gDWyJ10EuwlzBpJeYursxEKP6oMdd6AdEbs/s1600/jim++arrest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="color: #048994; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_-DYD-NVtTSbRQ3mLIb82VYAUdReW90m30s4nhCtSyLQ08qhJUvm1WruAYLdhgmkhHmMS90_tjn_Q1kSosbiRiNGsDutDWWVu4eYcxpt_gDWyJ10EuwlzBpJeYursxEKP6oMdd6AdEbs/s1600/jim++arrest.jpg" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10px; text-align: center;">Jim Everett (arrested) while protecting the kutalayna site, April 2011</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em; text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>"In memory of all women of all countries, </b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>raped in all wars" </b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b><br /></b></span></span>
<br />
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The only time I ever went to an Anzac Day March was when women marched under a banner: "In memory of all women of all countries, raped in all wars" c1981. I filmed it on super 8: the women's faces with gravitas and dignity marching straight into the waiting police paddy wagons, as the Anzac Day organisors wouldn't give permission for us to march with that banner. The great unspoken of war.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em; text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: solid; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: solid; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: solid; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: solid; border-top-width: 1px; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; padding-bottom: 4px; padding-left: 4px; padding-right: 4px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCQbPtGXci9pAdxACOelUvhXAVqr9bplMdGqVllLg4N_gySUc47brMWISgTGUE8XntCj8mORmc7xQ24ikom6Ed37Os2zAty8T3ooma1ioVIraCLyzM0vFmRVY7OxpOcaKVOkIQfyC8fXI/s1600/rape+image.png" imageanchor="1" style="color: #048994; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-decoration: none;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCQbPtGXci9pAdxACOelUvhXAVqr9bplMdGqVllLg4N_gySUc47brMWISgTGUE8XntCj8mORmc7xQ24ikom6Ed37Os2zAty8T3ooma1ioVIraCLyzM0vFmRVY7OxpOcaKVOkIQfyC8fXI/s1600/rape+image.png" style="border-bottom-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-bottom-style: none; border-bottom-width: 1px; border-color: initial; border-left-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-left-style: none; border-left-width: 1px; border-right-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-right-style: none; border-right-width: 1px; border-top-color: rgb(204, 204, 204); border-top-style: none; border-top-width: 1px; border-width: initial; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 10px; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"> Canberra 1981 (?) (</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">re the red circled person in the pic- I have no idea who it is!). </span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">For further discussion see Catriona Elder's essay, ' "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 1.6em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/476465/_I_Spit_on_Your_Stone_national_identity_Women_Against_Rape_and_the_cult_of_Anzac" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">I Spit on Your Stone": National Identity, Women Against Rape and the Cult of Anzac' </a>; it is also in Maja Mikula's book (ed), <a href="http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415479837/" style="color: #048994; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank"><i>Women, Activism and Social Change</i>,</a> Routledge, London, 2005, pp. 71-81.</span></span></div>
jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-55673732073660596082014-11-12T15:19:00.000-08:002019-07-11T15:37:02.832-07:00ethics and documentary film<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-FkNA6yuy6xLr_30cYUXGb87x0fadPmRlSy5PITbcGht_qnzhthCOTkrG1jwrxFR9mGybm4f2pFMRZWZNqtp66YTFPHIekJrXqQZ8nrB1MAIdooKN3UdP-5EuBtWn43w7bYc48Gx-zK8/s1600-h/essayer+steenbeck.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5365228363780973474" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-FkNA6yuy6xLr_30cYUXGb87x0fadPmRlSy5PITbcGht_qnzhthCOTkrG1jwrxFR9mGybm4f2pFMRZWZNqtp66YTFPHIekJrXqQZ8nrB1MAIdooKN3UdP-5EuBtWn43w7bYc48Gx-zK8/s320/essayer+steenbeck.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 216px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">A</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> few years ago I was at a Conference and Michael Renov gave a paper where he spoke about his notion of the 'four fundamental tendencies of documentary' : </span></span><br />
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">1. To record, reveal, or preserve </span></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">2. To persuade or promote</span></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">3. To analyze or interrogate </span></span></div>
<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">4. To express </span></span><!--EndFragment--></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">He then named a </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">5th tendency </span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">- which he called</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: bold;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> 'the ethical'.</span></span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> I have been searching for further writing by him on this - in order to extend documentary theory into thinking around the site of the web 2 environment and to extend, </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Adrian Miles essay,</span></span></span><a href="http://vogmae.net.au/drupal/thinking/blogdoco"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> 'Blogs: Distributed Documentaries of the Everyday'</span></span></span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">, </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> Metro.143 (2005): 66-70: a</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia";"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> conversation with Renov and </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">André Bonotto and Gabriel de Barcelos Sotomaior, in São Paulo, April 2nd and 8th 2008:</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.doc.ubi.pt/04/entrevista_04.pdf"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What’s at stake for the documentary enterprise? Conversation with Michael Renov.</span></span></span></a></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial"; font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Also my documentary </span></span><a href="http://www.jenithornley.com/" style="font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"> </span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.jenithornley.com/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Island Home Country </span></span></a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">(2008), was deeply engaged in a process around ethics, memory and history and Tasmanian Aboriginal protocols - Renov's conversation around ethics and documentary is relevant to my process with the film. See my doctorate (UTS 2010) <i>Island home country : subversive mourning : working with Aboriginal protocols in a documentary film about colonisation and growing up white in Tasmania: </i>a cine-essay and exegesis. </span></span></div>
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jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-50248741598045691092014-10-09T14:09:00.000-07:002019-07-11T00:48:47.175-07:00"The archive of the self and deconstructing the national archive," Ozdox Forum, August, 2014.<blockquote class="tr_bq">
My talk,<i> 'the archive of the self and deconstructing the national archive' </i>– was part of "Maestros of the Archive: The Art of Archival Documentary", Ozdox Forum, August, 2014: <i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Gathering, manipulating and presenting archival material is an art form, one that is sometimes overlooked. Through archival film making, a seasoned story teller can tap into our nostalgic tendencies, our memories and collective subconscious with precision and eloquence"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "georgia" , "times new roman" , serif; font-size: x-small;">. </span></i>In this <a href="http://www.ozdox.org/news/maestros-of-the-archive-using-archival-footage-in-documentary/" target="_blank">Ozdox Forum </a>I presented along with Paul Clarke, Shane McNeil and Nicole O’Donohue. Curator was Brendan Palmer, with moderator Ruth Hessey.</blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;">The focus of my talk is: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;">what
