‘Memory Film’ is an immersive poetic documentary based on filmmaker Jeni Thornley’s Super 8 archive (1974-2003), filmed during the decades of her personal and political filmmaking while producing ‘Maidens’, ‘To the Other Shore’, ‘Island Home Country’ and the collaborative feature documentary ‘For Love or Money’. ‘Memory Film’ documents three decades of activism and filmmaking amidst the dynamic politics of women’s liberation and social change. ‘Memory Film’ is also a road movie of an inner journey of liberation – gender fluidity, love and its tribulations, the pleasure and pain of motherhood, violence against women and the desire for a world free of war and colonising. Quotes by poets and writers infuse the film, including Kate Jennings, Monique Wittig, Svetlana Alexievich, The Three Marias, Sylvia Plath, Basho, Rumi and First Nations artists Karla Dickens, Bobby McLeod and Puralia Jim Everett. Guiding the filmmaking is the tradition of ‘Japanese death poetry’ – poems about the transience of life and the inevitable passing of all things – a ‘farewell poem to life’ (jisei). ‘Memory Film’ is a visual poem, completed in June 2023. Thanks to Tom Zubrycki CO-PRODUCER, Lindi Harrison EDITOR (ASE), Joseph Tawadros COMPOSER, Tristan Meredith SOUND DESIGNER and Nick Hower COLOURIST. Post production, POSTLAB IO (Vic). ‘Memory Film’ was produced by JOTZ and Anandi Films with the assistance of the Melbourne International Film Festival Premiere Fund, Screen Australia (PEP); NFSA, UTS Media Lab, plus generous donors via Documentary Australia and a grant from Lesbians Inc. We are now in the exhibition and distribution phase with Antidote Films (Gil Scrine), The Education Shop (with ‘Memory Film’ ATOM Study Guide), SBS On Demand and Documentary Australia’s DocAccess initiative. We welcome your donations for this phase!
Jeni Thornley is a documentary filmmaker, writer and film valuer. Her distinctive, poetic, award winning films, ‘Maidens’, ‘To the Other Shore’, ‘Island Home Country’ and collaborative documentary ‘For Love or Money,’ have screened widely in Australia and internationally, ABC TV and SBS and stream online via Beamafilm and Ronin Films. Jeni was a pioneering member of the Sydney Women’s Film Group, Feminist Film Workers and co-national coordinator of the Int Women’s Film Festival, 1975. She worked in film distribution and exhibition at the Sydney Filmmakers Coop, collaborated and acted in independent films and worked in the industry as a camera assistant and script editor. She served terms as Manager of the Women’s Film Fund and as an assessor and coordinator of the Documentary Development Program at
the AFC (Screen Australia). Jeni lectured in documentary at UTS from 2002-2013 and completed her doctorate. She is a Visiting Scholar in Communication, UTS and writes about film regularly.
