IN SEARCH OF ANNA (ESBEN STORM, 1978)
Randwick Ritz, Sydney:
7:00 PM
Monday 04 May
Lido Cinemas, Melbourne:
8:25 PM
Monday 11 May
Rating: M
Duration: 91 minutes
Country: Australia
Language: English
Cast: Richard Moir, Judy Morris, Chris Haywood, Bill Hunter
SYDNEY TICKETS ⟶
MELBOURNE TICKETS ⟶
7:00 PM
Monday 04 May
Lido Cinemas, Melbourne:
8:25 PM
Monday 11 May
Rating: M
Duration: 91 minutes
Country: Australia
Language: English
Cast: Richard Moir, Judy Morris, Chris Haywood, Bill Hunter
SYDNEY TICKETS ⟶
MELBOURNE TICKETS ⟶
4K RESTORATION – AUSTRALIAN PREMIERE
‘An ambitious and courageous film about contemporary Australia … attempts to penetrate the more superficial levels of characterization and human motivation, and in so doing shows a compassion that is often missing in Australian feature films.’ – Barbara Boyd, Cinema Papers
Fresh out of prison in Melbourne, Tony (Richard Moir) is keen to stay out of trouble, but his former criminal associates reckon he owes them money. Venturing north to Sydney in the hope of outrunning them and tracking down an old girlfriend, he gets picked up by Sam (Judy Morris), who introduces him to an entirely different scene – but even as his quest continues further north to Queensland, trouble is never far behind.
The second feature by Esben Storm, one of the most interesting and underrated Australian filmmakers of the 1970s, incorporates a formidable soundtrack of classic Aussie rock hits and a decidedly innovative approach to image and sound. Nominated for six AFI Awards and taking home the prize for Best Original Screenplay, this unsung classic of the Australian Film Revival can finally be encountered the way it was meant to be seen.
Introduced by Haydn Keenan at Ritz Cinemas and John Ruane at Lido Cinemas.
‘An ambitious and courageous film about contemporary Australia … attempts to penetrate the more superficial levels of characterization and human motivation, and in so doing shows a compassion that is often missing in Australian feature films.’ – Barbara Boyd, Cinema Papers
Fresh out of prison in Melbourne, Tony (Richard Moir) is keen to stay out of trouble, but his former criminal associates reckon he owes them money. Venturing north to Sydney in the hope of outrunning them and tracking down an old girlfriend, he gets picked up by Sam (Judy Morris), who introduces him to an entirely different scene – but even as his quest continues further north to Queensland, trouble is never far behind.
The second feature by Esben Storm, one of the most interesting and underrated Australian filmmakers of the 1970s, incorporates a formidable soundtrack of classic Aussie rock hits and a decidedly innovative approach to image and sound. Nominated for six AFI Awards and taking home the prize for Best Original Screenplay, this unsung classic of the Australian Film Revival can finally be encountered the way it was meant to be seen.
Introduced by Haydn Keenan at Ritz Cinemas and John Ruane at Lido Cinemas.
FILM NOTES
By Anna Dzenis
By Anna Dzenis
Anna Dzenis is an Adjunct Research Fellow in Screen Studies at La Trobe University. She is the co-editor of the online journal Screening the Past.
A memorable, muted colour photograph taken by Carol Jerrems titled ‘Mirror with a Memory: Motel Room’ (1977) is a mirror self-portrait of her and her boyfriend at the time, Esben Storm. The mirror reframes a naked Jerrems with her camera and Esben, who appears preoccupied talking on the phone. The portrait was taken in a motel room in Queensland when Jerrems was working as a stills photographer on the feature film, In Search of Anna, that Storm was making.
This portrait, and a selection of stills taken by Jerrems during the production, are part of the larger image repertoire of this film, in which the still photographic image and the cinematic work intersect. It is through these photo-filmic elements that we can engage with In Search of Anna, a visually compelling film in which photographs dominate the materiality of its world and are visual markers of the way the past informs the present.
Esben Storm wrote, directed and produced In Search of Anna. He was born in Denmark and his European origins contributed to his feelings of being an outsider in Australia, although he later came to be part of a small milieu of European émigré art house filmmakers, such as Paul Cox. The theme of outsiders, and invocations of European filmmakers, recur throughout his cinematic oeuvre.
In the 1970s Storm and his high school friend Haydn Keenan established their own production company, Smart Street Films, and produced Storm’s first feature film 27A (1974). It told the true story of an imprisoned alcoholic man (Robert McDarra) who requested to be moved to a hospital for the criminally insane. However, he didn’t realise that, under Section 27A of the Queensland Mental Health Act, he could be detained indefinitely. Shot in a semi-documentary style and influenced by the social realist films of Ken Loach, 27A won several Australian film awards and some prize money that contributed to the production of his second feature film, In Search of Anna.