image do you choose to represent or communicate an idea, or a feeling; how do
you work with your own subjective memory…and how might your own personal
archive link to public history - the historical record of a nation; and where
does </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">your </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;">intention and ethics play
out in all of this?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 24px;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span><br />
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Also I want to note the difference between approaching
the archive as a source of shots for a film, in contrast to thinking about the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">archive as metaphor:</i> that is, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">reading the grain</i> of the archive, AND reading
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">against</i> the grain of the archive – to
hear the whispers in the archive, to see the problem of the archive and what’s <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">not </b>there; and to think about the
nature of power in the production of the archive itself. For instance filmmaker
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Lanzmann" target="_blank">Claude Lanzmann</a>, with his 1985 10 hour documentary on the Holocaust, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoah_(film)" target="_blank">Shoah</a></i> – refutes the archive. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Lanzmann
reads the grain of the Holocaust archive (which is vast) and he rejects it. No
archival footage of the camps. Nothing. For him it is an ethical decision. Lanzmann
knew his intention so well ...he honed it over the 11 years of production – to
create <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Shoah</i> as its own unique
archive, with a completely different way of representing and <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">understanding </b>history <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">and</b> what happened on the killing fields.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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So back to <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">intention</b>
– that is, trying to understand your intention with each film, sequence or
image; I want to unpack my intention in several films I have made since the 1970s
till now. Some colleagues who worked on these films are here tonight and I would
like to acknowledge them - Megan McMurchy: co director and co producer <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://beamafilm.com/catalogue.php?search=FOR+love+or+money" target="_blank">For Love or Money</a>,</i> Karen Pearlman, editor
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I<a href="http://jenithornley.com/island-home-country/" target="_blank">sland Home Country</a></i>, Erika Addis cinematographer on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">For Love or Money</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://beamafilm.com/catalogue.php?search=to+the+Other+Shore" target="_blank">To the Other Shore</a> </i>and Jane Castle additional camera on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">To the Other Shore; </i>and in absentia Martha Ansara for <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/a-film-for-discussion/" target="_blank">Film For Discussion</a> </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and co-filmmakers on <i>For Love or Money: </i>Margot Nash and Margot Oliver.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: JA;">I want to start with Sophia Turkiewicz’s recent film
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><a href="http://oncemymother.com/" target="_blank">Once My Mother</a></i> – </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: JA;">surely a case study
in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the Art of the Archival Documentary. </i>In
it we see a lucid example of intention, and the relevance of duration to a
filmmaker’s internal process and filmmaking method<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">.</b> I refer here to the b&w 16mm footage Sophia filmed of her mother
while at film school in 1976 – the film she couldn’t make then – and the crucial,
integrative moment of her return decades later for a 2<sup>nd</sup> look. Sophia
says: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Looking back, I lacked the skill,
the maturity and the perspective to do my mother’s story justice. The rushes
lay in film cans in my hot attic cupboard for over thirty years… <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">waiting until I was ready…”<o:p></o:p></b></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: JA;">I want to link Sophia’s ‘found footage’ to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Film For Discussion</i>, by the <a href="http://jenithornleydoco.blogspot.com.au/2008/01/australias-first-womens-liberation-film.html" target="_blank">Sydney Women’s Film Group,</a> a film we completed in 1974, with Ansara directing and me co-scripting
and performing. It’s an improvisational drama documentary about a young woman
in a crisis of identity around family, boyfriend and work – it shows the contradictions
around the position of women at the time. I play the girl. Or am I playing
myself? Martha composed several shots in mirrors. This clip is a 1 minute extract
from the excruciatingly long 3minute mirror shot of the girl – just after a
horrible family argument at dinner, with an aggressive drunken father and a
submissive mother, and a boyfriend who just doesn't get it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: JA;">(BTW most of my clips tonight are from films made
on 16mm 4;3 not HD – ripped from DVDs – and I am <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">no maestro of ripping; </i>and remember<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Film For Discussion </i>was made over 43 years ago…almost half a
century!)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: JA;">CLIP 1 FILM FOR DISCUSSION: 0:58 <o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Like Sophia's footage of her mother, this
mirror shot was emotionally too much for me to deal with at the time, yet it became
foundational in my subsequent turn to a kind of poetic, found-footage,
autobiographical film-making style – developing an ‘archive of the self’; Sophia
buries her footage in an attic, but my family crisis plays out on the massive
screen in the State Theatre during the documentary finals at the 1974 Sydney Film
Festival. This moment is a site of instability – where, as the film’s subject, my
intention is not yet realized. This is what I mean by <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">duration</b> – how long it takes to gain insight into one’s intention with
a piece of archival footage – as an internal process of the psyche.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">M</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">y next project began after <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Film For Discussion</i> in 1975 as a drama
script on illegal abortion – about a confused pregnant girl, her broken love
affair and the </span><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">police raids on the
abortion clinics of the late 60s; I got a grant from the<a href="ttp://www.naa.gov.au/collection/publications/papers-and-podcasts/social-history/gerbax-transcript.aspx" target="_blank"> Experimental Film Fund</a>
for this project but was </span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">unable to make <i>that </i>film as a drama –
instead I worked instinctively gathering</span><span lang="EN-US"> </span>sequences
from films I had acted in, or worked on, weaving them together with my home
movies and photographs – into a story of four generations of an Australian
family. This became my documentary film <a href="http://aso.gov.au/titles/shorts/maidens/" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Maidens</i>,</a>
completed in 1978. Little did I realise the repercussions of using women’s
naked bodies to represent the emancipatory, utopian impulse-of women’s
