Jeni Thornley is a documentary filmmaker, writer and film valuer.  Her poetic essay documentaries: Maidens (1978), collaborative feature film and Penguin book, For Love or Money: a history of women and work in Australia (1983),  To the Other Shore (1996) and Island Home Country (2008) are landmark films in Australian independent and feminist cinema, widely distributed and also broadcast on ABC TV and SBS.  Her films are available online and DVD via beamafilm, Ronin Films and Anandi Films. 

Filming at Kunanyi (Mt Wellington, Hobart, Tas)

Follow Jeni on Twitter and Issues in Documentary on facebook 

Jeni is a Visiting Scholar in the School of Communication, Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, UTS where she lectured in Issues in Documentary from 2002-2013, while making her doctorate film Island home country:subversive mourning.  Earlier she taught history of documentary film at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS).

Jeni’s current project, memory film: a filmmaker’s diary is in post-production and raising finance via the Documentary Australia Foundation. Jeni Thornley (director); Lindi Harrison (editor ASE), Tom Zubrycki (co-producer), Megan McMurchy (consultant producer).

memory film is an immersive, poetic diary film about transformation and ‘the personal is political’. Based on Jeni’s Super8 archive (1974-2003),  acquired and digitised by the National Film & Sound Archive (NFSA) in 2016, memory film documents the activism of three decades amidst the intense sexual politics of radical feminism and social change. The film tells the inner story of a  journey of liberation. Accompanied by a unique music score, with no speaking voices or narration, the film offers a meditative, reflective experience into radical politics, social change and transformation. 

prepping the Super 8 for NFSA 2016

“Thornley’s rising sense of awareness constantly reframes previous films within new contexts, communicating a restlessness that highlights the evolving nature and power of the archive as well as the stories it can tell.” Adrian Danks, Senses of Cinema, 99 , July 2021

Jeni was a pioneering member of the Sydney Women’s Film Group, Feminist Film Workers and  Sydney Filmmakers Co-operative where she worked in film distribution and exhibition and wrote for Film News. Jeni worked on many independent films as actress and collaborator, including Film For Discussion, Women and Men Living Together, Woman’s House, Secret Storm, and was a contributing director on Australia Daze. She made her first film Still Life (Thornley & Ross) in the 1974 Women’s Film Workshop,  was co-national co-ordinator 1975 Women’s International Film Festival,  and worked as a camera assistant at Film Australia and on independent films, including Journey Among Women and Climbers. Jeni was Manager of the Women’s Film Fund and Project Co-ordinator and film reader in Documentary Development, Australian Film Commission and NSW Film & TV Office. She writes about documentary regularly, having contributed over the years to  Film News, Simply Living, The Conversation, Metro Magazine, Realtime and has written chapters for various film related monographs, as well as writing essays on her Documentary blog.

Interviews, screenings, activities

2021  For Love or Money,  Australian Women Filmmakers Program,  23rd Seoul International Women’s Film Festival, 28th & 30th August, South Korea. Also see their short essay, Australian Women Filmmakers

2021 Co- Panelist, ‘Australian Autofiction: A Filmmaker Roundtable by Chris Luscri’, Australian AutoFiction Special Dossier, Senses of Cinema, Issue 99.

2020 Co-Panelist,  Catherine Dwyer in conversation with Margot Nash, Jeni Thornley, Megan McMurchy & Martha Ansara, Women Filmmakers, ACMI, Melbourne, Dec 18th.

2020 Panelist, Brazen Hussies Screening and Q&A , Dendy Newtown, Nov. 

2020 Camera Interviewee, Brazen Hussies, (dir Catherine Dwyer) a documentary feature about a revolutionary chapter in Australian history – the Women’s Liberation Movement (1965 -1975). 

2019 Interview and Q&A with Beniamino Barrese (dir),  The Disappearance of My Mother,  Antenna International Documentary Film Festival & OzDox,  Verona Cinema, Oct 23 2019.

2019 Introduction [text] to Journey Among Women (Tom Cowan, feature film 1977), for the Retrospective, Film Continent Australia, Film Museum Vienna, April-June.

2018 Introduction to The Silences (dir) Margot Nash  UTS Tribute, ‘Stepping Into The Unknown’, Palace Cinema December 6th 2018.

2018 Kath Kenny writes about radical theatre and film and Jeni’s role in Film For Discussion (1973), Martha Ansara (dir) and Sydney Women’s Film Group: ‘Before #MeToo, 1970s feminists used film and theatre for women’s liberation, The Monthly, August 7 2018, https://kathkenny.com/2018/08/07/before-metoo-1970s-feminists-used-film-and-theatre-for-womens-liberation/

 2017  Sydney Film Festival Retrospective,  Feminism & Film: Sydney Women Filmmakers, 1970s & 1980s , included  Film For Discussion  and For Love or Money, (Curator Susan Charlton).

 2017  ‘Still Life’, ‘Art & Life, Then and Now Program’, ‪Melbourne Women in Film Festival.

2017 Monash alumni launch new Australian women in film festival March 2017, School of Media, Film & Journalism News, Feb 2017.

In 2015  Jeni  co-curated the ‘Women’s Gaze and the Feminist Film Archive’ Panel and Retrospective, Art Gallery of  NSW & Sydney College of the Arts with Loma Bridge and  Margot Nash. 

Women’s Gaze film installation in Future Feminist Archive, Sydney College of the Arts (SCA), Uni of  Sydney 2015.

 The ‘Women’s Gaze’ Film Program included historic women’s films: Film For Discussion, We Aim To Please, Maidens, My Survival as an Aboriginal, Size 10, and For Love or Money (AGNSW Forum on Vimeo).