REMEMBER BELSEN + Q&A with director FRANK SHIELDS - Randwick Ritz Cinemas 25 June

Editor's Note: Frank Shields has been making films since the early 1970s. His documentary on Breaker Morant (1974) won numerous awards and his 1986 film The Surfer  was selected as an official entry in the Cannes Film Festival.

***************************************

To mark the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Bergen-Belsen, Frank Shields invites you join him on 25th June for a powerful evening at Ritz Cinemas screening the thought-provoking documentary, REMEMBER BELSEN. The film includes footage locked away for 40 years, deemed too shocking for public release by British and American authorities. 

 TO BOOK TICKETS CLICK HERE:

VIEW TRAILER

REMEMBER BELSEN (2025, 105 minutes) is an eyewitness documentary, featuring interviews with five Jewish survivors, a cameraman who recorded the camp’s liberation, and Australian war artist Alan Moore, the first to record the horrors of the BERGEN-BELSEN camp.

British liberators entering the camp on April 15, 1945 found thousands of unburied corpses. Too ill to recover, 13,000 inmates died after liberation, with the official end of the war in Europe only weeks away. Reeling from the first images of Nazi concentrations camps, the world was shocked beyond belief by the horrors of Bergen-Belsen.

Around 50,000 persons died there, including diarist Anne Frank and her sister Margot. Most of the victims were Jews. The unimaginable intentional horror and the extraordinary British rescue operation were international headlines and Bergen-Belsen became a byword for evil.

Frank Shield’s film reflects on the experiences of camp inmates to convey the full horror of the Holocaust. In a moving counterpoint, the film records a reunion between two Jewish survivors, Olga Horak and Helen Schon and war artist, Alan Moore.

WOOLLOOMOOLOO — Pat Fiske writes about a Restoration Project to restore her classic Australian documentary

Film-maker Pat Fiske writes:

How did the film, Woolloomooloo, come about...

In 1973, Denise White, Peter Gailey and I were struck by the potential life

changing impact of the actions of the various community groups, the NSW BLF and their Green Bans were doing. We began work on our first 16mm feature film. The section about Woolloomooloo and Victoria Street was originally intended to be about 10 minutes in the completed film about the history of the BLF and the Green Bans. When we came to the editing, we had such a bounty of footage our planned 10 minutes had turned into a two hour rough cut. So, we decided to make a film about Woolloomooloo first. When Woolloomooloo was finally completed in 1978, I went back to tell the broader BLF and Green Bans story, creating the film, Rocking the Foundations (1985), which has already been beautifully restored by the National Film and Sound Archive. Sadly, the NFSA can only restore a few films each year. 

We have commenced a Fundraiser to RESTORE this 16mm film to a very high quality digital product.

Donations to this Project are 100% Tax Deductible through Documentary Australia CLICK HERE

Completion Goal: $45,000 + Outreach Goal: $25,000

About the Film

Woolloomooloo is a landmark documentary tracking the fate of the 1969 scheme to

redevelop Sydney‛s old portside area of Woolloomooloo and its notorious neighbour,

Victoria Street, Kings Cross, overlooking the sparkling harbour. When the local

community are faced with the plans to replace working-class homes with high-rise

towers and busy expressways, they enlist support from the Builders‛ Labourers‛

Federation (BLF). Led by Jack Mundey, the BLF‛s Green Bans propel the issue into the national spotlight.

 

Woolloomooloo captures the historical combat whose players include local, state and

federal governments, the State Planning Authority, the National Trust, the developers,

the residents‛ action groups, the Builders Labourers‛ Federation (BLF), and the police.

Through to late 1977, when a radically reconfigured Housing Commission Project is

completed, it‛s a story rich in human drama. 

To make a donation  and to be kept informed of the progress of fund-raising CLICK HERE

What's going to happen...

Woolloomooloo is now 47 years old and much of the footage is even older. It needs

urgent and tender loving care to survive and to carry this excellent history of

Woolloomooloo and Victoria Street into the future. It will be time consuming to restore this film because of its age. Ray Argall of Piccolo Films, who recently did the gorgeous restoration of my film, For All the World to See, a Portrait of Professor Fred Hollows (1992), will be restoring Woolloomooloo and will do a spectacular job.

