Memory Film: A Filmmaker's Diary - Revelation Film Festival

Constructed from decades’ worth of home movies Jeni (Maidens, To the Other Shore, Island Home Country) Thornley’s Memory Film: a filmmaker’s diary is a moving exploration of a life lived.

Super 8 footage of political campaigns – the Aboriginal Tent Embassy, the growth of radical feminism in Australia – is edited into scenes documenting daily life.

In Thornley’s film the personal is political.

In part this is a film that recalls the diary works of underground filmmaker Jonas Mekas, these are scenes that document events unfolding, edited together, and it is later meanings emerge as the poetry and rhythm of images develops.

Drawing on the inspiration of Japanese death poets, a tradition in which elders write poems about the transience of life as a legacy to their children, there is something exceptional about this documentary.

“Memory Film is a meditative experience, one that embraces Jeni’s ability to reflect on her past and the legacy that she has helped instil in her own family. Yet, it equally encourages the audience to reflect on their own heritage and legacy, and in a considerate and rather tender manner…” – Andrew Pierce, The Curb