Jeni Thornley

Memory Film: A Filmmaker's Diary

‘memory film: a filmmaker’s diary’ is an immersive poetic documentary based on Jeni Thornley’s Super8 archive (1974-2003) filmed during the decades of her political and personal filmmaking, while producing ‘Maidens’, ‘To the Other Shore’, ‘Island Home Country’ and the collaborative feature ‘For Love or Money’. Documenting the activism of three decades amidst the intense sexual politics of radical feminism and social change, ‘memory film’ tells the inner story of a journey of liberation – gender fluidity, utopian feminism, love and its tribulations, the pleasure and pain of motherhood, violence against women, the desire for a world free of war and colonizing, and ultimately mortality and impermanence.

Senses of Cinema

As notions of civil rights transformed across the world, so was the screen landscape reformed by the ascension of grassroots film movements seeking to challenge the mainstream. Some aspired to push form to its limit; others worked to destabilise what they saw as a homogenous industry, or to provoke questions around gender, sexuality, migration and race.

Island Home Country

A poetic cine-essay about race and Australia’s colonised history and how it impacts into the present offering insights into how various individuals deal with the traumatic legacies of British colonialism and its race-based policies. The film’s consultative process, with ‘Respecting Cultures’ (Tasmanian Aboriginal Protocols), offers an evolving shift in Australian historical narratives from the frontier wars, to one of diverse peoples working through historical trauma in a process of decolonisation.

A Film for Discussion

A docu-drama shot in 1970, but not completed until 1973, the film sought to encapsulate in an experimental form issues that were under discussion within the Women’s Liberation Movement at this time and to thus contribute to action for change. In its numerous community screenings, active debate was encouraged as part of the viewing experience.