Restoration includes digitising the 16mm camera original - over-scanning every frame at a very high quality (4K). An exacting and time-consuming task. The audio will be remastered from the original 16mm mix master. Ray will carry out and supervise the Restoration in consultation with me. The restored Woolloomooloo will be available as a much more pristine and clear-viewing experience on all screens, big and small, and will be able to be transferred to any formats in the future and will have a very long life.

Woolloomooloo is an important part of Australian history and remains highly relevant. It has been screened by interested parties, universities and organisations since 1978

although in poor quality. When restoration is completed, it will be launched in cinemas. And an impact and screening campaign will follow to promote it far and wide.

For any questions or further information, please contact:

Pat Fiske pat@bowerbirdfilms.com +61 407 813 255

CINEMA REBORN - David Noakes and Rose Murray to present HOW THE WEST WAS LOST

Cinema Reborn 2025 will feature a number of restored Australian documentaries each of them presented by the film-makers or by people closely associated with the film and it’s restoration. HOW THE WEST WAS LOST is one of those films. It was made in 1987 a collaborative film Directed and Co-Produced by David Noakes and in iits day screened theatrically across Australia, at festivals around the world and included a sale to Channel 4, in the UK, and eventually screened on the ABC but only in a cut down form.  David has now supervised the restoration of this important film along with film restoration expert, Ray Argall, and the new version will be introduced by David at its Sydney and Melbourne Premiere at Cinema Reborn 2025. The film screens at Cinema Reborn in Sydney on Tuesday 6 May and in Melbourne on Friday 8 May.   Accompanying David in the presentation of the film will be Rose Murray. Rose is a Nyangumarta woman whose family were part of the 1946 Pilbara Strike. Growing up in Melbourne, Rose became active in Koori community politics. In 1978 Rose returned her stolen generation Mum back to her family. Rose has had a wide career in health, research, art and community development.   Rose’s thoughts on the film and its place in history are now published as a program note on the Cinema Reborn website. Here is a part of her text. “This is a loved and valued film. We have always encouraged newcomers to the Pilbara to track it down. Having the strikers tell the story in their own way may not happen again. We’ve shown the film at a couple of big venues with David’s permission and it’s been just lovely. Pilbara  mob have gotten up and told the story of their family being on strike. It’s really powerful. Perth people always say, ‘How come we weren’t told?’ ”I’m part of a group helping to share the story of the 1946 Strike in WA schools this year. The Strike and the How the West was Lost film will become better known in schools. I’m going to go to Cinema Reborn and support the Marrngu and other film makers who made it happen. All Australians need to know how important the strike is for today, not just yesterday.”   To read Rose Murray's text click here: David Noakes and Rose Murray are available for interview and a screener copy of the film can be made available for those interested in the film and the people who made it and are now re-presenting it. THE STORY On 1 May 1946, 800 Aboriginal station workers walked off sheep stations in the north-west of Western Australia, marking the beginning of a carefully organised strike that was to last for at least three years, but never officially ended.   The strike was more than a demand for better wages and conditions. It was, in the words of Keith Connolly in the Melbourne Herald, 'a well-considered statement by a grievously exploited people, standing up for their rights and dignity'.   How The West Was Lost tells the story of a shameful yet still largely unknown piece of Australia’s tangled history…   Session times and links  to bookings Click Here

CINEMA REBORN - Seven newly-restored Australian films in the 2025 program.

 AUSTRALIAN FILM-MAKERS AT CINEMA REBORN 2025

Cinema Reborn 2025 will present seven films by Australian film-makers. All will be presented in the presence of the directors or in the case of the films of the late Anna Kannava, the producer. All have been restored by the film-makers themselves working in conjunction with renowned Australian director and director of photography Ray Argall and his company Piccolo Films. For information about session times, bookings and credits CLICK HERE

WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN (John Hughes, (1996) Cast: Martin Jacobs,Gillian Jones, Jacek Koman, Angie Milliken “In the hands of director John Hughes this material is transformed into a fragmented, cool film that utilises many techniques, associated with art cinema….an impressive film that provides many entry points for the viewer by supplying just enough character development and narrative motivation to engage on an emotional level.” Geoff Mayer, The Oxford Companion to Australian Film There are very few Australian films which draw their style and inspiration from European art cinema and the work of such masters as Alain Resnais and Chris Marker. What I Have Written, based on a novel by John Scott, is however such a film. It draws on those sources to present a twisting and complex narrative, intertwining two love stories – the first an erotic drama set in Australian academia, the second a story which draws on, using black and white photography and the Parisian setting, from Marker’s legendary La Jetée. John Hughes, otherwise a master documentary maker for close to fifty years, took a detour into fictional drama that resembles the literary work of Marguerite Duras and  Alain Robbe-Grillet. As such it stands almost alone in the Australian cinema. The world premiere of this 4K restoration will be both a unique experience and a reminder that the Australian cinema has occasionally been more than echoes of BBC drama, broad comedy and American genre re-treads. John Hughes will introduce his film at its Sydney and Melbourne screenings and take part in a post-film conversation HOW THE WEST WAS LOST (David Noakes, 1987) "will always be the best, most honest and most entertaining record of the 1946 Strike... It is an exhilarating, inspirational documentary that shows what people can achieve when they have vision, courage and solidarity." - Jerry Roberts, Pearls and Irritations On 1 May 1946, 800 Aboriginal station workers walked off sheep stations in the north-west of Western Australia, marking the beginning of a carefully organised strike that was to last for at least three years, but never officially ended. The strike was more than a demand for better wages and conditions. It was, in the words of Keith Connolly in the Melbourne Herald, 'a well-considered statement by a grievously exploited people, standing up for their rights and dignity'. How The West Was Lost tells the story of a shameful yet still largely unknown piece of Australia’s tangled history… David Noakes and Rose Murray will introduce this film at its Sydney and Melbourne screenings and take part in a post-film conversation. Rose Murray is a Nyangumarta woman whose family were part of the 1946 Pilbara Strike.  THE MINISKIRTED DYNAMO (Rivka Hartman, 1996) “Dora emerges as afascinating character… a very personal piece of film-making” – David Stratton “The Miniskirted Dynamo  is a lively, often hilarious, film as well asa moving personal document…This is not a film for those who believe in the mythof happy families – or perhaps it is the perfect film.” - Barbara Creed, The Age Rivka Hartman’s The Miniskirted Dynamo focuses on her mother, Dr Dora Bialestock, an extraordinary figure inMelbourne’s medical community. Dora studied Medicine at the University of Melbourne and published widely on her specialist research subjects . She became a figure of some controversy when she attacked the state government’s management of children in care. She was a public thorn in many sides of government. Hartman’s film is a remarkable autobiographical and biographical documentary about the intense and tangled relationship between the film-maker and her mother, both of whom had ambitions and goals that did not mix well. Rivka Hartman will introduce her film at its Sydney and Melbournescreenings THE BUTLER (Anna Kannava, 1997) + TEN YEARS AFTER…TEN YEARS OLDER (Anna Kannava, 1986) “I was very moved by The Butler, a portrait of Anna's brother, Nino. This film has one of those unexpected moments of grace that totally won me over – it brought tears to my eyes (not of sadness, but of happiness and liberation).” – Cristina Álvarez López “I was struck by the absolute coherence of her relatively small but impressive and enduring output.” – Adrian Martin Celebrating the filmmaking of Anna Kannava (1959-2011) with two remarkable autobiographical documentaries, recently restored in 4K. Born in Cyprus, Kannava migrated to Melbourne with her family in 1974. In the meditative Ten Years After…Ten Years Older, the director tenderly reflects on returning to her homeland after a decade away. In the deftly comedic and deeply affecting The Butler, Kannava impressionistically portrays the life she shared with her devoted younger brother Nino. These two key works reveal a gifted filmmaker deserving of widespread recognition. Anna Kannava’s films were produced by John Cruthers who has supervised their restoration. The films will be introduced by John Cruthers in Sydney.  BREAD AND DRIPPING (Vic Smith, Margot Nash, Elizabeth Schaffer,Wendy Brady and Donna Foster, 1981) Four women recount their lives during the bleak years ofthe Depression of the 1930s. Tibby Whalan, Eileen Pittman, Beryl Armstrong andMary Wright describe their struggles to survive and maintain families whenfaced with widespread unemployment, evictions and hardship. Bread and Dripping screens with How the West was Lost in Sydney and Melbourne. It will be introduced by Vic Smith and Elizabeth Schaffer in Sydney ON A FULL MOON (Lee Whitmore, 1997) This "poem to my mother", features memories of childhood and family lovingly animated frame by frame by pencil and pastel on paper.  On a Full Moon screens with The Miniskirted Dynamo  and will be introduced by Lee Whitmore in Sydney.

