ORDINARY PEOPLE
Writer/director
Dr. Jennifer Rutherford
Producer
Martha Ansara
Film Australia Executive Producer
Stefan Moore
A FILM AUSTRALIA
NATIONAL INTEREST PROGRAM PRODUCED WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF
THE AUSTRALIAN FILM
COMMISSION, THE NEW SOUTH WALES FILM AND TELEVISION OFFICE AND THE AUSTRALIAN
BROADCASTING CORPORATION.
© Film Australia
ORDINARY PEOPLE
SYNOPSIS
Far right and
anti-immigration politics are on the rise worldwide. In Australia, as in many
other western countries, a new political force is drawing on the discontent of
those who feel excluded from the promised benefits of globalisation. Rejecting
the new world order and its transformation of their economies and cultures,
these people are convinced that traditional political parties no longer
represent them or their interests. They are desperate to make their voice
heard.
For Colene
Hughes and her supporters, Pauline HansonŐs One Nation Party initially appears
to offer a solution. It seems to promise true democracy, a way of knocking the
country back into shape - giving people like them some power again. However,
over time, their belief in the moral rightness of One Nation is confronted by
the realities of the partyŐs internal politics. Once Colene starts to question
the authoritarian control of the partyŐs executive members, the gloves come
off. At the annual general meeting, the two forces collide.
This revealing
documentary follows Colene through two years and two election campaigns as a
One Nation candidate in Ipswich, Queensland, heartland of One Nation. It
travels with her on the campaign trail as her idealistic fervour slowly turns
to disillusionment. It also gives the viewer an unparalleled look at One Nation
- from the inside. As the film takes us into homes, member gatherings, party
rallies, branch meetings and social events, we meet the "ordinary
people" who have flocked to Pauline HansonŐs call to save the nation and
we hear, in their own words, their grievances and aspirations.
ORDINARY PEOPLE
PRODUCTION STORY
How the film came to be made...
People who have never made a
film before donŐt know what they are getting themselves into. If they did,
theyŐd probably never begin. Fortunately for Ordinary People, Sydney academic Dr. Jennifer Rutherford didnŐt give
it a second thought. It seemed clear to her, as she was researching the
grassroots of Pauline HansonŐs One Nation for her new book, that someone ought
to be documenting what she saw.
So, in June and October
1998, Rutherford and her friends, using non-professional camera gear, filmed in
the homes, meetings and events of One NationŐs heartland, Ipswich Queensland.
They filmed people and places which were closed to the hostile professional
media. As Rutherford told the One Nation people, she merely wanted to listen
rather than rush to judgment, to let the members speak for themselves. She
wanted to find out why this movement had erupted, so suddenly and unexpectedly
in Australia, and what it shared with other such movements which were appearing
in Europe and the United States. She shot reel after reel of video material,
both of One Nation supporters and of the local Ipswich groups who were opposing
them.
Later, back in Sydney with
her mass of videotapes, Rutherford discovered just
how difficult it could be to obtain documentary finance. Then she met
filmmaker Kit Guyatt, himself an ex-Queenslander. Rutherford showed Guyatt the
best of her material and together they made a showreel. It soon became clear
that some of the One Nation members Rutherford had filmed were extraordinary
characters in their own right. They decided to film more material of these
people and, in early 1999, followed Colene Hughes to the One Nation Annual
General meeting in Sydney, capturing her disagreements with the leadership of
One Nation and her growing disenchantment with the movement.
With Guyatt doing the
filming, it was clear that this project could now be a fascinating film. Using
the new material, they found a producer in GuyattŐs long-time colleague - and
experienced documentary filmmaker - Martha Ansara. Ansara, disturbed by the
simplistic nature of the debate on One Nation, welcomed RutherfordŐs promise of
a more thoughtful approach. And together the three set out to raise money to
complete the film.
In making this
sort of open-ended documentary, the filmed material inevitably takes on a life
of its own. The team decided that Ordinary People would revolve around Colene Hughes and
her journey through One Nation. At the end of 1999 they obtained support for
the project from the Australian Film Commission. However, with the necessity of
the filmmakers maintaining other jobs, progress was slow. Rutherford kept in
touch with the One Nation people and organised several follow-up filming trips
to Ipswich over the following year. Scott Balson, ex-One Nation webmaster, and
a skilled photographer, provided stills for the informational montages which
now punctuate the film.