liberation.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">CLIP 2 MAIDENS a: 1:14 </b>(this is not the clip I screened...)<b><o:p></o:p></b></div>
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In fact, my intention was not at all clear to me at the time – apart from
the filmmaking method being some attempt to mend or reflect on the broken parts
of my life. It was a time of intense personal crisis and huge social change:
‘free love’, the Vietnam war, conscription and my brother’s death in a head on
car crash. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Maidens</i> was explosive –
bearing family secrets in public…partly <span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">triggered by the psycho-drama of<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Film
For Discussion</i>, and the impact of feminism’s notion that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the personal is political</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial; mso-fareast-language: JA;">Feminist historian <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheila_Rowbotham" target="_blank">Sheila Rowbotham </a>writes of :
“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the contradiction …between private and
public, personal and impersonal as the fissure in women’s consciousness through
which revolt erupts”. </i>My subsequent film-making method unfolded from inside
the split-self of the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> Film For Discussion</i>
mirror shot – perhaps as a way of navigating self and society – unravelling
hidden secrets and finding footage that viscerally expresses breakdown, revolt
and transformation</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Also, being exposed to a
range of international women’s films we screened at the Sydney Filmmakers Co-op
Cinema and <a href="http://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=636989311447701;res=IELAPA" target="_blank">Women’s Film Festivals</a> around the country…where we programmed the
early films of great women filmmakers like Agnes Varda, Maya Deren, Su Freidrich,
and Helma Sanders Brahms – many of them re-configuring their archives to make
films with an intense female subjectivity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Like
Turkiewicz was drawn back to the footage she filmed of her mother, I was drawn
back to that footage of the girl in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Film
For Discussion</i> to take a 2<sup>nd</sup> look and re-use the footage in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Maidens</i>. From a film-making craft
perspective I was </span>developing a remix or inter-textual film practice –
marking a dynamic shift from being passive subject to becoming the agent of
transformation. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Here’s the mirror
shot remix from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Film For Discussion </i>to
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Maidens </i>offering what writer <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=8XQR2onsHVwC&pg=PA281&lpg=PA281&dq=%E2%80%9Ca+space+of+possibility%E2%80%9D%E2%80%A6francoise+Lionnet&source=bl&ots=Gkyt2iv26Q&sig=bh5NrfmFoezWl5Yl3nFzezBcbog&hl=en&sa=X&ei=t-w2VM-pAoOE8gWf2IKIDg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=%E2%80%9Ca%20space%20of%20possibility%E2%80%9D%E2%80%A6francoise%20Lionnet&f=false" target="_blank">Frances Lionnet calls “a space of possibility”…</a>where the filmmaker sees her own
personal history implicated in larger social processes. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">CLIP 3 MAIDENS b: 1.26</span></b></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>For Love or Money,</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"> our feature documentary about the history of women and work in
Australia, begun in 1979 and completed in 1983 – reflects an organic shift to
link the personal to larger social processes – by doing extensive oral
histories and research combing archives across the nation. In all the archives
we researched, as in society at large, women were stereotyped in fixed roles – in
the family and in the workforce; but how to represent the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">known </i>documented stories of revolt, like the struggle for the vote
and equal pay, or the hidden work of women’s unpaid work in the home as wives
and mothers – in images – when so few existed in the archive? In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">For love or money</i>’s closing sequence you
might get a sense of the visual, poetic metaphors we developed to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">read against the grain</i> of the national
archive. Here we re-pose the film’s main thesis – still relevant to now – 3
decades later: <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><b>CLIP 4 FOR LOVE OR MONEY: 2:49 (</b>this is not the clip I screened; it's coming!)<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">My next documentary
<i>To the Other Shore </i>began as a diary film about motherhood, filming on
super 8 starting in 1986 – and taking 10 years – collecting images from a range
of archives, local and international, and editing them with my home movies and
dramatized sequences. The method and structure of the film was drawn from
Freud’s ideas around the ‘work of mourning – <a href="http://thinkingthoughtsdotorg.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/a-summary-and-review-of-freud-s-1914-remembering-repeating-and-working-through-further-recommendations-in-the-technique-of-psychoanalysis-ii/" target="_blank">r<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">emembering, repeating and working through’</i></a>. I wanted to suggest the
dark side of motherhood, with its irruptions from the unconscious and the way
the external world of war and violence, could penetrate the fragile membrane of
a mother’s mind – especially a breast-feeding mother. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEUhVdtdAJvx3mn3_Ca9lPPKR1dzKyp7UfMzumzt-ut77NttbExKsP45VTTMh4-BN_TeJwQsBV-UFifvenBXHtMSi9kqqua7CkIkwQiLuaKzipdnUd4URMGls1DR4VNCgOqcQ9w9jjsq0/s1600/1.+Anne+Tenney+(The%2BWoman)%2Bin%2Btherapy%2B9.12.tiff" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="221" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEUhVdtdAJvx3mn3_Ca9lPPKR1dzKyp7UfMzumzt-ut77NttbExKsP45VTTMh4-BN_TeJwQsBV-UFifvenBXHtMSi9kqqua7CkIkwQiLuaKzipdnUd4URMGls1DR4VNCgOqcQ9w9jjsq0/s1600/1.+Anne+Tenney+(The%2BWoman)%2Bin%2Btherapy%2B9.12.tiff" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Anne Tenney in <i>To The Other Shore</i> 1996 (pic: Sandy Edwards)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">CLIP 5 TO THE OTHER SHORE: 2:33</span></b></div>
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A key
question about intention when working with intimate family footage like this is
ethics <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>– who might this footage harm? When
you film a baby, a toddler…they can’t give permission. But what about when they
become adults…do they feel violated by the footage? How do they relate to their
image being appropriated for the filmmaker’s tale? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Consider the beautiful footage of my baby
daughter, filmed in the golden light of afternoon while I prepare the evening
meal…with its voice over about suicide and maternal ambivalence. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How does this affect her, or others in the
family – then, and now?</div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">And finally
to my film <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Island Home Country</i>, completed
in 2008, where the ethical question on the use of the archive and working with the
Tasmanian Aboriginal community and their protocols becomes the very foundation
of that film’s process. This film is about my memories, growing up in Tasmania,
and knowing no Aboriginal history or culture. Here is an island where the
violent race war, (some call it attempted genocide, others ethnic cleansing)
has been so repressed that approaching this terrain is a mine-field – whichever
way you turn; the existing archive of documents, photos and film has been
produced by the victors of that war. The present day Tasmanian Aboriginal
community do not welcome ‘outsiders’ using that material <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">about them. </i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How to proceed?