CINEMA REBORN - OCTOBER NEWSLETTER - A TRIBUTE TO TOM ZUBRYCKI + DAVID STRATTON, ROSS CAMPBELL and BILL MOUSOULIS

A TRIBUTE TO TOM ZUBRYCKI Tom Zubrycki (pictured above) is one of Australia's leading documentary film-makers. For over forty years  he has chronicled Australian society. His awards include the Stanley Hawes Award in recognition of an outstanding contribution to Australian Documentary, the Cecil Holmes Award from the Australian Directors Guild, and an International Emmy. Cinema Reborn, OZDOX and the Randwick Ritz are proud to present  a screening of newly restored copies of two of Tom’s highly regarded landmark films: KEMIRA – DIARY OF A STRIKE (1984) and HOMELANDS (1993). Tom will introduce the films and take part in a conversation about his life, career and documentary film-making in Australia. The evening will be hosted by Maree Delofski - filmmaker, scholar and historian. KEMIRA – DIARY OF A STRIKE (1984)  A day by day account of a sixteen day underground colliery sit-in strike which led to the storming of Parliament House in Canberra. The story is mirrored through a family of one of the striking miners. KEMIRA premiered at the Sydney Film Festival, had a cinema release and won awards including the AFI for Best Documentary, Silver Bear in Leipzig, and Best Film at Tyneside.  HOMELANDS (1993). A story about a refugee family living in Melbourne but torn apart by their conflicting desires to return to their homeland in El Salvador or to stay in Australia. HOMELANDS follows the personal dramas in the life of the family over eighteen months. The film had a nation-wide festival and cinema release and was awarded the Film Critics Circle Prize for Best Documentary. International festival screenings included Cinéma du Réel, IDFA and Margaret Mead. Tom would like to acknowledge the work of Ray Argall who has lovingly restored both of these films. 5.00 PM ON SUNDAY 8 DECEMBER BOOKINGS CLICK THIS LINK DAVID STRATTON’S NEW BOOK AUSTRALIA AT THE MOVIES Coming in November is David’s new book, the third of his critical studies of the history of Australian film. David has been kind enough to send through the Introduction to the book to allow Cinema Reborn friends and subscribers to get an early taste of what our longstanding patron’s book, a massive 660 page survey, delves into. Our thanks to him. The book goes on sale in November. The peaks and lows that have characterised Australian feature film production over a period of 30 years are the subject of this survey.  My aim has been to provide basic information, and brief critical commentary, on Australian feature films made between 1990 and 2020.  I previously published books about Australian films of the 1970s - The Last New Wave (1980) and the 1980s, The Avocado Plantation (1990) - but they were rather different from the current book, which is effectively an encyclopaedia that attempts to list all the feature films made over that thirty year period.   The 70s was a decade in which the Australian cinema, which had been virtually dormant for about thirty years, burst into life, thanks to Government support (Federal and State) and to a new sense of identity and cultural blossoming. Most of the young directors who made their first films in the 70s were interviewed for The Last New Wave and many of them went on to successful international careers. The 80s was the decade of tax concessions for the film industry, a period in which so many films were made that the level of quality inevitably declined.  There were, of course, significant highlights during the decade, but in writing about them for The Avocado Plantation I divided the films into genres rather than placing the major focus on the film directors. I had always planned to follow these books with another about the 90s, but the pressures of participating in a weekly television programme, and other commitments, intervened and the years slipped by.  So now there’s a lot of catching up to do, and the following pages contain an account of feature film production (and sometimes co-production) over three decades. I have attempted to include every feature film made in Australia between  1990 and 2020, but during a period when an increasing number of films are being independently made and when release patterns are increasingly chaotic, I haven’t been entirely successful in accomplishing this. I have no doubt that some films are missing, but I hope there are not too many of them. …I hope this book will provide useful information and perhaps encourage further investigation and research into some of the forgotten feature films of the past quarter century. David Stratton BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE…. Veteran Melbourne cinephile Ross Campbell has published a remarkable memoir titled …MELBOURNE AT THE MOVIES: Confessions of a Certified Cinephile. The book is a labour of love chronicling what Ross describes as the excitement and brilliance of the city’s vibrant film culture as seen through the life of a movie obsessed Melburnian. More information and a link to purchase IF YOU CLICK HERE BILL MOUSOULIS PRESENTS MY DARLING IN STIRLING Stalwart supporter of Cinema Reborn and champion of independent Australian cinema Bill Mousoulis is screening his new film in Sydney on Wednesday 16 October at the Randwick Ritz.The film premiered at the Adelaide International Film Festival and is a contemporary and experimental musical, Bill’s 11th feature in a career spanning 40 years. My Darling in Stirling is a low-budget community effort, highlighting the town of Stirling situated in the Adelaide Hills. A fairy-tale but realist musical, where every line is sung, it is a joyful but also melancholic film, about lost innocence. A young woman, Emma (Amelie Dunda), studying at university and living at home with her mother and brother in the Adelaide suburbs, falls in love with a cafe waiter Nick (Henry Cooper), (both pictured above) who lives and works in the town of Stirling in the Adelaide Hills. Entranced by the man and the town, she begins to feel a sense of excitement and vitality in her life. My Darling in Stirling is inspired by the all-singing 1964 film directed by Jacques Demy, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. There will be a filmmaker introduction prior to the screening and a Q&A after the film, moderated by film critic Anne Rutherford. "A dream film, a bittersweet celebration of ordinary life."- Frankie Kanatas, Senses of Cinema "The film has compact eloquence, stylistic finesseand emotional force."- Adrian Martin, Film Critic: Adrian Martin CINEMA REBORN DATES FOR 2025 In case you need to make a diary entry, Cinema Reborn 2025 takes place at the Randwick Ritz from 30 April to 6 May and the Hawthorn Lido from 8 to 13 May. Programme announcements from early in the New Year and full programme published in mid-March.

