| OCR Text |
Show 25 Australian films prove they are more than The film recalls American films like "Rosie the Riveter," but promises pro-mises to show its own special style. The film is directed by Megan McMurchy and Jeni Thornley. Fran . , . "; "Fran" may be the most complex, compelling character to be presented at the festival. Noni Hazelhurst plays Fran, a bored, 30-year-old suburban housewife with an absentee construction-worker husband. She has three children, and the oldest, at 12, is already pushed into playing the mother because Fran still lingers in adolescence. She throws herself at men, who soon flee from her constant need for love and affirmation. Hazelhurst, said Safford, is one of the most extraordinary talents in Australian cinema. "She can be biting, loving, sympathetic and horrible hor-rible all in one scene," he said. Going Down . Take a wild ride through downtown Sydney with four teenage girls, It's Karli's last 24 hours before her father ships her over to America and already she's lost the pocket , money he gave her for the trip.': .Jackie is wondering if prostitution is the best way for her to get by. Ellen,' the straight one, looks forward to a ' boyfriend and a good job. Jane, who is fighting alcoholism, - . is perhaps the most poignant of the group all the more so because Vera . Plevnik, who played the part, died in . an auto accident shortly before filming film-ing finished. ; . ' - ' ' Two of the film's women screen-' writers star in the movie, which is based on their real-life experiences. It is directed by Hayden Keenan. Half Life ; In 1947, the Marshall Islands were given to the United States under a United Nation's trusteeship. The ' I Marian Wilkinson suggests the partnership part-nership hasn't been equal. In the days of the Vietnam war, Australian agents helped the CIA in covert operations even before Australia formally entered the conflict. con-flict. The CIA set up a base in Australia at Pine Gap, and one scene shows an American official making an insulting token rent payment to the government one peppercorn. In the early '70s, a liberal government govern-ment under Gough Whitlam was wonders if the woman doesn't look like the wife who deserted him 14 years ago. . In this short film, a well-known Australian artwork gets a wry, impressionistic im-pressionistic treatment. It is directed by Sue Brooks. Emoh Ruo . Emoh Ruo is "our home" spelled backwards. And hardly anything oes forward when young couple Des and Terri decide to buy a house in an Australian suburb. The house through the use of 200 films going back almost to the turn of the cen-, cen-, tury. The hislory is one oi women who are needed, but not respected from the "whores" brought in during pioneer days, to women in the Depression who were resented because they competed with men, to i he women brought into the factories during World War II only to be pushed push-ed out at war's end. fin ; is cheap, Des has to get up at 4 a.m. lo go to work and the only neighbors are loud-mouthed bigots. The subject matter may be hilarious, Safford said, but it still touches on a topical issue the sprawling growth of suburbs. It is directed by Denny Lawrence. . hast Talking Director Ken Cameron, whose film, "Monkey Grip," was shown in Park City last year, focuses this dramatic film on Steven Caron (Ron - Zuanicj, a 15-year-old con man who "leaves school and veniures out into the tough world of urban Sydney. His world includes his ratty gang and a former racing champ named Redback, who sees his old self in the rebellious youngster. - . ror Love or Money "Money" shows the history of working-class women in Australia A bizarre moment from the Australian short film "The Man You Know." by RICK BROUGH Record staff writer In the program for the United States Film Festival, the Australian Film Commission placed an ad that read, "Tony Safford (festival program pro-gram director) came to Australia to look at a couple of films for the Festival. He ended up taking home 25." And that's not half the story. When Safford traveled to Australia this year, he said in an interview in-terview with the Record, he made his selections from 137 films he ' surveyed in 10 days! So how does one retain one's sanity sani-ty when viewing an average of 13.7 flicks a day? One practical method, Safford said, is to pass on a film if you can tell, after 15 or 20 minutes, that it's obviously not the kind of film you want. For instance, Safford said, he quickly eliminated travelogues. He was trying to bring home films that address special issues special to Australia and to independent films. Among the 25 films in the Australian package are movies that locus on the Australian treatment of the environment or the aborigine minority; movies about the nation's uneasy relationship with its big brother, the United States; and movies that simply put an Australian slant on stories of ordinary or-dinary people, The wave of Australian cinema has interested American audiences since the late '70s. Safford acknowledges, however, that it is more conservative than other flowerings of "national cinema" in the past tor example, the late-'50s French New Wave of Truffaut and Godard. , The Australian movement falls into in-to two areas. One is composed of the adventures of a post-nuclear hero named Mad Max. The three films in the series made a star of Mel Gibson. Gib-son. By the time "Mad Max III" came around, it was treated as a film pitched to American and international inter-national appeal. Safford said the I ilm opened in Salt Lake City before it played in Sydney. The movement also highlighted the work of a handful of new, talented directors. . Among them were Peter Weir who filmed Gallipoli" in Australia and "Witness" in the U.S. Bruce Beresford ("Breaker Morant" in Australia Tender Mercies" in the U.S.) anu Fred Schepisi ("Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith" in Australia, Iceman" intheU.S.). ' As the credits above indicate, these directors have all moved on to make films for tlv American film industry in-dustry with Amer an stars. How do Australians feel ut that? Safford . aid "disappoint, u'' might describe their reaction best. He said, "They r east that way about Gillian a, .trong," who directed Diane Kea .n in "Mrs. Sof-fel," Sof-fel," but also has returned to Australia to work. The Australian films that will be , screened at the festival are listed below. They are not well-known. Their directors and stars aren't big names. Perhaps that will change after the festival. Allies -'O Throughout the Cold War era, Australia worked with the United States, but this documentary from cicicu anu a win uiicv.uvc taipcu that Australia had become a North Vietnamese collaborator. The film looks at an issue that is still hot in Australia did the CIA destabilize the Whitlam government, govern-ment, leading to its downfall in a t constitutional crisis? Bliss Harry Joy Barry Otto) suffers a heart attack during a family outing and briefly is "out of body" witnessing witness-ing his own death. When he returns to life, he has a new outlook. Though it sounds like a remake of Ellen Burstyn's film "Resurrec-" lion," the movie also promises touches of Fellini and Monty Python. It is directed by Ray Lawrence. Camera Natura This is a collage of sights and sounds from artistic depictions of what is "Australian." It begins with 19th-century cbnvict painter Thomas Watling, Who found his preconceptions did not prepare him for this new land. The film progresses . to photos, cinemas and even satellite-surveillance satellite-surveillance photos of the country. It is directed by Ross Gibson. Couldn't Be Fairer "Fairer ' is about the struggle for aboriginal land rights in the Queensland area. It's not an easy fight, as we hear a minister for aboriginal affairs smugly declare, "1 don't think they (aborigines) are really advanced to a stage when you can give them freehold land and this sort of thing. They wouldn't know what it was." S , r The film is narrated by Mick Miller, aboriginal activist and pain in the neck lor the white Establishment. Establish-ment. It is directed by Dennis O'Rourke. The Decade of Women In "Women," Gillian Armstrong ives us a one-minute clip celebra-ing celebra-ing the end of the United Nation's In-ternational In-ternational Decade of Women, ,1975-1985, as a young woman (actress (ac-tress Gia Carides) who has advanced advanc-ed herself over the past 10 years, inarches through a cro-vd of women achievers. ? The Drover's Wife As a man looks at the painting of "The Drover's Wife-' standing stoically behind her weary man, he '""? V,;.. x- ' ' . ' '' !!!! ' f ' I . . . ,. - a . Although it appears from this scene that "Unfinished Business" is about throwing little people, it really is about making them. In it, a man obliges an old flame by helping her conceive a child. - t |