The film takes 5 years of negotiation, of edits and re-filming. The Aboriginal
community are crystal clear: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">don’t make a
film about us, make a film about you, your mob</i>. It’s here I became “the
other” and experienced “instability’ around being white. For this internal
feeling I created a visual metaphor – <a href="http://thinkingthoughtsdotorg.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/a-summary-and-review-of-freud-s-1914-remembering-repeating-and-working-through-further-recommendations-in-the-technique-of-psychoanalysis-ii/" target="_blank">"</a><i><a href="http://thinkingthoughtsdotorg.wordpress.com/2014/01/14/a-summary-and-review-of-freud-s-1914-remembering-repeating-and-working-through-further-recommendations-in-the-technique-of-psychoanalysis-ii/" target="_blank">the white ghost of Australian history"</a> </i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">–</span> with <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">a remix sequence from another film I had
acted in earlier. </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">CLIP 6 ISLAND HOME COUNTRY: 2:04<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So gaining insight into intention, timing and
the ethical frame is a process and I think it’s fundamental to the art of the
archival documentary. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Finally a
few closing words by Sophia Turkiewicz. She is truly a maestro of the ‘archive
of the self’ and its intricate linkages to international archives of memory and
history.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Thinking back, it was fortunate that “</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;">Once My Mother”<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> took so long to make. If I’d told this story when I was younger, I
wouldn’t have been able to do it justice…. As I say in the film, I had
‘plundered’ my mother’s life to make various fictional films in my career as a
drama director. Now that I was making my first documentary about the ‘truth’ of
my mother’s life, I realized I had to be as honest with myself…. <span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">through tracking my own journey towards
‘forgiveness’. <o:p></o:p></span></i></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;"><br /></span></i></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-font-weight: bold;">Thankyou</span><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-19747616631244708202014-04-24T16:40:00.000-07:002019-07-11T00:50:15.849-07:00Militarism, Projection and Anzac Day - a few reflections.<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Freud wrote his essay '</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.freudarchives.org/index.html" target="_blank">Remembering, </a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.freudarchives.org/index.html" target="_blank">'Repeating and Working Through'</a> (1914) on the eve of World War 1. Although not addressing the specific politics of war and Europe, in the essay he suggests that what is repressed will repeat endlessly and project itself onto other places, people and things, unless one undertakes <a href="http://otherreality.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/mourning-together/" target="_blank">'the work of mourning'.</a></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOSn3qwEbsVZYbIYDwj72Whga3gjMManX-30cM8Y7fvf7w0IyMi6QEjiciv9tltNoKgRQ6LNnQv5GKM9BXCYcXi0tgxhL5GeEgSRFBx1ERzRRuRehzkldWurMR06hF-5sa0Nd2ERb-Lls/s1600/freud+and+dogs.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOSn3qwEbsVZYbIYDwj72Whga3gjMManX-30cM8Y7fvf7w0IyMi6QEjiciv9tltNoKgRQ6LNnQv5GKM9BXCYcXi0tgxhL5GeEgSRFBx1ERzRRuRehzkldWurMR06hF-5sa0Nd2ERb-Lls/s1600/freud+and+dogs.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">During World War 2 in 1938 Freud and family members escaped the Nazis by re-settling in London; four of his sisters died in Nazi Germany's concentration camps (see <i><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-m-cohen/freud-nazi-germany_b_1392377.html" target="_blank">The Nazi Who Saved Sigmund Freud</a>).</i></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk-xAVnzxfXAALwZjViM9dQRcHdbmt-HKKZwkSqP6bHD8j5WRLsHHlcC9agGozm4vD-fSFJODCBCfirgYpxQqVlu1wXZacgdJc8NqI2jkrYsxeqdH6KrTlHFPB653m9fIxumMLBf8p3NI/s1600/freud's+sisters.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="252" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhk-xAVnzxfXAALwZjViM9dQRcHdbmt-HKKZwkSqP6bHD8j5WRLsHHlcC9agGozm4vD-fSFJODCBCfirgYpxQqVlu1wXZacgdJc8NqI2jkrYsxeqdH6KrTlHFPB653m9fIxumMLBf8p3NI/s1600/freud's+sisters.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">German psychoanalysts </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">Alexander and Margarethe Mitschterlich subsequently applied Freud's insights to Germany in their book <a href="http://www.dw.de/germany-mourns-outspoken-therapist-mitscherlich/a-16019380" target="_blank"><i>The Inability to Mourn: Principles of Collective Behaviour</i> </a>(</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">1967). Here they discuss why the Holocaust, the war crimes, and national guilt was not dealt with adequately in post-war German society: 'The Mitscherlichs confronted Germany with a bitter testimonial that many found difficult to bear: Germans, they wrote, are indifferent and lethargic; they lack empathy for the victims of the Nazi genocide and are caught up in "nationalist self-centeredness.' </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> '<b>Unhappy the land that is in need of heroes'</b></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> (Brecht, <i>Life of Galileo</i>,<b> </b>1943)</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">As the Centenary of Gallipoli approaches in 2015, and on this Anzac Day today, I sense the need for caution; we need careful analytic thinking around war and violence (in all its forms) at this time; our mainstream media and government offer little deep analytic thinking. Lest we forget all who suffer in war – the victims and the perpetrators on all sides. Let us not go down the path of an uncritical patriotism. Let us not forget</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> that the military take-over of Aboriginal lands by the Bri</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">tish, from 1788 on - and the war waged by Aboriginal warriors - is not acknowledged officially by Australia or the Australian War Memorial.</span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>To our dear Pa</b></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I honour and remember our Pa (Mum's dad) who was a Digger in World War 1. He </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">wrote many letters home with details of the war and how it affected him and others - fellow soldiers, nurses, civilians. Perhaps his story has contributed to me becoming a pacifist.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxyaWUpyNBJEQN4FTKm3bHp7X92rY2szzycyssvuFEP-euVNku6QrZiuZT4skPJSB60wwM0KWnVvgIKMxSdQnorQLJ1F11RSQbgrR6v_Pu4lSpJ6K13R5bxkXgl0-H2R_LWNznpIrwhs/s1600/pa+Butcher+Copy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMxyaWUpyNBJEQN4FTKm3bHp7X92rY2szzycyssvuFEP-euVNku6QrZiuZT4skPJSB60wwM0KWnVvgIKMxSdQnorQLJ1F11RSQbgrR6v_Pu4lSpJ6K13R5bxkXgl0-H2R_LWNznpIrwhs/s1600/pa+Butcher+Copy.jpg" width="213" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our Pa, (Tom William Butcher) and his postcard sent to our Nan <br />
