A snapshot of independent filmmaking from the 1950s will be showcased in Sydney this month, after being digitally restored by the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA).
Eleven documentary films from the Waterside Workers Federation Film Unit will screen at Cinema Reborn Festival ahead of International Worker’s Day on May 1.
Created in 1953 by wharfies Keith Gow, Jock Levy, and Norma Disher, the film unit used the medium to campaign for pensions, workers’ rights, housing shortages, workers’ health and safety, and the 1954 waterfront strike.
Using a customized Kombi van with rear projection as both a production vehicle and for screening their films at work sites, the group traveled to unions, community halls and clubs, private homes, and the streets to present the films. Their productions were seen as an alternative source of media at a time when Cold War propaganda was prevalent.
The remastering of the productions coincides with the 150th anniversary of the Waterside Workers Federation’s formation, which is now known as the Maritime Union of Australia.
NFSA chief curator Gayle Lake said the organisation was pleased to have supported such historically significant works.
“The films occupy a prominent position within the history of independent filmmaking in Australia and we are delighted to have played our part in the preservation of this very important material,” she said.
Disher, who is nearing one hundred years old, said the unit’s early productions came at pivotal time, both domestically and internationally.
“It was the period of the Cold War, and I was already involved with progressive theatre with Keith Gow and Jock Levy at New Theatre,” she said.
“They were making a film down on the waterfront to support a campaign for pensions for wharfie veterans, they asked me to help them, and I wanted to support this cause.”
The films are set to screen alongside John Hughes’ documentary Film-Work (1981), a 43-minute exploration of the Film Unit.
Filmmaker and Cinema Reborn session programmer, Margot Nash, said that in making films about working-class issues for working-class people, the Film Unit showed a “rare cinematic and dramatic flair that was unusual for the time”.
The Cinema Reborn Festival will be held at Sydney’s Ritz Cinemas Randwick from April 27 to May 3.