The personal is political: 1970s–80s Australian women & queer filmmakers in focus (Session Two)

12 – 1.30pm

5.30 – 7.35pm
Screenings followed by Q&A with Directors and Special Guests

(Producer/Director/Editor: Sarah Gibson and Susan Lambert
Cinematography: Martha Ansara
Sound: Pat Fiske
Art Direction: Jan Mackay 
Australia, 1980, 8 min)

Working closely with producer Susan Lambert, Sarah Gibson’s short Behind Closed Doors, a self-described “discussion starter on domestic violence,” was hailed by fellow filmmaker Jeni Thornley as “the most integrated, refined and coherent of their films to date: a stunning film that is both formally innovative, experimental, and absolutely concise in its descriptive, yet analytic treatment of domestic violence.” Gibson and Lambert were some of the most prolific early feminist filmmakers in Australia, both through their own filmmaking activities and in their active relationship to the distribution and exhibition of feminist films. Active members of the Sydney Filmmakers Co-op, the Sydney Women’s Film Group and the Feminist Film-workers, their production company, Red Heart Pictures, had a contract policy of employing all-female crews.
 

(Dir. Helen Grace, Australia, 1983, 28 min)

Funded by the Women’s Film Fund, the NFSA Journal describes 'Serious Undertakings' as "a powerful piece of oppositional feminist cinema," reinforcing its significance in feminist film discourse. A rigorous exploration of the ways history, culture, and politics are constructed, the film interrogates the narratives shaping Australian identity. Divided into five segments, each anchored by a quote, the film critically examines how dominant perspectives on national character and sexual difference are formed—determined not just by who tells the story, but by how it is told. Through its manipulation of sound and image, Helen Grace subverts entrenched ideologies, revealing the power of film as a tool for resistance.

(Dir. One in Seven Collective, produced by Digby Duncan, Australia, 1980, 45 min)

A documentary by the One in Seven Collective, 'Witches and Faggots, Dykes and Poofters' captures the radical spirit of 1970s queer activism in Australia. Chronicling the lead-up to and aftermath of the first Sydney Mardi Gras in 1978, the film exposes both the celebration of pride and the violent oppression that followed—on the streets and in the media. Its provocative title reflects the community’s reclamation of slurs once used against them, transforming insult into defiance.