in Tasmania (Wynne Ila Lette), from France 10th Dec.,1917 </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I have never marched formally on Anzac Day (one day I will before I die to honour Pa). But I do feel strange about it. I don't relate to nationalism, patriotism or war; and the fact that the military take-over of Aboriginal lands by the Bri</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">tish from 1788 on-and the war waged by Aboriginal warriors - is not acknowledged on this day. Why? </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">Some of these difficult issues have been addressed </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">by</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"> journalist Michael Green</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"> in an essay</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://wheelercentre.com/dailies/post/f261bb085eb4/" target="_blank"> 'Lest We Remember: the Australian War Memorial and the Frontier Wars'</a>. 'It follows an ongoing argument concerning Aboriginal Warriors who lost their lives in the wars against colonial forces'.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>'no we don’t want to be stuck alongside you mob,</b></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>we had to fight you'. </b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: xx-small; line-height: 18px;">Jim Everett, pura-lia meenamatta</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "helvetica neue" , "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">'Near the end of his latest book, <i><a href="https://www.newsouthbooks.com.au/books/frontier-wars-and-history-wars/" target="_blank">Forgotten War</a></i> Henry Reynolds makes a demand: the Australian War Memorial must commemorate the frontier wars. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The book examines Australia’s violent colonial history, and reaches into some of our most challenging public debates – about land rights, sovereignty, and reconciliation...</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">I also spoke to playwright<a href="http://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/A26981" target="_blank"> Jim Everett, a Plangerrmairreenner man<b>,</b></a> of the Ben Lomond people in northern Tasmania. ‘If they asked me, I’d say “no we don’t want to be stuck alongside you mob – we had to fight you”. If we want to remember our heroes, then we should be doing it ourselves,’ he says. </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">‘We should be dedicating a part of country to our fallen heroes – perhaps we could mark it with a rock. I don’t like the idea of statues.’</span></span></div>
</blockquote>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_-DYD-NVtTSbRQ3mLIb82VYAUdReW90m30s4nhCtSyLQ08qhJUvm1WruAYLdhgmkhHmMS90_tjn_Q1kSosbiRiNGsDutDWWVu4eYcxpt_gDWyJ10EuwlzBpJeYursxEKP6oMdd6AdEbs/s1600/jim++arrest.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_-DYD-NVtTSbRQ3mLIb82VYAUdReW90m30s4nhCtSyLQ08qhJUvm1WruAYLdhgmkhHmMS90_tjn_Q1kSosbiRiNGsDutDWWVu4eYcxpt_gDWyJ10EuwlzBpJeYursxEKP6oMdd6AdEbs/s1600/jim++arrest.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Jim Everett (arrested) while protecting the kutalayna site, April 2011</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>"In memory of all women of all countries, </b></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><b>raped in all wars" </b></span><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;">The only time I ever went to an Anzac Day March was when women marched under a banner: "In memory of all women of all countries, raped in all wars" c1981. I filmed it on super 8: the women's faces with gravitas and dignity marching straight into the waiting police paddy wagons, as the Anzac Day organisors wouldn't give permission for us to march with that banner. The great unspoken of war.</span></div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"><br /></span></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCQbPtGXci9pAdxACOelUvhXAVqr9bplMdGqVllLg4N_gySUc47brMWISgTGUE8XntCj8mORmc7xQ24ikom6Ed37Os2zAty8T3ooma1ioVIraCLyzM0vFmRVY7OxpOcaKVOkIQfyC8fXI/s1600/rape+image.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCQbPtGXci9pAdxACOelUvhXAVqr9bplMdGqVllLg4N_gySUc47brMWISgTGUE8XntCj8mORmc7xQ24ikom6Ed37Os2zAty8T3ooma1ioVIraCLyzM0vFmRVY7OxpOcaKVOkIQfyC8fXI/s1600/rape+image.png" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: xx-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;"> Canberra 1981 (?) (</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">re the red circled person in the pic- I have no idea who it is!). </span></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><span class="text_exposed_show" style="display: inline;">For further discussion see Catriona Elder's essay, ' "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="https://www.academia.edu/476465/_I_Spit_on_Your_Stone_national_identity_Women_Against_Rape_and_the_cult_of_Anzac" target="_blank">I Spit on Your Stone": National Identity, Women Against Rape and the Cult of Anzac' </a>; it is also in Maja Mikula's book (ed), <a href="http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415479837/" target="_blank"><i>Women, Activism and Social Change</i>,</a> Routledge, London, 2005, pp. 71-81.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #37404e; font-family: "lucida grande" , "tahoma" , "verdana" , "arial" , sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-60716811078623552332013-05-31T05:42:00.003-07:002019-07-11T00:50:41.756-07:00Patterns of attachment to the landHetti Perkins' article, <i><a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/patterns-of-attachment-to-the-land/story-e6frg8n6-1226653248475" target="_blank">Patterns of attachment to the land</a> </i>(The Australian May 30, 2013) is worth reading. It is an edited extract from the publication accompanying <i>My Country, I Still Call Australia Home: Contemporary Art from Black Australia </i>at the Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipGqL6egTvZdLy15pgQj7gVI5G3RfSpAFaLzBnH-CtzZh2fAGcU0eO89pmMg-xZhrb9XhxgcEU8iEQMdJvJnUdGCh2LZ2GDOzf-bCE1SaEI_8nZe1Ybz_sVKS9700CeogH_bVFofqgKHk/s1600/246788-dibirdibi-country.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipGqL6egTvZdLy15pgQj7gVI5G3RfSpAFaLzBnH-CtzZh2fAGcU0eO89pmMg-xZhrb9XhxgcEU8iEQMdJvJnUdGCh2LZ2GDOzf-bCE1SaEI_8nZe1Ybz_sVKS9700CeogH_bVFofqgKHk/s1600/246788-dibirdibi-country.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori's Dibirdibi Country (2008)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="font-size: small;">The sentient power of country and the spirits who reside within it is
