2022 SIGNIS – Australian Catholics awards
Since 1979, the Australian Catholic Film Office, later the Australian Catholic Office for Film and Broadcasting, closed in 2020 when its film reviews transferred to Jesuit Communications, Australian Catholics site, has made annual awards to Australian films dramatising Australian values. Here are the awards for 2022, and an award, for the first time, to an international film.
AWARD TO AN AUSTRALIAN FILM: THE DROVER’S WIFE - THE LEGEND OF MOLLY JOHNSON
Starring, directed and scripted by Leah Purcell this film is based on a 1892 short story, “The Drover’s Wife” written by Australian writer, Henry Lawson, about a lonely woman, Molly Johnson (Leah Purcell), who leads an isolated existence on an outback farm in Northern Australia.
This ambitious movie is formatted in Western style, and is anchored to an excellent performance by Leah Purcell. The film becomes a revealing reimagination of past events from both an Indigenous and a white perspective. It offers a harsh depiction of unjust treatment of Indigenous Peoples in the late 18th, century, and provides a powerful account of how Indigenous people have been terribly mistreated.
The film intensifies violence as it proceeds, and with the help of competing narrative plot-lines, it becomes a multi-layered story with wide racial sweep. In the film, Leah Purcell cements her reputation as an exceptional talent: She has written, directed, and taken the lead role in an outstanding Australian film.
AWARD TO AN INTERNATIONAL FILM: NOWHERE SPECIAL
Starring James Norton, and directed, written, and produced by Uberto Pasolini, this Italian, Romanian and British drama is inspired by true events.
The film is based on the Director’s distilling of factual reports about a father who went looking for a foster home for his young son, after he was told he had a terminal illness. It targets the difficulties a parent faces when he or she has to explain what will happen when they can no longer be there to look after their child, and how their child’s life is going to change.
The film makes it perfectly clear that demonstration of a parent’s overarching love is paramount. The film is scripted carefully and intelligently. It explores the morality of good fatherhood in a simple and straightforward way, and it movingly examines the conflicts that potentially could explode in situations that are emotionally charged.
This is a very poignant movie that tackles fatherhood in a very insightful and moving way.
Texts by Peter Sheehan, Associate, Australian Catholics, former Vice Chancellor, Australian Catholic University.
COMMENDATION FOR AN AUSTRALIAN FILM: BLUEBACK
Tim Winton story of the West Australian coast – centring around a mother and daughter, underwater explorations, and a fight to save the environment. It is a film for the whole family, current in its concern about the environment, especially Australia’s waters.
