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ABOUT FILM AUSTRALIA'S IMMIGRATION DVD
When Australia embarked on its mass migration program after World War Two, it was with a movie camera in hand. Film Australia, as the Government's film unit, made films to attract migrants and to change attitudes to new arrivals. More recently, it made films about how migrants themselves were changed by coming here and the impact they had on shaping the nation. Film Australia's Immigration DVD presents a selection of fascinating films from this historically significant collection, along with contemporary interviews with some of the people who made them and some who were in them. Combined with this website and study guide, the DVD is a superb educational resource, a timely contribution to contemporary debates and an illuminating exploration of immigration and Australia - the people, policies and propaganda. WHAT'S ON THE DVD
Introduction An introduction to Film Australia's immigration collection, including why these films were made and highlights of what's on the DVD. Key Films Edited versions of eight important films in the collection. Interviews Contemporary short interviews relating to the key films with some of the people who were in them and some who made them. Clip Shows A series of clips from various films organised into topics - stories about racial exclusion, communication, food, work, identity and cultural pressure. THE MAKING OF FILM AUSTRALIA'S IMMIGRATION
Producers/directors Paul Byrnes and Penelope McDonald write about the making of the DVD
Film Australia has made more than 100 films relating to immigration since 1946-the largest single source in Australia for films on this topic. We set out to make a DVD that looked at the intersection of film, migration and politics. In particular, we wanted to look at the way film was used to promote the government's migration schemes and to encourage the acceptance of new migrants to Australia. We knew that there was rich material to be found in Film Australia's collection. The aim was to bring the best of it to light in a DVD for a general audience and for use in schools and tertiary colleges. The History
Australia's mass migration program and Film Australia, then known as the Australian National Film Board, were set up at the same time, at the end of World War Two. Six million post-war migrants later, the films made to document and encourage that process provide a unique record of a defining part of our history. They show a country broadening and changing its identity-in effect, a country remaking itself-and they can be read as a road map to the policies and politics of immigration. Arthur Calwell, who became the first Minister for Immigration in 1945, was also the Minister for Information, in charge of government filmmaking. He was quick to see how film could be used to promote immigration. From 1946 until the 1980s, the Department of Immigration was one of Film Australia's biggest clients. Films were made to attract new settlers, to inform them about their new country and to encourage Australians to accept their new neighbours. The idea of nation-building was a national project in the decades after the war and these early films were the transmitters of those ideas, the visual embodiment of a great purpose. It's more than a question of blunt propaganda-the national hopes can be read in these films. They were like machines for producing optimism. Film Australia's more recent immigration films were not made for the Department of Immigration, but were commissioned from independent filmmakers under Film Australia's National Interest Program, and mark a shift in style, treatment and approach. Film Australia's focus has moved beyond documenting the immigration process to aspects of multiculturalism. These later films examine the problems the new migrants encountered and document their achievements and setbacks. Genesis of the Project
"I'd been interested in the topic of immigration for some years and had a strong desire to shed some light on the debate about immigration that continues to rage in this country," says Paul Byrnes. "One way to do that is to look at the ways in which migrants and migration were depicted to Australians and the way Australians were depicted to potential migrants." "I had the opportunity when I was director of the Sydney Film Festival to look at a lot of Film Australia's library, so I was aware that it included a number of really significant films about immigration. Penny McDonald shared my interest in films about immigration so we decided to work together." "When Paul approached me, I had recently produced My Mother India, which is about immigration and identity," recalls Penny McDonald. "I was particularly interested in a project that would explore the connections between immigration policy, politics and film. I was also excited by the prospect of delving into one of the most extensive film archives in Australia-the Film Australia collection. Immigration has shaped Australia and the films of Film Australia had an important role in that." Production
After scouring the archive, we decided on a two-tier structure for the DVD: the main part would feature eight key films, cut down from their original lengths. These represent the jewels in the Film Australia collection, chosen to represent a range of styles and periods. They all satisfy the criteria we established: each represents an important idea in the history of Australian immigration, and each is amongst the most important films of its time in terms of style or content, preferably both. Beyond that we decided to include a series of clip shows, in which shorter excerpts from other films could be grouped together to provide entertaining and informative modules, suitable as classroom discussion starters. The clip shows gave us a way of organising many great moments from the films that we may not have been able to use otherwise. The third, though no less important, element of the DVD is the section devoted to interviews. Once we had selected the most important films, we began to research their histories and try to find key personnel-actors or participants in front of the camera and production staff behind the scenes. This was, in many ways, the most rewarding part of the production process, and the most challenging. Many of the participants have died, and production records are often scarce for the older films. Sometimes we had good luck and sometimes not. Some directors were still in touch with the people they filmed, especially if the film was relatively recent, as in the case of The Visit, directed by Tony Wheeler. Pauline Chan, who worked with Tony Wheeler on the film, knew that Pham Van Lam and most of his family now lived in Canberra. If a film was made over 30 years ago, it was more difficult. Oliver Howes, director of Toula, had lost touch with the star of his film, a Greek-Australian girl call Rina Ioannou. We searched for weeks without success. Finally Penny McDonald contacted one of the other actors in the film, Lex Marinos. By chance, he had recently seen Rina at a rare public screening of the film. This