I think Flickerfest provided a lot of different views of Australian culture from many different writers and producers with different upbringings and ideas. As a result, there were a lot of unique portrayals of Australia and Australian culture through these films.
One of the things that surprised me about the films was how many of them depicted Australian people and culture in a very negative light.
As I’ve mentioned in my blog post about Flickerfest in general, there was a theme of oppressive radical Christianity that showed up numerous times in these films, which I found really surprising. Normally this sort of die hard Christianity is associated with the American deep South and not with Australia, but I may be wrong about that. So I guess that is both a difference with perceived Australian culture and a similarity with American culture, though I wouldn’t say that the Flickerfest representations of Christianity are at all common in the US, or at least I would hope.
Another aspect of Australian culture that was depicted in a negative light wasn’t the Aboriginal people, which was only surprising to me because the film I’m talking about, ‘Yulubidyi – Until the End’, was written and directed by an Aboriginal man. It showed a tribe leader who had a disabled son and how horribly he treated him. The awful treatment ranged from mocking his son to leaving him in the desert alone to die. This film really depicts the father as a savage, brutal man and gives the viewer a similar opinion of Aboriginal people as a whole, though I know this isn’t at all an accurate depiction of Aboriginal culture. I was surprised that an Aboriginal man would write and direct a film that shows the Aboriginal culture in this light, especially in a country that has historically needed no encouragement to oppress the Aboriginal people.
Another film that stood out to me was ‘Calling’, written and directed by Miley Tunnecliffe. The film shows a woman who constantly talks to her mom on the phone, and it happens in hilarious situations and their conversations are really well written and funny. The mom is so perfectly cast and she does such a good job that this film is hard to not enjoy. However, in the US I think a woman of the main character’s age talking to her mom all the time would be seen as really immature and dependent, but in this film it’s show as almost endearing and thoughtful, even though some of the conversations are neither. I really liked this film even though the plot isn’t something that’s necessarily up my alley – it showed a funny portrayal of a woman in Australian culture and her relationship with her mom.
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