‘FORMIDABLE WOMEN’ is a feature-length documentary about two remarkable women, Oral Historian Wendy Lowenstein and her best friend, traditional dance historian, bio-chemist & indigenous rights Activist, Shirley Andrews OAM. Lifelong militant activists, their pioneering contributions to the creation of Australia’s national folk and oral history movement is profound. The film recounts both women’s formative years of involvement in Melbourne’s New Theatre and the Eureka Youth League as they struggled against the conservative attitudes of the time and society’s expectations of women in the years after WW2. While working at the CSIRO, Shirley was subject to ASIO surveillance due to her romantic relationship with a known member of the Communist Party of Australia, and her employment was terminated. Wendy married a German-Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany recently arrived on the infamous prison ship, the HMT Dunera. Whilst raising a young family, Wendy became a founding member of the Folklore Society Victoria who began the collection of Australian folk songs, dances and poems, and both women went on to have pivotal roles setting up and organising the First National Folk Festival in 1967. Shirley was a founding member of the Council for Aboriginal Rights with a major role in advocating for the 1967 referendum for indigenous peoples to be included as part of the Australian population. In 1969, Wendy packed her husband and three children into a four-wheel-drive land-cruiser, and left her comfortable middle-class home to spend a year circumnavigating the nation collecting stories, anecdotes, songs and oral histories from a uniquely diverse range of informants whilst writing regularly to Shirley. Her recordings include the first known recordings of contemporary indigenous songs from North Western Australia. Shirley went on to author the definitive record of traditional Australian folk dance entitled, ‘Take Your Partners’ and was awarded the Order of Australia (OAM) in 1994. Wendy authored numerous books of oral histories, including her iconic oral history of the Great Depression, ‘Weevils In The Flour’, as well as ‘The Immigrants’, ‘Cinderella Dressed in Yella’, ‘Under the Hook’, and ‘Weevils at Work’ in 1997.
RICHARD LOWENSTEIN has produced, written and directed the dramatic feature films, STRIKEBOUND, DOGS IN SPACE, SAY A LITTLE PRAYER & HE DIED WITH A FELAFEL IN HIS HAND, and the feature documentaries AUTOLUMINESCENT: ROWLAND S. HOWARD, WE’RE LIVIN’ ON DOG FOOD, ECCO HOMO and MYSTIFY: MICHAEL HUTCHENCE along with producing the 2015 feature documentary IN BOB WE TRUST. He is a partner in the Melbourne-based production company GHOST PICTURES and the production company FANDANGO AUSTRALIA with producers Domenico Procacci and Sue Murray. He currently developing a scripted drama series ‘THE EXPERIMENT’ as co-production with FANDANGO ITALY producers of HBO’s hit TV series MY BRILLIANT FRIEND.
