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NEWSLETTER
JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2012
HAPPY NEW YEAR to all our members and a special welcome to anyone joining us for the first time. Our membership has already hit 50 – a great start!
This newsletter, our first for 2012, is being sent out to all 2011 members with email addresses, whether or not you have rejoined at this stage, as well as new members who have already joined for this year. As in past years, copies of the monthly newsletter will be available on the night of our film screening if you are unable to receive emails.
A reminder to those members yet to rejoin – make sure you do so on, or before, the February film night. This will mean you receive two bonuses:
- a free guest pass for a single use during our season (December excluded)
and
- a 2-for-1 ticket offer for a single Digital Movies in the Mecca screening (expires June 30th,2012)
Remember, too, that YRFS members receive a discount rate at any Digital Movies in the Mecca screening, so there are benefits to being a member beyond being able to attend our own excellent program for about $5-$6 per screening.
Starbox rating
Every month, members are invited to rate the feature film on a 5 star scale. Our final film for 2011, the New Zealand comedy, BOY, rated 4 with those who attended.
2012 Opening Night
Our first screening for the year takes place on Tuesday, 14th February with the UK/Australia film ORANGES & SUNSHINE, a review of which can be found below.
Thank you, Ivan
Ivan Gaal, who has served on our committee for the past five years, has informed us that he will be unable to continue this year due to work commitments. Ivan, as an experienced film-maker and aficionado, has made valued contributions to the group over this period. Your input will be missed, Ivan.
Enjoy this month’s movie!
Laurie Hastings
This newsletter is also available online at our website:
www.yarrarangesfilmsociety.org.au
ORANGES & SUNSHINE
SYNOPSIS:
In the late 1980s, Margaret Humphries (Emily Watson), an English social worker in Nottingham discovers a secret that the British government had kept hidden for four decades: 130,000 children in care had been sent abroad to commonwealth countries, mainly Australia. Children as young as four had been told that their parents were dead, and been sent to children's homes on the other side of the world. Instead of being cared for in their new homes, many were subjected to appalling abuse. They were promised oranges and sunshine, they got hard labour and life pain. Margaret attempts to reunite as many families as she can.
Review by Andrew L. Urban (Urban Cinefile):
At first, it's just Charlotte (Federay Holmes), an Australian woman who wants to find out "who I am." It's 1980s Britain and Margaret Humphries (Emily Watson), is a social worker in Nottingham; Charlotte's plea falls on fertile ground in Margaret's heart and triggers an extraordinary story of human decency trying to heal the wounds of human error and much, much worse.
This story burns to be told and not only in Humphreys' own account as a book, but as a film to reach a wide and incredulous audience. Screenwriter Rona Munro and director Jim Loach (yes, son of Ken) have shown admirable restraint and sensitivity in unfolding the many tightly bound layers of a despicable series of events orchestrated by authorities and supposedly caring organisations.
But the film, like Humphreys herself, is not an attempt at recrimination; it shows how a single individual can bring about enormous change and make a difference, where perhaps organisations, Governments, political parties and other groupings are impotent.
Humphries at first is incredulous at how one single child can be deported across the world and left living in the mistaken belief that her mother is either dead or uncaring. Even before the numbers of such stories escalate beyond counting, she is compelled by her humanity to try and do something to reunite separated families.
Emily Watson is perfectly cast as the social worker in the right place at the right moment of history. Humphreys is a quiet and humble woman whose inner strength is revealed and whose husband, Merv - superbly played by Richard Dillane - gives his wholehearted support, even though the work means frequent separation from him and their children.
Hugo Weaving is heartbreaking as the damaged Jack, who is reunited with his sister but wants most of all to discover his mother and David Wenham expands his already exceptionally diverse repertoire of characters as Len and burns himself into our psyche as another lost soul.
Loach holds the tone perfectly, production design takes us back to the mid-late 80s and the editing pulls everything into focus. Music is as restrained as the tone, with just a faint presence of Lisa Gerrard's contribution.
Oranges and Sunshine is a triumph of storytelling on screen and puts us through the emotional wringer - as it should.
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