The travelling Big Screen Festival brought Balibo to Broken Hill, where director Robert Connolly discussed the responsibility of portraying the 1975 killings of five journalists in East Timor amid a renewed war crimes investigation.
PLAY AUDIO
Audio Script:
COUNTRY HOUR PRESENTER ANNABELLE HOMER: With the decline of drive-in theaters in regional areas it is harder to catch a flick on the big screen, but an initiative called the Big Screen Festival is changing that.
The festival travels through regional Australia with this year’s best flicks. The movie that kicked off the event in Broken Hill was Balibo, a film that traces the steps of six journalists who were murdered in East Timor while covering the Indonesian invasion in 1975.
In September this year, the Australian federal police announced a war crimes investigation into the deaths after years of accusations that the Australian government covered up the killings.
Nicky Redl caught up with the director and co-screenplay writer, Robert Connolly, who was in Broken Hill for the screening.
MOVIE AUDIO: What five journalists? These five journalists, not that your government gives a shit now they are missing.
(film music)
ROBERT CONNOLLY: The greatest experience of my film making career was going to Balibo and to recreate these scenes. I remember, one morning waking up and walking up to this 400-year-old Portuguese fort, where the journalists had filmed from, you know, and the sun was yet to break, and just waiting until there was enough light to film. It was a very magical experience.
NICKY REDL: What is the pressure like, doing a film on events that obviously have great political significance, that have been covered up over the years – what’s it’s like to make a film like that, knowing that the relatives of those men will be watching, and knowing that this is all still going on?
ROBERT CONNOLLY: Yes, it’s an incredible sense of responsibility that you feel as a film maker, dealing with real people, you know. And so we involved the families, and they met the actors that were playing their sons and husbands, and fathers. And the families were incredibly generous and incredibly helpful. And I think that made us lift the bar in making the film, especially in depicting the most contentious events – the murder of the men, and the invasion of Dili on December the 7th, 1975 … (continues)
Broadcast on ABC South Australia’s Country Hour in November 2009.