not to be underestimated. Still today, trespassing on another's country
is a reckless and dangerous act. It is customary in many parts of
Australia to be formally "introduced" to country by traditional
custodians, which can take the form of an exchange of sweat or a
baptismal dousing so the land will accept or sense one as a countryman
or woman and not make the newcomer sick. Almost invariably, senior
community members will walk ahead at a special site, calling to their
ancestral spirits so they will recognise and not harm the visitors.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">It
is in this context that the "welcome to country" has evolved; and it is
a culturally appropriate means of brokering a social engagement with
another community by formally recognising their ties to their homelands
in the contemporary world.</span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;">It is a matter of no small concern
that there has been the inevitable invasion of anti-political
correctness creeping into this profoundly symbolic gesture of respect,
particularly in areas where the Western legal criteria used to determine
native title rights dispossess the traditional custodians from any
other form of public recognition. The criticism of federal Opposition
Leader Tony Abbott that the protocol is merely a "genuflection to
political correctness" could be applied equally to singing the national
anthem. How many Australians know all the words of the anthem, and how
many really believe that we are a nation "young and free"? </span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;">The
welcome is an appropriate way of reiterating the message that Australia
is home to the oldest continuous cultural tradition in the world, as a
counterpoint to the endless parade of men on horses immortalised in
bronze that line our city streets.</span><br />
<br />
<br /></blockquote>
</div>
jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-76539393653697602692013-04-24T21:26:00.001-07:002019-07-11T00:50:29.612-07:00Remembering Pa on Anzac Day.<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">Here is our, Pa Tom, mum's dad. He was a gunner in World War 1. Here he is, so young. I am remembering him this Anzac Day- and all he went through. His asthma was really bad when he came back from the Front. Some said it was the mustard gas. He died of an asthma attack early one morning in Invermay, Launceston Tasmania, in 1956. When we were little kids he used to whisper , "run up to the shops and buy a packet of fags for your poor old Pa, but don't tell Nan". He would press the coins into my hand, and off we would trot; how strange I felt - on this secret mission.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;"><br /></span></span>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8epa3mM88wEQXTsePt196F0K2sdhdhBpYynM7Nd5hpASj3Y2lRP80-ovVRSqXpLGX6yvU_NtGBFQ0Oyt47AWHAs57kYzRAsU9QobJwqUfqr0az7C4pVMpj6ALpmL9i7wMauMeVIrSf-I/s1600/+Our+Pa,+the+World+War+1+gunner+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8epa3mM88wEQXTsePt196F0K2sdhdhBpYynM7Nd5hpASj3Y2lRP80-ovVRSqXpLGX6yvU_NtGBFQ0Oyt47AWHAs57kYzRAsU9QobJwqUfqr0az7C4pVMpj6ALpmL9i7wMauMeVIrSf-I/s400/+Our+Pa,+the+World+War+1+gunner+2.jpg" width="252" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><h4>
Our Pa</h4>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 20px;">I never march on Anzac Day. I feel so strange about it all. I just can't relate to nationalism, patriotism or war. The only time I ever went to an Anzac Day March was when we women marched under a banner: "In memory of all women of all countries, raped in all wars." I think it was around 1981. I filmed it on super 8 –</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 20px;"><i> </i>t</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 20px;">he women's faces – such gravitas and dignity. They-we marched straight into the waiting police paddy wagons; the organisors wouldn't give permission to the women to march under </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 20px;">that</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; line-height: 20px;"> banner. The great unspoken of war. </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 20px;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdiDBGLgGBMMOs658g_fPncVTN3mvuK9grzXlZIqy7ccV67UUtr_OhmHrEJgY214ByScyg-Kejp2yeR-hwRGdLbcMhqtx76LSLp22_2XNHbHzuI8sFV6wTEQdG-UlYcm3FRZYg2qUPMJ8/s1600/rape+image.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdiDBGLgGBMMOs658g_fPncVTN3mvuK9grzXlZIqy7ccV67UUtr_OhmHrEJgY214ByScyg-Kejp2yeR-hwRGdLbcMhqtx76LSLp22_2XNHbHzuI8sFV6wTEQdG-UlYcm3FRZYg2qUPMJ8/s320/rape+image.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: "georgia" , serif; font-size: x-small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 20px;">Ps This photo is not the Sydney 1981 Anzac Day March....and I have no idea who the red circled person is!</span></span></div>
jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-6905948143946826332013-03-20T17:03:00.000-07:002019-07-11T00:50:52.821-07:00remembering mumirimina<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Today someone called (<i>"unknown"</i>) commented</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">on a 2011 post I wrote: "save the mumirimina-kutalayna heritage" along the Jordan River, Tasmania. I find it very moving and would like to share it. We can also "remember them" and acknowledge that their descendants "walk where they once walked" and it is their country.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">ya pulingina milaythina mana mapalitu</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">mumirimina laykara milaythina mulaka tara</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">raytji mulaka mumirimina</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">mumirimina mapali krakapaka laykara</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">krakapaka milaythina nika ta</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">waranta takara milaythina nara takara</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">waranta putiya nayri</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">nara laymi krakapaka waranta tu manta waranta tunapri nara.