Memories of Tina Kaufman - Adrian Martin pays tribute to the writer, activist and cinephile

Tina Kaufman (front, middle)

Another loss: Tina Kaufman. It’s impossible to overstate the importance of the wonderful tabloid FILMNEWS, which she edited over the long haul, in Australian film culture and history. While CINEMA PAPERS focused essentially on mainstream feature releases, FILMNEWS was the voice of independence: in cinema, ideas, politics, writing style, the lot.

Tina had indispensable collaborators (including Hall Greenland) all throughout, but she was that publication’s heart and soul – and she kept it on track through every tight monthly deadline, every funding crisis, every rocking of the boat. 

 

She was, in so many ways, an extraordinary person. Only she could have held together the extremely diverse set of people and interests that fed into FILMNEWS: everything from the most old-fashioned cinephilia to the most progressive politics, and every hybrid position in-between. 

 

Tina had a brilliant, in-depth, on-the-ground understanding of industrial matters in the film world (she became a kind of regular ‘industry reporter’ in METRO and other places post-FILMNEWS) – stuff I was never able to follow until Tina laid it out so lucidly in her articles. 

 

She had a gregarious side: she loved to laugh, gossip and network. No ideological position was sacrosanct for her, and she took a wicked pleasure in hurling people’s arguments against other in the often-contested pages of FILMNEWS. 

 

A unique thing about Tina: she was the only non-academic person I ever knew who could happily attend every session of numerous university conferences on film & media: apart from the socialising side, she always found something interesting in every discussion she heard. 

 

Something else I recall: her absolute devotion to attending every new Hong Kong release in Sydney’s Chinatown cinemas, at the time when that tranche of filmmaking was so exciting and revelatory. 

 

Tina eventually got to write a book, on WAKE IN FRIGHT for Jane Mills’ Currency series of Australian Classics: it provides a fascinating perspective on how she saw that film in the context of 1960s social and lifestyle changes in Australia (which she lived to the hilt). 

 

Tina was an essential person in my life, particularly during the 1980s. I wrote for FILMNEWS from 1981 to 1993, often in a somewhat ´wild’, experimental style, trying to find my voice – including a long critique of the magazine’s own film-crit contents! 

 

Perhaps the last communication I had with Tina was in late 2017, after my website launched. She liked it, but had two complaints about what I had not yet included: a. my 2010 launch speech for her book; and b. a conference paper I had given on the classic 1930s film PETER IBBETSON back in 1985, of which she retained a crystal-clear memory! 

 

In 1986, when I moved from Melbourne to Sydney for a while, I virtually lived in the FILMNEWS office at the Chauvel cinema. I was broke, displaced from all my routines, and fairly depressed; Tina gave me things to do, and would always help me out with another $20 bill so that I didn’t starve.

 

Once, when I was especially sad after some interpersonal incident, I went moping to Tina at her desk there. She listened attentively, thought for a moment, then proclaimed: “Well, look, it’s good to shake life up once in a while!” What wise advice! Vale Tina. 

 

© Adrian Martin 2 April 2023