Anne Deveson

A disturbing drama about a young mother who physically abuses her baby. Feeling overwhelmed and aware that she's not coping after the birth of her third child, she sends desperate cries for help. But her mother, husband, neighbour and clinic sister do not recognise the seriousness of the situation until the baby ends up in hospital with a fractured skull. A heart-wrenching film that illustrates the experiences of many women who suffer from post-natal depression.

Traces the events leading up to the suicide of an Adelaide mother of five children.

Anne Deveson was a magnificent woman: the first female talk-back broadcaster in Australia, she was also a writer, activist, mental health advocate, and mother. When director Sari Braithwaite met Anne in 2015, she was attempting to bundle up thousands of private papers for the National Library of Australia (NLA). Sari offered to help and over the next six months they transform Anne's 85-year paper trail into a mountain of neatly stacked brown boxes for the permanent collection at the NLA. But during this time, Anne's brain starts to fail her. Alzheimer's, the illness that took her mother and grandmother, is gaining hold, and she is feeling the pressure to move into care. While she has stacks of miscellaneous files to sort, Anne has resolved to keep living in her own home, on her own terms. As she seeks to make sense of her life through the archives, she discovers that the storylines she's seeking to piece together are becoming harder and harder to find.

The groundbreaking Australian documentary on lesbians, presented by Anne Deveson, first broadcast in February 1966. Amongst those interviewed are Dawn O'Donnell (off camera at the beginning of the documentary) and psychiatrist Dr Neil McConaghy (the Australian 'expert' in aversion therapy). Some women are interviewed in shadow or close-up to disguise their identity. Women speak about being discriminated when applying for jobs against because of their sexuality. Dr Neil McConarghy is interviewed about his shock therapy work to change sexual orientation. Surprisingly Dr McConarghy says that homosexuality might be of benefit to society as creative traits or traits of non-conformity might give society as a whole the ability to survive.