• Entry type: Resource
  • Entry ID: AWH002457

Night Cries : A Rural Tragedy

  • Repository National Film and Sound Archive
  • Reference 524741
  • Date Range 1989 - 1989
  • Description

    A middle aged Aboriginal woman nurses her old white mother. During her tending of the old woman we feel her frustrations of duty, her suppressed anger, her own need for warmth and love, her personal loneliness. Her memories and dreams invade her nerve fraying routine until the old woman dies and we share the daughter’s immense sense of loss. Shot entirely in a studio, the power of the film lies in the artificially treated vibrantly coloured landscape and carefully constructed soundscape. The environment contributes another personality…an unbending, unchanging force. Inspired by ‘Jedda’, Moffatt resurrects the two primary characters and propels them 30 years into the future, transforming the relationship between child and mother into carer and invalid. — General note: Summary from http://www.chilifilms.com.au and ‘The Oxford Companion to Australian Films’. There is documentation associated with the production of the film held in the NFSA collection.

  • Access Restrictions may apply

Related entries


  • Primary Creator
    • Moffatt, Tracey (1960 - )
  • See also
    • Langton, Marcia Lynne (1951 - )