"It’s a tricky thing" - A Conversation with documentary film-maker Tom Zubrycki - Zac Tomé talks to Tom about the forthcoming screening of KEMIRA:DIARY OF A STRIKE (1984) + HOMELANDS (1993)

 

One of Australia’s key figures in documentary, Tom Zubrycki (above), has recently restored the films Kemira: Diary of a Strike (1984) and Homelands (1993). Cinema Reborn, alongside OZDOX and the Randwick Ritz, are doing a special one night screening of these underseen yet key documentaries to Australian film history. Kemira (1984) documents a miners strike responding to the mass closure of mines that swept through the nation in the 1980s. Homelands (1993) is one of the first Australian documentaries to tackle the struggle migrants face settling in Australia. Focusing on the Robles family, it’s a tender and honest account of the tensions one faces between redefining, and returning to, a home nation. Tom generously chatted to Cinema Reborn about the choice behind restoring these films, the challenges of documentary filmmaking, Australian film history and more. 

TO BOOK TICKETS FOR THE SCREENING ON SUNDAY 8 DECEMBER AT 5.00PM AT THE RANDWICK RITZ CLICK HERE

What motivated you to restore Kemira (1984) and Homelands (1993) out of the dozens of films that you've made? 

Well, one reason is because I looked at the pathetic nature of the video file which was transferred from the one inch telecine. In those days the quality of video transfers from 16 mm was pretty poor, so I just wanted to have better copies of these films so that they’re a more accurate representation of what the films would have looked like when they were originally projected. I put a little bit of money away every year to do it and I've got a friend down the road who's an extremely good restorer. 

Ray Argall

It was Ray Argall?  

Yes. He's restored many films by filmmakers of that period. Most recently Pat Fiske’s film on Fred Hollows For All the World To See (1992). Ray accesses the original negative (A&B rolls) from the NFSA who make a fresh telecine and then he does the picture grade.

And do your other films from a similar period also have the issue of quality as a result of being transferred from film to video? 

Yes Friends & Enemies (1987) and Billal (1996), which was the last film I made on 16mm. From then on, I shot tape – DV, DVCAM  - older technology than what's available now. Working in 16mm, there's a certain discipline involved, because it was expensive working in film, and I had to cover the story in as small a ratio as I could. As small as 20 to 1, while 200 to 1 is more common these days for an observational doc. 

Kemira:Diary of a Strike

You just got odd short ends of film stock from other filmmakers if I’m not mistaken when you started on Kemira?
Yes, exactly. There was no time to apply for funding. The story was unfolding in real time and I just had to cover it as best I could. Filmmakers those days often kept short ends of un-exposed camera rolls, so I had some generous donations. Plus my own savings which allowed me to keep filming through the strike and beyond.

It’s interesting because Homelands (1993) seems to be shot on both 16mm and video?

True. Maria had her own video camera and she was recording scenes for her family and friends as well as for the Salvadorean community in Melbourne. So, it was a very interesting process - me shooting her, and her shooting me. It’s like she was making her own film inside mine.

She seemed to be hyper conscious of the power of film, and then she kind of put that on you. It was as though she was aware of the fact that a documentary, or film in general, is this ‘marker of truth’. Because that seemed to be what she was trying to do at the end there - to tell her kids what was really going on in her marriage, and film seemed to be the avenue for that rather than just a verbal dialogue. 

Certainly. That was the case and at the same time she was wanting to embarrass her husband. So in a way she was using it as a technique of asserting control in the relationship. I think you can take it further and say that the whole process of making Homelands (1993) was like a psycho-drama because it amplified the issues in the relationship that were already there, and possibly quickened the process of trying to resolve them.

Homelands

Would you put that down to Maria’s filming or yours?

I think it was a complicated mixture of the two really, because my presence in the film definitely altered the chemistry, and it became a complex series of interrelationships: me and her, me and Carlos, and the three of us together.

She seemed very determined in her ideals, and it was almost as though part of that idea of settling in Australia meant having a stable family. Of course, it was also out of care for her kids, that she wanted Carlos to be in their lives. She was a heroin figure of sorts though and it made her captivating to watch. 

I agree. But people have different reactions. Some viewers are drawn towards Carlos’ story, and feel sorry for him.

Homelands

I’m curious about an interview you did with ‘The Age’ for Homelands (1993) where you spoke about wanting to separate yourself from the history of anthropological filmmaking. Do you feel that there's any kind of collision between this desire to make films about people and culture, which is arguably the case for both Homelands (1993) and Kemira (1984), and then that desire, at the same time, to separate yourself from that tradition?