By early 2001, Ordinary
People had close to
a final structure but the project still had a number of production steps to go.
The team decided to approach Film Australia to see if the program could be
completed under its National Interest Program. Stefan Moore, an executive
producer at Film Australia, realised that while Ordinary People had been developed through a very
unusual production path it offered a chronicle of grassroots politics and of
people who rarely figure in Australian social documentary. Film Australia agreed to buy out the
investment of the AFC, garner the support of the NSWFTO and take executive
responsibility for taking the film through to completion.
At the end of June,
experienced producer/editor Denise Haslem joined the team in a supervisory
position and the filmmakers moved over to Film Australia's production offices.
Within a few months Ordinary People was ready for broadcast on the ABC.
It has been a
long journey, and while Dr. Jennifer Rutherford may some day make another film,
for now, she is focussing her energies on completing the book on One Nation
that she began researching in 1998.
ORDINARY PEOPLE
BIOGRAPHIES
Dr.
Jennifer Rutherford - Writer/director
Dr. Jennifer Rutherford
holds a Ph.D. in Sociology and Social Anthropology from the University of New
South Wales and has published extensively on racism, nationalism and Australian
culture. She was foundation convenor of the Australian Studies Program at the
Australian National University from 1994 to 1998, a Research Fellow in the
School of Cultural Studies and Critical Theory at Macquarie University from
1998 to 2001 and is currently Research Fellow at the University of SydneyŐs
Department of English, Art History, Media and Film. Dr. Rutherford undertook
graduate studies at the Ecole Des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris
where she completed a D.E.A in the Sciences of Language and has studied and
trained in psychoanalysis at LŐHopital de Ste Ann, Paris, and with the Ecole de
la Cause Freudienne. Dr Rutherford is the author of The Gauche Intruder:
Freud, Lacan and the Australian Good
(Melbourne University Press) and is currently writing a book on the One Nation
movement.
Martha Ansara -
Producer
Kit
Guyatt - Editor
Kit was born in Queensland
and moved to Sydney as a young production assistant with Film Australia. His
first film, Great Barrier Reef,
won the documentary prize at the 1968 Chicago International Film Festival and
launched his career as a director and editor. Leaving Film Australia in the
1970s, he worked freelance for such organisations as the BBC, ABC, Australian
Religious Film Society, National Catholic Radio and Television Centre, and the
Arts Council of Australia. As well as producing and directing his own films,
Kit has worked with such directors as Phil Noyce, Tom Cowan, Gillian Armstrong
and Richard Mason, editing shorts, documentaries and feature films.
After a move to the country,
Kit ran a small farm while continuing production work on a selective basis. He
now operates a fully equipped non-linear editing facility from his property
south of Moss Vale.
Kit returned to media work
in the 1990s, and now edits, directs and produces corporate films and
documentaries. He recently edited I Cover the Waterfront (Dir Sylvie le Clezio) for SBS Independent. He has
worked as associate producer and editor with Martha Ansara on such films as My
Survival as an Aboriginal
(documentary, 1978), The
Pursuit of Happiness (feature, 1987)
and My Life as I Live It
(documentary, 1994). These films have been successfully sold to television in
Australia and overseas.
Denise Haslem -
Consultant Producer
Denise Haslem is a producer and editor with over 20 years'
experience in the film and television industry. Her editing credits include
many award-winning programs such as Custody, My Life Without Steve, Canto a
la Vida, The Night Belongs to the Novelist, Six Pack, Admission Impossible,
Australia Daze, For All The World To See, The Opposite Sex, Aeroplane Dance,
Mystique of the Pearl, Hatred, Our Park and Tosca - a Tale of Love and Torture.
She produced and edited the
award-winning Mabo - Life of an Island Man and has also produced DOC - A Portrait of Herbert Vere Evatt, A Calcutta Christmas and co-produced Risky Business and Steel City.
In 1998-99 she was the
President of Australian Screen Editors (ASE), the guild devoted to protecting,
promoting and improving the role of the editor.