The original vision for In Search of Anna was a 13-part TV series about a young man who leaves home in search of the elusive Anna. Storm adapted the idea, writing a script for a feature film.
In Search of Anna is a complex hybrid film, a combination of road movie and art film, set in 1970s Australian urban culture. It was made during the period sometimes called the Australian New Wave, when government funding endeavoured to foster a uniquely Australian voice in cinema. Scott Murray (Australian Cinema, 1994) describes the 1970s as a period dominated by several film genres, ‘sex comedies’, ‘ocker comedies’ and ‘period films’. Murray mentions Storm’s films In Search of Anna and 27A (1974) as films that belong to a category he calls ‘other films of the 1970s,’ films and filmmakers whose work sits outside usual categorisations and can loosely be referred to as “alternative.”
Critic / curator Paul Byrnes describes In Search of Anna as ‘somewhere between the breezy, rock 'n’ roll aesthetics of Chris Lofven’s trippy Oz (1976) and the more rigorous and demanding formal experiments of Albie Thoms’ Palm Beach (1980) (Byrne, NFSA). Storm spoke about his desire to make ‘a realistic film about coming to terms with one’s past and present.’ He said he was interested in telling a story that rejected ‘the negativity of my generation’ (Storm, 1977).
The story starts with Tony (Richard Moir), who has just been released from prison after serving a six-year sentence for armed robbery. He tries to pick up the threads of his past life, contacting his reclusive Greek father, confronting his mother’s suicide, and meeting his old friend Jerry (Chris Haywood). After a number of harrowing confrontations with his father and with Jerry, Tony decides to hitchhike to Sydney in search of his former girlfriend, Anna. With his dog Billy he hitches a ride with the free-spirited Sam (Judy Morris) in her 38 Buick.
Filmed over seven weeks on the road from Melbourne through Sydney to Queensland, the filmmaker and his crew travelled this route immersed in their characters. As we watch Sam and Tony on their trip, we see the landscape transform from Melbourne’s working class suburbs and industrial wastelands to Sydney’s narrow streets, terrace houses and shadowy walkways, from cliff-face highways and stretches of ocean to the lush foliage of the tropical North. The east coast of Australia becomes a moving cinematic panorama that transforms Sam and Tony’s journey north as they reveal themselves and their closeness grows.
While much of the film takes place on the road and inside the car, key scenes include photographic images as visual traces of the past and of future possibilities. When Tony returns to his family home, we see black-and-white photos of his parents on the mantelpiece: classic wedding portraits, mementos of wished-for loving relationships, but now only memories of his mother. There are moments, talking to his father, when Tony is framed by these photos, followed by moments when, in despair, he attempts to smash these framed mementos. In the Sydney house of Sam’s boyfriend Peter (Bill Hunter) there are many stylised artistic black and white photographs of Sam hung on the walls. In formally experimental staged scenes, these photographs punctuate a conversation or an exchange, montages of still photographic images embedded in a moving image sequence. The photographs are evidence of Sam’s career as a model, but in the way Storm films them they also pose questions about the power and meaning of photographic images.
When Sam decides to break up with Peter and continue on her road trip with Tony to Queensland, they visit Peter in his studio where a photographer is photographing a semi-naked model in an aggressive bombastic way reminiscent of David Bailey photographing Veruschka in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966). I’m guessing the reference is intentional. I’m also reminded of Victor Burgin’s concept of ‘cinematic heterotopia’: the way our experience of a film is composed of multiple interfaces and viewing engagements. The photographs of Carol Jerrems and the films of Antonioni are some of the many image fragments that influence, frame and contribute to In Search of Anna.
This portrait, and a selection of stills taken by Jerrems during the production, are part of the larger image repertoire of this film, in which the still photographic image and the cinematic work intersect. It is through these photo-filmic elements that we can engage with In Search of Anna, a visually compelling film in which photographs dominate the materiality of its world and are visual markers of the way the past informs the present.
Esben Storm wrote, directed and produced In Search of Anna. He was born in Denmark and his European origins contributed to his feelings of being an outsider in Australia, although he later came to be part of a small milieu of European émigré art house filmmakers, such as Paul Cox. The theme of outsiders, and invocations of European filmmakers, recur throughout his cinematic oeuvre.
In the 1970s Storm and his high school friend Haydn Keenan established their own production company, Smart Street Films, and produced Storm’s first feature film 27A (1974). It told the true story of an imprisoned alcoholic man (Robert McDarra) who requested to be moved to a hospital for the criminally insane. However, he didn’t realise that, under Section 27A of the Queensland Mental Health Act, he could be detained indefinitely. Shot in a semi-documentary style and influenced by the social realist films of Ken Loach, 27A won several Australian film awards and some prize money that contributed to the production of his second feature film, In Search of Anna.
The original vision for In Search of Anna was a 13-part TV series about a young man who leaves home in search of the elusive Anna. Storm adapted the idea, writing a script for a feature film.