I think what I was referring to was visual ethnography - standing back with the camera and just observing and recording, and not getting involved in any way with your subjects. As a counter to that I was quite influenced by what was happening in the US in the mid 1960’s with what was called ‘direct cinema’, or ‘cinema verite’ by others. Early pioneers like Pennebaker and Leacock were following action, editing without commentary, but still having a point of view. The Maysles Brothers were in my mind the prime exponents of this style because they combined observation with character development and story. A major influence for me was Salesman (1969), where the Maysles really got into the lives of their subjects and kept on coming back to them over time. It was an inspiring film for me, and it dictated the style which I adopted for Kemira (1984). I took it a step further with Homelands (1993) where my unseen presence was more apparent than implied. I decided then that I had to insert myself into the film through the voice of a first-person narrator. I found that incredibly challenging.

Do you think shooting in 16mm as opposed to video made any difference to what became the final film?

Well, I'll get back to what I said earlier about working in film. Working in 16mm had a discipline attached to it. You were limited by the amount of film stock you had allocated in your budget, so you had to constantly think through what you were going to be shooting next. You were always trying to predict what might happen with your subjects, and with the ongoing story. After a shoot I used to always jot down the scene descriptions into a notebook, transfer them onto cards, stick the cards up on a pinboard and see what patterns emerge. You could say I was writing the script simultaneously as I was shooting the film. This discipline stayed with me in subsequent films shot on tape, where I brought on my editor – the brilliant Ray Thomas – quite early in the piece to make a scene assembly to help me work out the direction the story was taking. Doing this saved time and money and I didn’t have to pester my participants with more filming requests.

Is that intuition guided by the fact that you're forming relationships with these people around the film, whether it be Maria in Homelands (1993) or Ngaire in Kemira (1984). Because in both films you're clearly conscious of this question.

I chose Ngaire because she appeared to me one of the more vulnerable of the group of women keeping vigil at the pit-top. She really wanted to tell her story. It's as if she had this weight on her shoulder which she wanted to let go. She told us about company cars driving past her house harassing her, and her children not understanding why their Dad couldn’t come home. I felt that for Ngaire the strike was going to be a life-changing event, and so it proved.

On my first meeting with Maria and Carlos I knew straight away that the film was going to be a story of their relationship as a couple. I understood what Carlos wanted, which was desperately to return to El Salvador now that the civil war had just ended. I understood what Maria wanted too, which was to stay with her girls, and to settle the family into quiet suburbia. Their relationship was pulling in different directions and it was augmented by the fact that Carlos had a lousy job, while Maria felt satisfied and fulfilled with hers. 

From what I understand you always try to show the films to those who were in it before picture lock.

Yes, and every time you do that as a filmmaker, you feel like your life's on the line because you have given your subjects the power of veto. That’s always been my practice. However you’ve been filming for several months, and up to that point there’s been a lot of trust on both sides, so you hope they feel that they will be satisfied that you’ve represented their lives fairly and accurately, and hope that they’ll acknowledge the result – warts and all. It’s a tricky thing because you’re also conveying your own perspective as the filmmaker. 

Kemira: Diary of a Strike

Is there a desire with making these films that you would like to incite some kind of change? Even though Kemira (1984) ends with a certain disappointment, do you feel that just documenting it is enough?

One of the reasons for making Kemira (1984) was to amplify the voices of people who were the victims of these larger economic and political forces that were beyond their control. In those days coverage of industrial relations was poor and restricted to brief news reports. I felt a strong sense of responsibility towards the people I was filming with, that I could elevate their voices to a wider public. The role of a documentary filmmaker is to give deep and layered accounts of what’s going on. That’s what makes documentaries so different to current affairs journalism.

In Kemira (1984), the Women's Auxiliaries movement is vital to the strike and also Ngaire is the main protagonist. In Homelands (1993), Maria often highlights the treatment of women in the Salvadorean community.  Could you speak about the role of women in both films? Was it a conscious focus of yours, because it does add to that political edge, considering the role that women were playing at that time in various movements, but maybe weren't being celebrated for their work. 

Oh totally. I think that's one reason I decided to focus more or less on women being the key ‘characters’ in the films. At the time I was making Kemira (1984) stories of women in the union movement had rarely been represented in films – either narrative features or documentaries. The Women's Auxiliary is an important feature and very much the backbone of any strike action in a male dominated industry like mining. With Homelands (1993), I wanted to acknowledge that often women tend to develop and excel themselves in their new host country at a much more rapid pace than the men do. 

