March 15th: BEDEVIL (Tracey Moffat, 1993)
A trio of ghost stories set in Australian Aboriginal culture.
Tracey Moffat was born in Brisbane, Australia, of Aboriginal descent but raised by white parents. After graduating from the Queensland College of Art, she worked in photography as well as experimental film/video. She had a major breakthrough in 1989, both with her photo series Something more as well as her short film Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy, the latter selected for official competition at the Cannes Film Festival.
In 1993, Moffat embarked on her most ambitious project to date, a film which would become the first feature directed by an Aboriginal woman. Drawing from her culture's folklore, her own personal history, and the tragic history of Australia's "Stolen Generation" of Aboriginal children taken from their families and given to whites, she crafted three stories in a genre setting.
As with her work on Night Cries, Moffat goes for a soundstage look of artificiality, despite being shot on location in Charleville and Bribie Island, both in Queensland. The surreal sets by production designer Stephen Curtis and photography by Geoff Burton (Sirens, Flirting) highlight bold colors reminiscent of classic Technicolor.
Found within is an exploration of oral histories via multiple and possibly unreliable narrators, and the intertextuality of the stories based on national cinema and other outside influences. More specifically looking at her own identity as a woman and the identity of Aboriginal women within their culture.
The film premiered in the Un certain regard lineup at Cannes, and also played at the Toronto Film Festival. Despite receiving high praise from certain corners, Moffat never made another feature, focusing once again on photography and shorts, and reached international recognition with works held by the Tate Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles.
Running time is 90 minutes.
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