Directing
A year-long, intimate and loving study of a primary school in one of Sydney’s most diverse suburbs. At its heart is an exploration of how a community comes together to ethically educate children for the contemporary world.
The director explores the birth origins of actress Merle Oberon, traveling to Tasmania and India in search of the truth, but her quest ultimately results in probably more questions than it answers.
Philippines my Philippines (1989) is a feature length documentary about the situation in the Philippines two years after the notionally democratic Cory Aquino replaced the dictator Ferdinand Marcos in the ‘People Power’ revolution of 1986. Touching on the influence and interests of the United States and Australia, it examines the social context and dimensions of the violent conflict between government and big business on one hand and the rural and urban poor (led by the Communist Party of the Philippines and its New People Army) on the other.
A Calcutta Christmas (1998) is a film about a group of elderly Anglo-Indians living in a Home in Kolkata. I was moved to make this film after I visited and realised that many of the elderly residents felt a strong connection to Australia, yearning for their families who had emigrated there, even though they themselves would likely never visit. Theirs was a hidden world and yet still, some of them dreamed of Australia
Believing he was sacked unjustly from his job as an engineer in a big Japanese corporation, Tanaka Tetsuro has protested outside the company gate every morning for 25 years. Is he an obsessive? Why does he do this? After meeting him on the Internet the filmmakers travel to Japan in time for the 25th anniversary of his protest. They discover that in a world that places a premium on conformity, Tanaka-san has found a way to become himself.