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Greetings to all of you here on our land</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was here that the Mumirimina people hunted kangaroo all over their lands</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It was that the white men hunted the Mumirimina</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Many Mumirimina died as they ran</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Died here on their lands</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We walk where they once walked</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And their absence saddens us</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But they will never be dead for us as long as we remember them.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is the eulogy of the Risdon Cove Massacre of 1804 where Tasmanian Aborigines were killed in an encounter with British soldiers. Greg Lehman says, "Regardless of the debate over how many were killed, it certainly constitutes Tasmania’s first massacre. But was it simply a regrettable over-reaction to the accidental appearance of a hunting party? Or was it something much more tragic?" His (2006) article is entitled, <i><a href="http://www.wellingtonpark.org.au/assets/wellingtonpark_welcometocountry06.pdf" target="_blank">Two Thousand Generations of Place-making</a>.</i></span>jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-31079959450949808182013-03-10T14:00:00.001-07:002019-07-11T00:51:09.992-07:00Putuparri Tom Lawford by Nicole Ma<a href="http://www.pozible.com/project/14717#.UTzzo80iCdQ.blogger"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Putuparri Tom Lawford by Nicole Ma</span></a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This film<i> Putuparri</i> is in process and raising money via crowd source funding site <i><a href="http://www.pozible.com/" target="_blank">Pozible</a>.</i></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Support this film now;</b> you can <b> <a href="http://www.pozible.com/project/14717#.UTzzo80iCdQ.blogger" target="_blank">make a donation</a> </b>and receive a DVD of the finished film.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> But hurry....52 hours only left on <i>pozible!</i></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">"Ten years in the making, <i>Putuparri</i> is a compelling feature length documentary about an extraordinary 42 year old Wangakjunga man living in Fitzroy Crossing. Located in the remote Kimberley region of north western Australia, Putuparri Tom Lawford lives a two way life - traditional and contemporary".</span><br />
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<br />jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-4205857172818434952013-03-02T13:20:00.001-08:002019-07-11T00:52:01.387-07:00Manu Tutura by Barry Barclay<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am only beginning to get to know something of <a href="http://www.nzonscreen.com/person/barry-barclay/biography" target="_blank">Barry Barclay's</a> significant contribution to documentary film in New Zealand and his notion of '<i>Fourth Cinema', </i>described by Stuart Murray in his book:<a href="http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Barry+Barclay%3A+a+thinker+for+our+time.-a0239463269" target="_blank"> <i>Images of Dignity: Barry Barclay and Fourth Cinema</i> </a>as:</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>"An umbrella term referring to the multiple forms of Indigenous cinemas that operate at local, national and international levels, Fourth Cinema is primarily guided by the desire to provide the conditions for the expression of Indigenous voices and ways of seeing... Barclay's mode of practice insists upon the importance of linking cultural production to the community from which it emerges.</i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I am currently reading Barclay's book <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=wq7Ocvxe4qsC&pg=PR4&lpg=PR4&dq=Mana+Tuturu:+Maori+Treasures+and+Intellectual+Property+Rights+(Auckland+University+Press,+2005).+Part+One,+%27Before+the+Beginning%27&source=bl&ots=72TRhPIPdQ&sig=9V9IcAdShG8y6f5DY7MOUs8c8jc&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0E8yUYSNA8qwiQeKgIHYCQ&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Mana%20Tuturu%3A%20Maori%20Treasures%20and%20Intellectual%20Property%20Rights%20(Auckland%20University%20Press%2C%202005).%20Part%20One%2C%20'Before%20the%20Beginning'&f=false" target="_blank"><i>Mana Tuturu: Maori Treasures and Intellectual Property Rights</i> (</a>Auckland University Press, 2005). Part One, '<i>Before the Beginning'</i> takes an extraordinary perspective – Barclay imagines 'what if' Lieutenant James Cook and his Endeavour crew arrived with a film camera and started 'shooting' documentary footage on the west side of the Turanga River that October day in 1769 on <a href="http://rongowhakaata.iwi.nz/" target="_blank">Rongowhakata </a>lands. Barclay's way of thinking about The British Crown's assumption that all land belonged to the Crown (for its taking), turns the whole story of colonial possession around and makes us think deeply about the way any of us might use 'camera' - in any situation. It accords with my view that the the kind of deep philosophical thinking by Indigenous filmmakers around 'filming people' has something very profound to teach all of us.</span></div>
jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-22943404669861051562013-03-02T13:13:00.002-08:002019-07-11T00:53:04.687-07:00The ethnography of compassion<div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Recently I went to Vietnam to the inaugural International Anthropological Film Festival in Ho Chi Minh City. <i><a href="http://www.realtimearts.net/article/issue113/10958" target="_blank">Realtime</a> </i>(Issue 13, 2013) has just published my review of that Festival: <i><a href="http://www.realtimearts.net/article/113/10958" target="_blank">The Ethnography of Compassion</a></i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The drawing is from <a href="http://www.we-want-u-to-know.com/" target="_blank"><i>We Want (U) to Know</i> </a>(2011) by Ella Pugliese (Italy) and Nou Va (Cambodia). This participatory documentary was created with survivors of the Khmer Rouge period. The intended audience is Cambodian, and the film has been used over the last couple of years by NGO's and outreach programs to teach villagers about the Khmer Rouge regime and about the country's ongoing Khmer Rouge tribunal. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Produced around the time of the Tribunal, amidst the painful process of remembering, the film reveals its own methods of storytelling and re-enactment, along with the potency of the children filming their elders. These participatory methods become part of a restorative justice process. The film develops as a work of mourning—a catalyst to transformative emotional change. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Drawing, painting and working through trauma with re-enactments were part of the filmmakers process with the villagers.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The energy of cultural exchange and shared consciousness is a significant quality that visual ethnography offers the documentary tradition. It is also a mode of filmmaking with a strong foundation in Vietnam and in its tertiary education. Vietnamese visual ethnographers are making films from perspectives within their own culture, not as observers representing ‘the other’ —perhaps as a consequence of having achieved liberation from French and American colonisation. Also, it is not surprising that many of the films are working through complex issues around tradition and modernity given the largely agrarian population and its multi-ethnicity—with over 50 distinct groups, each with its own language and cultural heritage. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I appreciated many of the films and the engaged discussions that took place around them. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Filmmaker Tu Thi Thu Hang participated in many of the discussions and she often shared deeply about Vietnamese history and events that had affected her family in the immediate post war period. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Tu Thi Thu Hang</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">structures her recent film, <a href="http://vimeo.com/51771759" target="_blank"><i>The Old Man Who Sells Bananas</i> </a>(2012), so that the audience starts out with ‘her’ mis-perception of the Old Man. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We see him as a victim too—he seems poor, elderly and abandoned. Skillfully filming with him over one and a half years Hang draws us closer into this man’s life, step by step—from lone individual to family man, to respected wise elder of the village with his Confucian ethics and responsibilities. In discussion the filmmaker describes her process: “Now I have a completely different way of looking at him.” (And so do we). “He is the ‘last man’ who lived in a previous epoch. In his 84 years he has lived through the French and American occupation, and liberation. He has passed through the main eras of Vietnamese history. He has applied traditional wisdom to develop what is an ethical way to live.” </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Michael Renov, documentary film scholar, refers to the '5th tendency' of documentary as 'the ethical', </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">in <i><a href="http://www.doc.ubi.pt/04/entrevista_04.pdf" target="_blank">"What’s at stake for the documentary enterprise?</a> </i></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>I think that the ethical in itself. . . has a sort of functi</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><i>oning dimension, and it is also glued to this notion of a common desire or impulse: an ethical impulse, that one can see as an underlying and consistent theme that cross the history of documentary. How do I. . . what is my relationship with this other? What do I mean to that person, what does that person mean to me, what’s at stake in representing others?</i></span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So I think Renov's finely tuned insight that 'the ethical' is fundamental to documentary is so relevant - not</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"> only to today- but to the whole history of documentary. The 'ethical' is the frame by which we both make <i>and </i>study documentary.</span>jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2679627907250785228.post-26222617522033344552013-02-02T14:55:00.000-08:002019-07-11T14:58:02.198-07:00There is a ticking time bomb in the remote economic heart of the nation<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC2Bsgd7cN0hd4Wl3LJkGY1BQ63BD8Lt7dOHm9Ozi10CeYInxaWIyUC1ZmCKYABdR5T-FW-IeHjbJ-PM4WEbWGNEH83D-nRVr9ud84iK1rAEjkTn6NEKVpDsUD-tzs4IZ953Hgrma5eRM/s1600/pilbaraMap.jpgfilename=pilbaraMap.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5477168805675458226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC2Bsgd7cN0hd4Wl3LJkGY1BQ63BD8Lt7dOHm9Ozi10CeYInxaWIyUC1ZmCKYABdR5T-FW-IeHjbJ-PM4WEbWGNEH83D-nRVr9ud84iK1rAEjkTn6NEKVpDsUD-tzs4IZ953Hgrma5eRM/s320/pilbaraMap.jpgfilename=pilbaraMap.jpg" style="cursor: hand; cursor: pointer; display: block; height: 252px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 320px;" /></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"><br /></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";">On a visit to Broome (and south of Broome) I witnessed first hand the kinds of inequities that Marcia Langton discusses in her Griffith review essay </span></span><a href="http://www.griffithreview.com/component/content/article/244/883.html"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";">The Resource Curse</span></span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";"> (Edition 28, </span></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";">Still the Lucky Country</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";">). I was shocked to see the rapacious 'resort tourist' development in Broome, the fast escalating rents and house prices and the seeming marginalisation of many Aboriginal people from access to any social or economic benefits from the 'boom'. The issues are systemic and huge. I don't always agree with what I perceive as Langton's sometimes 'pro-mining' stance, but in this essay she gets to the heart of the many contradictions in the continuing colonisation of Aboriginal lands. </span></span></div>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: "arial";">"The effects of the current resource curse in the Pilbara are reminiscent of the mining boom in the 1960s. Aborigines were the intended losers then; now all locals, regardless of background, are losers if they do not work in the industry. My question is this: are there any policies to counter the growing disparities in income, living conditions and opportunity in the mining provinces?....The mining regions are the source of enormous revenue, yet their residents are disadvantaged and deprived of services...the traditional owners of the land are the most disadvantaged living upon it....many Aboriginal groups were not opposed to mining but concerned about racist and inequitable practices being replicated in new ventures. What the groups wanted was guaranteed recognition of their inherent rights and interests, and acceptable terms for cultural, social and economic futures".</span></span></i></div>
jeni thornleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00525524137908951067noreply@blogger.com0