Was there a public response to the focus on a migrant story, and additionally one that centred on a kind of positive edge to a female success story? 

Yeah I think there was. Just looking at the reviews of the film and also the stories around the film that appeared in different papers. But I also felt that Maria felt comfortable in telling her story to others. I think she talked to the experiences of a lot of other migrant women by actually exposing the issues around her relationship. The film went into educational distribution for quite a long time. Which to me, is a good sign because it covered issues which were not commonly aired about the migrant experience. There’s an expectation that people coming from a war-torn country would settle in Australia and would love their new homeland, but in fact the situation is much more complex than that. People don't necessarily settle easily. They settle with difficulty, and if they're a couple they react differently. The process can be bumpy and messy.

Kemira (1984) begins with archival footage, I believe from Hewers of Coal (1957), and Homelands (1993) also starts with some kind of archival material. Can you talk about that choice?

With Kemira (1984) it was a homage to those earlier films made by the Waterside Workers Film Unit, specifically the film Hewers of Coal (1957), which has very explicit footage that highlights the hazardous nature of coal mining in Australia and what it's like for people who are part of that industry. We fashioned the opening sequence of the film from this footage to be underscored by original music from composer Elizabeth Drake. Elizabeth wanted to actually feel that experience of being underground to get the inspiration for the score, and through the union we found a way for that to happen. In the case of Homelands (1993), I licensed appropriate footage from a stockshot library. I organised to have it colourized optically. I wanted to set the scene of the civil war and underscore it with music – same way as I did with Kemira (1984). 

At the end of Kemira (1984), there's a credit given to the Creative Development Branch of the Australian Film Commission. If I'm not mistaken, the financing secured through them was given to you after you'd shot the film. There are a lot of conversations about that period in Australian film, and how there seemed to be a larger pool of funding. As you're a producer as well as a director, I’m curious if that kind of funding would be accessible to documentary filmmakers wanting to make a film of a similar subject matter or similar political relevance today?

Well, there was certainly a larger pool of money, in relative terms quite a bit larger, and there weren’t as many filmmakers applying for those funds. What was new and unusual about Kemira (1984) was that it was assessed after it was filmed on the basis of three rolls of film that were actually printed from the negative. Because that's all I could afford. It was a gamble on my part that the Film Commission would support it. One of these rolls featured the storming of Parliament House, an event that had national repercussions and was already being inscribed in history. They recognised the importance of the story and gave me a production grant to complete the film. Back then it was very unusual, but these days it's very common for people to shoot a considerable portion of their films while they're trying to, at the same time, secure funding. This happened on a recent film I produced, The Carnival (2023). The filmmaker Isabel Darling had already been shooting the story for 5 years before I came on board. We eventually obtained a pre-sale from SBS. By that stage the film was already halfway through the edit!  

It’s quite counter-intuitive to funding models considering that part of the premise of a documentary is that you do have to be open to whatever might happen. 

Yeah, that’s right. If you feel you've got the makings of a good story you just have to go and start shooting. Broadcasters and investors don't want to take too much of a risk, particularly of these films that are observational in style, because they don't quite know the ending. Makes it frustrating for documentary filmmakers who are following an unfolding story using an observational documentary approach, and that’s why so few such films are made these days.

While we’re talking about that period in Australian film, considering you made the documentary Senses of Cinema (2022) with John Hughes I'm curious about your relationship to the filmmakers co-ops. They were obviously a vital part of the resurgence of Australian film culture. Did the co-ops and the culture that came out of that time have any influence on you? To what extent were you involved with them?

It did, because you felt that there was a sense of community there, that you were with other people who shared the same values and the same interests. Identity politics was also very strong at the time. People were always meeting up with one another at social events and at the Co-op cinema. Plus there was a lot of skill-sharing going on. There was this sense that we were carving out an underground independent sector that was running alongside the more commercial sector, but with not very much contact between the two, though Gillian Armstrong was one exception. Being part of the Co-op certainly did influence me, there's no doubt. It made me feel that I wasn't isolated, even though each one of us had our own films to make.

Just to finish off, what do you see is the future of Kemira (1984) and Homelands (1993)? Do you have any ideas of where you'd like to see them screened?
Well, they're actually currently being distributed by Beamafilm. I think eventually though I'd like to make them freely available on YouTube. I just want them to be around and for people to know about them and for future generations as well. These films are part of this country’s lived history and also in the history and tradition of documentary filmmaking in Australia. Hopefully they’ll be written about and argued about – and become part of our cultural memory.

That's the whole point of restoration, right? Is kind of keeping that cultural memory alive.
Yeah, exactly.