Matildas: The World at Our Feet, a documentary about the Australian women’s soccer team

Showing all posts tagged: Australia

Matildas: The World at Our Feet, a documentary about the Australian women’s soccer team

18 August 2023

The Matildas, the Australian women’s soccer (football) team, had a stellar run during the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, hosted by Australia and New Zealand. While they didn’t make it to the final, their passion to succeed won them legions of new fans in Australia, and I dare say, further afield.

The Tillies, as they’re known to some followers, play one last match against Sweden on Saturday 19 August 2023, to determine who wins the 2023 tournament’s bronze medal. Whatever the outcome — whether they are placed third or fourth — 2023 will be Matildas’ best ever result in a World Cup.

If you’d like to learn more about the Matildas, its members, and their 2023 campaign, then the Disney produced documentary, Matildas: The World at Our Feet, trailer, comes highly recommended. I have it on good authority that a New Zealand sports lover became a Matildas fan after seeing this show.

What more can I say?

How to define Australian food, if that is possible

15 July 2023

Australian food critic Besha Rodell, writing for The Sydney Morning Herald:

What is Australian food? Is there even any such thing? These are questions I’ve been pondering, researching and, at times, vigorously debating, for decades. We are not Europe. We are not Japan or Korea. Aside from the food of our incredibly diverse — and until recently, often ignored — First Nations cultures, we do not have thousands of years of edible history to draw upon and call our own. This makes the question harder to answer, but it also frees us from some of the bonds that tradition can impose.

I was once part of a community of design creatives called the Australian Infront, where all of these thoughts and questions were raised, except we were discussing design not food.

The group’s objective was to elevate the perception of Australian web design, as we felt the work of local designers was being overshadowed by designers, well, everywhere, but especially in North America and Europe. But we spent a lot of time trying to figure out what exactly Australian web design was, while also working out what it meant to be Australian.

Perhaps we should have framed the question/s from a food perspective instead.

RELATED CONTENT

Australia, design, food

Bryan Brown: Australian stories need streaming service quotas

14 July 2023

Australian actor Bryan Brown, speaking at the National Press Club this week, has joined calls for content quotas to be imposed on shows broadcast by streaming services in Australia. Local content quotas have been on the agenda for some time now, and are something Australian federal arts minister Tony Burke believes are necessary to support the Australian arts sector.

Australians spend billions of dollars on streaming services every year, and Brown thinks some of that money should be invested into stories that are about Australia, not just stories set locally:

What we are saying is that a percentage of that two billion bucks should go back into being stories that are actually about Australia. That are Australian stories, not just stories that are set in Australia with, in the main, American accents. With that extra money that we can get from the streamers, allows us more time to develop, allows us more time to be able to shoot, therefore allows us to make our shows reach the great heights that we want them to be.

In response, Bridget Fair, of FreeTV Australia, an advocate body representing local free-to-air television broadcasters, expressed concerns that quotas could drive up production costs:

The Australian screen sector is booming. With independent data from Screen Australia and the Australian Bureau of Statistics showing that there is more production in this country right now than ever before, the Government needs to be very clear on what problem it is trying to solve. Simply adding fuel to an already raging fire of cost escalation in the production sector will have a significant impact on the ability of Australian broadcasters to continue to deliver the Australian programming that our community relies on.

It’s a hoary old chestnut, but quotas, if not applied correctly, have the potential to back fire. Aiming to have twenty-percent of shows seen on streaming services that are about Australia, made in Australia, is admirable, but not if the results are poor quality stories.

The Man Who Invented Vegemite, a book by Jamie Callister

21 June 2023

The Man Who Invented Vegemite, by Jamie Callister, book cover

Book cover of The Man Who Invented Vegemite, written by >Jamie Callister.

Strewth, it’s been one hundred years since Australia’s favourite yeast extract, Vegemite, hit the shelves of grocery shops. Although similar (sort of…) to Marmite, which came along in 1902, Vegemite was developed by Cyril Callister, a Melbourne chemist and food technologist in 1922.

In 2012, Jamie Callister, the grandson of Cyril wrote a book, The Man Who Invented Vegemite, to mark what would have been the ninetieth anniversary of Vegemite. And now, ten years later, it looks like the book has been republished to commemorate a century of the viscous, dark brown — and might I add — delicious, spread’s presence in the world.

The Last Daughter a film by Nathaniel Schmidt, Brenda Matthews

21 June 2023

For decades until the 1970’s, some Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children were forcibly removed from their families by successive Australian governments. These children became known as the Stolen Generations. Indigenous woman Brenda Matthews was taken from her family aged two, and placed in the care of a white family.