led to a happy and emotional reunion at the Film Australia studios in Lindfield, where Howes and Riri Treweeke (as she is now known) met again for the first time since the film was made. One person defeated our efforts to find her. James Ricketson's film Roslyn and Blagica, made in the late 1970s at a school in Sydney's Newtown, features two 11-year-old girls who were then close friends. It took some time to find Blagica's surname but once we did, we found her parents in the phone book. Blagica came in to be interviewed with James Ricketson, whom she had not seen since she was a child. Despite two appeals on ABC radio, we never found Roslyn, nor even her surname. She moved to North Sydney soon after the film was made and the two girls lost touch. We received great assistance from those we did interview. Harold Grant, a retired immigration officer living in Canberra, was a young man on his first posting overseas just after World War Two when he was asked to do the immigration interview in Mike and Stefani. The interview scene provides the film's dramatic climax, but it proved controversial: some department officials in Canberra thought he was too tough on the family. The irony is that he was told by his immediate superior that he should be tough-the purpose of the film was partly to show Australians that the selection process was stringent. Over half a century later, Harold Grant is able to put his views on what this film means to him. In 1978, Andrew Pike and Merrilyn Fitzpatrick interviewed Mike and Stefani's director, Ron Maslyn Williams, on audio tape, some years before he died. With the help of ScreenSound Australia (the National Film and Sound Archive), who cleaned up the original audio, we have been able to include an excerpt of this conversation as a director's commentary track. After completing the interviews, we made a ten-minute introductory film to answer some basic questions: why were these films made, what was the political background to their making and why are they important. This short film also serves as a taster for what viewers will see on the DVD. The final result is a DVD with nearly three hours of historically significant material, drawn from 24 films-a rich resource for students and teachers at high school or tertiary level, or for anyone interested in migration, film history or Australia's development as a nation. The Key Films
Mike and Stefani (1952) is the jewel in the collection on the DVD. Director Ron Maslyn-Williams and cameraman Reg Pearse travelled to displaced persons camps in Germany in 1949. With basic equipment, they captured the story of one family's extraordinary journey to Australia. The film was virtually dumped on completion in 1951, possibly because political priorities had changed within the Immigration Department. The film has rarely been seen since. ScreenSound Australia has now restored the film and released it on video. This is the Life (1947) illustrates the "nation-building" film style at its best. Director Catherine Duncan's film projects an idea of what the country wants to become: happy, industrious, prosperous and primarily British. The priorities changed in the 1950s, when British migrants proved hard to get. Double Trouble (1951) is a comedy about middle European migrants. Two Australian blokes are suddenly transported to a foreign country where they can't speak "the lingo". In Double Trouble, directed by Lee Robinson, they learn it's not easy to be a stranger in a strange land. Along with No Strangers Here (1950, directed by Doc K. Sternberg), it represents the most important theme in Film Australia's immigration films-the encouragement of tolerance. The Way We Live (1959) shows another significant theme: the promotion of Australia as paradise on earth, a land of beaches, barbecues and big houses-affordable for all. Directed by John Gray, the film was written by Immigration Department public relations officer Bernard Freedman, who is interviewed in Film Australia's Immigration DVD about the politics of marketing Australia at the time. Although the film was fully scripted and dramatised, it has sometimes been wrongly used as archive material. Toula (1969) looks at a young Greek-Australian girl growing up in Sydney. By the late 1960s, the ambitions and style of Film Australia's immigration films had changed. Toula is one of the first films to look at the experience of the Australian-born children of migrants. For the first time in more than 30 years, the director Oliver Howes and lead actress Riri Treweeke are reunited and interviewed together on the DVD. Riri remembers the premiere-and her father's reaction to seeing her kissed on-screen (by Joe Hasham, who became better known later in Number 96). Toula is also notable for the early appearance of other actors including Lex Marinos and John Stanton. Roslyn and Blagica (1979) is an early "multicultural harmony" film. With great charm, it shows the friendship between two 11-year-old Sydney schoolgirls. Roslyn is Anglo-Australian; her best friend was born in the former Yugoslavia. Blagica, now in her mid 30s, is interviewed about the film, along with director James Ricketson. They talk about how the film came to be made and how Roslyn and Blagica were chosen for it. The Visit (1989) shows the emotional upheavals of the refugee experience with devastating clarity. Directed by Tony Wheeler, it is an observational portrait of a large Vietnamese family living in Sydney. Now living in Canberra, Pham Van Lam, head of the family, speaks about the experience of being a refugee and making the film in a contemporary interview. As Australia's migration priorities changed in the 1970s, so too did the style of Film Australia's productions. Many of the later films were not made for the Immigration Department, but as independent productions commissioned by Film Australia. Admission Impossible (1992) takes a critical and analytical approach to Australia's immigration policy history. Directed by Alec Morgan, this film was not made for the Department of Immigration, but under Film Australia's National Interest Program. It explores with rigorous detail how Australia's migration selection criteria have often discriminated against different groups-from anti-Chinese laws in the 1860s, to the White Australia policy in 1901, to restrictions on Jews in the post-war period. Many of these films have rarely been seen since they were first made. Film Australia's Immigration DVD brings them back into the spotlight and gives viewers an introduction to one of the most important collections of films in Australia-the Film Australia Library. Paul Byrnes and Penelope McDonald ABOUT THE ORIGINAL FILMS
See the program detail pages on the Film Australia website for more information: About the key films
About the films in the clip shows Beyond the Pale - Stories about Exclusion This is a Teapot - Stories about Communication
All You Can Eat - Stories about Food
Willing Hands and Sturdy Backs - Stories about Work
The Price You Pay - Stories about Identity Assimilate or Perish - Stories of Cultural Pressure
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