On the life and films of Andrew Leavold - Barrie Pattison digs deep and discovers THE SEARCH FOR WENG WENG (2013) + PUB - THE MOVIE (2022)

Andrew Leavold

We are not talking film school and a history of subsidised documentaries, when we consider the case of Andrew Leavold. In the best Tarantino tradition, his formation as a filmmaker was running a video store, managing to parlay Brisbane’s Trash Video into the hub of out of kilter film activity in the city - often the one place there where you could find whatever was weird or transgressive on VHS.

When the video business died, Leavold took his act on the road. The highlight of the presentation I saw him give was an Iranian film showing a villainous Salman Rushdie overcome by flying Holy Korans, which persuaded the debauched female lead to take up chador wearing. They were going to ban that one in the U.K. until Rushdie came to its defense.

Leavold’s idée fixe (why don’t people talk about idées fixes anymore?) was Weng Weng, the three foot tall Philippino composite of Bruce Lee and James Bond, star of all but forgotten dubbed Pinocheapos For Your Height Only and D'Wild Wild Weng. Seven years, a communications degree, three mortgages on the store and a model exercise in crowd funding later, Leavold turned this into the 2013 feature documentary The Search for Weng Weng, which hit the festival circuit worldwide.

But we are getting ahead. With minimal training and experience Andrew Leavold had taken a camera to the Philippines to record the Weng Weng story. He was filmed in the airport parking lot getting the news that his hero was dead. That he compares to the moment in The Simpsons when Ralph Wigum learns that his passion for Liza is not reciprocated and Bart, freezing the video, isolates the frame where you can see his heart break. There was plenty more heartbreak ahead when the only prospect for the Weng Weng project was to include it in Mark Hartley's Screen Australia 2010 Asian schlock compilation feature Machete Maidens Unleashed! - a choice offered as ten percent of a funded project or all of nothing.

Leavold ended up buying back his footage to make his own In Search of Weng Weng, representing Weng Weng as action hero become tragic victim of exploitation, become Catholic icon. The result is surprisingly involving. It's remarkable that this one summons the know-how to convince audiences that it's not a put on, not an unhealthy cash-in on its sad little man subject and not something you should pass over for another look at Barbie.