Matthews was later returned to her birth family after her biological mother regained custody of her. The The Last Daughter, trailer, a documentary which Matthews co-directs with Nathaniel Schmidt, recounts her story as she attempts to trace her adoptive, loving, white foster family, while learning more about her Indigenous family.

The Last Daughter is presently screening in selected Australian cinemas.

The Voice to Parliament Handbook, what an Indigenous voice means

21 June 2023

Australians will be participating in a referendum sometime in the next six months to decide whether a change should be made to the constitution, to create an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Such a Voice would take the form of an independent body made up of Indigenous Australians.

Delegates of this body, who would not be elected members of parliament, would be tasked with advising the Australian government and parliament on matters pertaining to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. Their input however would not be binding.

Changes to the Australian constitution are never simple or straightforward. The process, and discussion, involved in making amendments, can be confusing and unsettling. To better understand the purpose of the Voice, and what it means, Hardie Grant have published a book called The Voice to Parliament Handbook.

Written by Thomas Mayo, a Torres Strait Islander, and Uluṟu Statement advocate, and journalist Kerry O’Brien, with illustrations by cartoonist Cathy Wilcox, the handbook aims to answer some of the more commonly asked questions about an Indigenous Voice to the Australian parliament:

A handy tool for people inclined to support a ‘yes’ vote in the referendum, The Voice to Parliament Handbook reflects on this historic opportunity for genuine reconciliation, to right the wrongs and heal the ruptured soul of a nation. This guide offers simple explanations, useful anecdotes, historic analogies and visual representations, so you can share it among friends, family and community networks in the build-up to the referendum.

Australian Glenn Homann wins 2022 mobile photography award

14 April 2023

Brisbane based Australian photographer Glenn Homann has been named the 2022 Grand Prize winner in the twelfth annual Mobile Photography Awards, with a portrait titled “Old Mate”.

Glenn Homann’s mobile photography is remarkable on so many levels. He takes us with him through a broad sweep of genres with particular mastery of light & shape, character & narrative. From landscapes to architecture, portraits & street photography, Glenn repeatedly locates the visual ephemera at the intersection of geometry & color.

Before I actually read who the winner was, I speculated they might be Australian, after spotting the photo title, old mate.

RELATED CONTENT

Australia, photography, technology

Trove receives funding to continue ongoing operation

4 April 2023

Trove, Australia’s online library database of historical and cultural documents, which is operated by the National Library of Australia, has received a new round of funding from the Australian federal government. The move ends months of uncertainty that had been shrouding Trove’s future:

The National Library of Australia welcomes the commitment made by the Albanese Government to provide $33m over the next 4 years to maintain Trove, with $9.2m ongoing and indexed funding from July 2027. We are delighted that Trove’s future has been secured.

Sally Rooney on the hardships facing renters in Ireland

25 March 2023

Irish author Sally Rooney, writing for The Irish Times, about the end of an eviction moratorium that may render many people homeless:

The wave of evictions expected to begin from the end of this month is not merely theoretical: we already know that during the period of the ban, tenants in the State sought advice on roughly 1,500 new eviction notices. In a few weeks’ time, if the Government does not reverse course, these evictions will be eligible to proceed. Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien has even publicly accepted that homelessness will “very possibly” increase when the moratorium comes to an end.

While the situation is different, the outlook for residential renters in Australia is likewise challenging. In January 2023, vacancy rates nationwide were just 0.8 percent. In some centres — Perth and Adelaide — vacancy rates were 0.3 percent, which might as well mean there are next to no residential properties available to rent.

RELATED CONTENT

Australia, economics, Sally Rooney

Birrarangga Film Festival a global Indigenous film event

22 March 2023

Birrarangga Film Festival poster, by Aretha Brown

Artwork by Aretha Brown.

The biennial Birrarangga Film Festival runs from Thursday 23 March, through to Tuesday 28 March 2023, in Melbourne:

BIRRARANGGA Film Festival celebrates Global Indigenous Films that explore the curatorial themes of ‘strength, resilience and the environment’. First Nations relationships to the image as a form of expression, particularly in Australia, is connected to thousands of years of cultural practices. This festival honours that history and acknowledges the contemporary currency of the moving image, of film, as an expression of the human experience in relation to our natural surroundings.

The festival opens with a screening of Bones of Crows, directed by Canadian screenwriter and filmmaker Marie Clements.

« older posts

newer posts »