In Search of Anna is a complex hybrid film, a combination of road movie and art film, set in 1970s Australian urban culture. It was made during the period sometimes called the Australian New Wave, when government funding endeavoured to foster a uniquely Australian voice in cinema. Scott Murray (Australian Cinema, 1994) describes the 1970s as a period dominated by several film genres, ‘sex comedies’, ‘ocker comedies’ and ‘period films’. Murray mentions Storm’s films In Search of Anna and 27A (1974) as films that belong to a category he calls ‘other films of the 1970s,’ films and filmmakers whose work sits outside usual categorisations and can loosely be referred to as “alternative.”
Critic / curator Paul Byrnes describes In Search of Anna as ‘somewhere between the breezy, rock 'n’ roll aesthetics of Chris Lofven’s trippy Oz (1976) and the more rigorous and demanding formal experiments of Albie Thoms’ Palm Beach (1980) (Byrne, NFSA). Storm spoke about his desire to make ‘a realistic film about coming to terms with one’s past and present.’ He said he was interested in telling a story that rejected ‘the negativity of my generation’ (Storm, 1977).
The story starts with Tony (Richard Moir), who has just been released from prison after serving a six-year sentence for armed robbery. He tries to pick up the threads of his past life, contacting his reclusive Greek father, confronting his mother’s suicide, and meeting his old friend Jerry (Chris Haywood). After a number of harrowing confrontations with his father and with Jerry, Tony decides to hitchhike to Sydney in search of his former girlfriend, Anna. With his dog Billy he hitches a ride with the free-spirited Sam (Judy Morris) in her 38 Buick.
Filmed over seven weeks on the road from Melbourne through Sydney to Queensland, the filmmaker and his crew travelled this route immersed in their characters. As we watch Sam and Tony on their trip, we see the landscape transform from Melbourne’s working class suburbs and industrial wastelands to Sydney’s narrow streets, terrace houses and shadowy walkways, from cliff-face highways and stretches of ocean to the lush foliage of the tropical North. The east coast of Australia becomes a moving cinematic panorama that transforms Sam and Tony’s journey north as they reveal themselves and their closeness grows.
While much of the film takes place on the road and inside the car, key scenes include photographic images as visual traces of the past and of future possibilities. When Tony returns to his family home, we see black-and-white photos of his parents on the mantelpiece: classic wedding portraits, mementos of wished-for loving relationships, but now only memories of his mother. There are moments, talking to his father, when Tony is framed by these photos, followed by moments when, in despair, he attempts to smash these framed mementos. In the Sydney house of Sam’s boyfriend Peter (Bill Hunter) there are many stylised artistic black and white photographs of Sam hung on the walls. In formally experimental staged scenes, these photographs punctuate a conversation or an exchange, montages of still photographic images embedded in a moving image sequence. The photographs are evidence of Sam’s career as a model, but in the way Storm films them they also pose questions about the power and meaning of photographic images.
When Sam decides to break up with Peter and continue on her road trip with Tony to Queensland, they visit Peter in his studio where a photographer is photographing a semi-naked model in an aggressive bombastic way reminiscent of David Bailey photographing Veruschka in Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up (1966). I’m guessing the reference is intentional. I’m also reminded of Victor Burgin’s concept of ‘cinematic heterotopia’: the way our experience of a film is composed of multiple interfaces and viewing engagements. The photographs of Carol Jerrems and the films of Antonioni are some of the many image fragments that influence, frame and contribute to In Search of Anna.
THE RESTORATION
Source: Smart Street Films
The 4K restoration was done and supervised by Peter Richards from The Grainery in Canberra.
Director: Esben Storm; Production Company: Smart Street Films; Producer: Esben Storm; Screenplay: Esben Storm; Photography: Michael Edols; Editor: Pamela Barnetta, Haydn Keenan, Michael Norton, Dusan Werner; Production Design: Sally Campbell; Music: John Martyn, Alan Stivell // Cast: Richard Moir (Tony), Judy Morris (Sam), Chris Haywood (Jerry), Bill Hunter (Peter), Alex Taifer (Tony’s father).
Australia | 1978 | 91 mins | 4K DCP | Colour | English | M
The 4K restoration was done and supervised by Peter Richards from The Grainery in Canberra.
Director: Esben Storm; Production Company: Smart Street Films; Producer: Esben Storm; Screenplay: Esben Storm; Photography: Michael Edols; Editor: Pamela Barnetta, Haydn Keenan, Michael Norton, Dusan Werner; Production Design: Sally Campbell; Music: John Martyn, Alan Stivell // Cast: Richard Moir (Tony), Judy Morris (Sam), Chris Haywood (Jerry), Bill Hunter (Peter), Alex Taifer (Tony’s father).
Australia | 1978 | 91 mins | 4K DCP | Colour | English | M