The film itself is a shrewd mix of clips, interviews and accounts of its makers' adventures in the Philippines, which included being guest of honour at Imelda Marcos' 81st birthday party. Slowly, Leavold finds his way to the subject's low cost plot in the cemetery where the Manila homeless live among the grave markers.

Leavold went touring the planet promoting his documentary. The highlight of his attention-getting live introductions is always Leavold revealing the shoulder tattoo he had done in Manilla, showing Weng Weng in a religious aura.

Despite the interest that the project stirred, Andrew Leavold didn’t find himself deluged with offers to fund the string of projects for which he had deposited caches of material in cupboards round the planet. We never did get to see his study of the Philippino porn film industry, which at its height involved stellar personalities from their industry.

Instead he managed to get support, from ex-Chauvel Cinematheque organiser and Crypto speculator, Executive Producer Bret Garten, for his next documentary Pub - the Movie, a study of Melbourne identity Fred Negro. 

It’s very hard to comment on Leavold’s new(ish) film. You have to locate it in a line that runs through the Sixties US Underground comics, Robert Crumb in particular, Robert Downey (senior), John Waters or South Park. It’s crude, juvenile and slap dash. This makes it a suitable rendition of its subject, Melbourne’s St. Kilda native Fred Negro, who drew a strip cartoon called “Piranhas in Love” and headed up a band called “I Spit in Your Gravy”, a name that used to catch my attention on gig posters before I found the back story.

Fred’s childhood was already out of whack. (“Dad was really disappointed that I didn’t want to be a tax accountant”.) Art school wasn’t all that successful either (“I did all my stuff in the pub”) and Fred was drawn into that entertainment scene. “Six foot trannies singing about fat bellies and black and white tellies. I’m staying here.”

He had an act called The Human Vacuum Cleaner, where someone would hold his ankles and push Fred across the floor licking up Twisties. Pretty soon he was masturbating on stage while he played guitar, recruiting bar waitresses to join the band and be photographed naked in the bath with him. He used the slogan “Objectifying women since 1989.” The local scandal sheet followed his activities with enthusiasm. “The Truth - they just loved us!” One of his entourage was starving, pounced on the roast chicken that Fred fornicated with on stage and found it was full of maggots. “It didn’t matter so long as you were shocking someone.”

This all went down big on the great St. Kilda Thursday Night Pub Crawl. One musician remembered Fred on stage with them “He wasn’t in the band. He just kept playing.” However, with fame spreading, the Gravies found themselves in the first half for Waylon Jennings at the Rod Laver Arena, facing a contract with Virgin and turning up in the Tamworth Festival artists’ area with Smokey Dawson. The chief constable told them “I love your act but if you ever play a note in Tamworth, I’ll throw you in jail.”

There’s footage to go with all this but it’s murky video with poor sound. I would have liked to have seen more of the nice animations Leavold spaces it with. There are interviews of the survivors of those days. The questions that I wondered about are addressed as the film goes on. We learn that “Heroine hit St. Kilda hard” with a lengthy montage of photos of musicians and sidekicks in drug deaths. Negro survived, going without food for days, and he raised a family. Rather than stories of neglect and abuse, his daughter describes him as the ideal dad who harvested her childhood scatology for his strip cartoon, with them wondering who exploited who.

But the lifestyle was not without cost. One of his fans saw Fred’s marginal occupations and commented “I think Fred is one of the best cartoonists in the world and he’s cleaning toilets.” His publisher (“I got complaints from the first issue”) finally had to drop his strip. (“Too many vaginas”) though Fred did manage to produce a Piranhas coffee table book - and he survived to front his own movie here. 

Pub the Movie is not for everyone. It should come in a sealed plastic bag with a warning. It’s unpolished and parochial. The people who would find Fred Negro off putting in person are just as likely to reject a film about him but it is as authentic a representation of Australia’s notion of outrage as we are likely to get. Despite my initial reservations, I kind of warmed to it.

This leaves us with a situation where Australia’s hardest-charging filmmaker remains indigestible to all the processes that could make his life easier. In a period when suitable subjects for Australian documentary films are more clearly demarcated than ever, it’s hard to see the way forward. I can’t see Andrew Leavold making a tribute to the Matildas. He has learned his lessons the hard way, acquired his skills and not let one of the world’s most conformist environments grind him down. That’s a record that requires more attention than it's getting.