Press release from Claire Harris
Love Lust & Lies is the fifth film in the documentary series Armstrong has been making about the lives, hopes and dreams of three lively, working class Adelaide girls since they were 14 in 1976. Over more than thirty years, Kerry, Josie and Diana’s struggles have captured the hearts of audiences.
The series began with Smokes and Lollies in 1976 (at age 14), continued in 1980 with 14’s Good 18’s Better (at age 18), then with Bingo Bridesmaids and Braces in 1988 (at age 26). In 1996 Not Fourteen Again focussed on the then 33 year-old mothers and their teenage daughters Rebecca, Wendy and Amy.
Each has been a landmark film, with the feature length Not Fourteen Again premiering at the 1996 Berlin Film Festival and winning the AFI Award for Best Documentary the same year.
Love Lust & Lies has been a very personal project for Armstrong who has developed a strong connection with her characters over the years: “Their
stories resonate with bigger questions about our own lives and the choices we’re guided by. Themes of growing up, sexuality, marriage, parenting and ageing. We too have hopes and dreams for our children that ultimately we cannot control and we too are facing our own mortality.”
Armstrong brings her substantial experience as a feature film director to this latest documentary: “I realise I could have filmed anybody’s life – mine, yours or the girl next door. In everybody’s ordinary life there are dramas. Ask anybody about their family and it’s likely they have some hidden family
skeleton. Because real life is full of secrets and stories.”
Armstrong graduated from the Australian Film and Television School in 1973. She garnered international attention for her debut feature, My Brilliant Career (1979). Her feature credits include Star Struck, Mrs Soffel, High Tide, The Last Days of Chez Nous, Little Women, Oscar & Lucinda, Charlotte Gray and Death Defying Acts. As well she directed the highly acclaimed feature documentary Unfolding Florence: the Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst, released in 2006.
Armstrong’s films have screened at the Berlin, Cannes and Sundance Film Festivals. She has been nominated for Academy and Golden Globe Awards and received awards from the AFI, Film Critics Circle of Australia, Houston Film Festival, Festival International de Creteil, US National Society of Film Critics, British Critics Association and the British Academy. She has received an AM for services to the Australian Film Industry and the Hollywood Crystal Award for Women in Film.