An immersive poetic documentary about transformation
Writer & Director Jeni Thornley
Producers Tom Zubrycki & Jeni Thornley
Editor Lindi Harrison (ASE)
Composer Joseph Tawadros
Sound Designer Tristan Meredith
Australian Innovation Award Nomination, MIFF 2023
Top 10 Australian Films 2023 (Bill Mousoulis)
Best Sound in a Documentary, Tristan Meredith AACTA Nomination 2024 Best Documentary Australian Film Critics Assoc., Nomination 2023
World Premiere, Melbourne Int Film Festival (Premiere Fund) 2023
Sydney Premiere, Antenna Doco Film Festival, Dendy Newtown Feb 2024 
Melbourne Women in Film Festival, ACMI March 2024
Hazelhurst Arts Centre, Sydney: 13,16,19 May 2024
Revelation Perth International Film Festival, Luna 3-14 July 2024 
ARC Cinema, National Film & Sound Archive Wed August 28 6pm 2024
‘Contested Histories: The Documentaries of Jeni Thornley’ Retrospective, Melbourne Cinematheque, ACMI, October 30 2024
Visible Evidence Conference XXX, Monash University, 17-20 Dec 2024
“Set against the backdrop of radical feminism, Aboriginal land rights and widespread social upheaval, Memory Film: A Filmmaker’s Diary (85mins) is a ‘road movie’ of sorts, tracing its maker’s inner journey towards liberation. Adopting the lenses of psychotherapy and Eastern spirituality, and incorporating footage from Thornley’s earlier works ‘Maidens’, the collaborative feature ‘For Love or Money’, ‘To the Other Shore’ and ‘Island Home Country’, this hyper-intimate opus contemplates gender fluidity, sexual politics, the pleasure and pain of motherhood, and the desire for a world free of war and colonisation. With a sweeping score by Egyptian-Australian multi-instrumentalist Joseph Tawadros and inspired by the minimalist sensibility of silent cinema as a dialogue-free piece, Thornley’s “farewell film poem to life” unfolds with a haunting tactility: along with the celluloid’s visible grain…Memory Film: A Filmmaker’s Diary is a lovingly crafted, lucid meditation on resistance, legacy and carving out one’s place amid constant transformation.” (MIFF Program Notes 2023).
Anzac Day, Sydney 1983
Composer Joseph Tawadros releases his new album The Virtue of Signals on Spotify, June 2024, featuring original music composed for Memory Film.
Memory FILM Reviews, Interviews & Panels
Memory Film: A Filmmaker’s Diary, Janice Loreck, CTEQ Annotations on Film, Senses of Cinema, October 2024
Memory Film: Jeni Thornley’s Archive of Self and Australian Cinema, by Nadine Whitney, The Curb, March 27 2024
Memory Film: A Filmmaker’s Diary: In Conversation with Jeni Thornley, Grace Boschetti, MWFF Critics Lab, MWFF, April 5 2024
Remembering, Repeating, Working-Through – A Conversation With Jeni Thornley and Felicity Collins, Melbourne Women in Film Festival, March, Gandel Lab 1, ACMI March 2024
Feminist filmmaker’s gift to her children, Irene Diakanastasis, Central News, April 5 2024
Must-see films at the Melbourne International Film Festival, by Stephanie Bunbury and Jake Wilson, The Age, July 29, 2023.
Memory Film Alexandra Slater from the Cutting Room show (RMIT) interviews Jeni Thornley (interview begins at 9m:50sec) CTV+ Australia, @9 July 2023
Interview: Memory Film Director Jeni Thornley Talks About the Evolution of the Mind with Andrew Peirce, The Curb, August 16, 2023
Jason di Rosso interviews Jeni Thornley about Memory Film, The Screen Show, ABC Radio 10.8.23
Documentary filmmaker Jeni Thornley & Flick Forward discuss her immersive cine-poem MEMORY FILM, Primal Screen, 3RRR Digital, August 14 2 2023
Memory Film MIFF Seminar: Accelerator Lab Behind the Scenes with Director Jeni Thornley, Sound Designer Tristan Meredith, Editor Lindi Harrison (ASE) exploring the art of sound design and the processes of collaboration in filmmaking, ACMI, August 2023.
Memory Film was invited to the World Cinema Program, Jio MAMI Mumbai Film Festival Oct-Nov 2023.
‘Conversations and Connections Documentary Festival’, Community/Family Documentary Panel with Iqbal Barkat, Rajdeep Roy, Jeni Thornley & Nicole Matthews, Department of Media, Communications…Macquarie Uni, SLNSW December 1st 2023.
Book chapter: Jeni Thornley, ‘The enigma of film: memory film: a filmmaker’s diary’, Constructions of The Real: Intersections of Practice and Theory in Documentary-Based Filmmaking, (eds.) K. Munro et al., Intellect Books Series: Artwork Scholarship: International Perspectives in Education, 2023.
Sian Mitchell (Director, MWFF) with Jeni Thornley, Melbourne Women in Film Festival Q&A, ACMI, 25 March 2024
Memory Film’s legacy harks back to the silent movie era. It is composed solely of images from Thornley’s Super 8 archive filmed during 1974-2003, acquired and digitised by the National Film and Sound Archive during 2016-17. The film has no speaking voices, no interviews and no narration. Its story is told visually and poetically, with images and music. This immersive documentary offers viewers a reflective, meditative experience into radical politics, social change and the dynamic interplay between the personal and the political. The impulse for the film comes from the ‘Japanese death poets.’ In Japan householders, elders and Buddhist monks write poems to express their feelings about the transience of life and the inevitable passing of all things (jisei: “farewell poem to life”). Householders write poems as a gift to their children – a legacy of beauty and insight gathered over years. Memory Film is made in this spirit.
Memory Film trailer
A silent film with music. ‘Memory Film’ is an experiential, lyrical documentary expressing cinema’s power, not via ‘issues’, but with a poetic sensibility blending images, music and sound. The superb soundtrack counterpoints the grainy textural quality of the Super 8. Original music by oud maestro Joseph Tawadros and creative sound design by Tristan Meredith interweaves with the images. As there are no speaking voices, narration or interviews, the film offers an immersive experience of the interplay between public and private – transforming lives. Memory Film is unique as its legacy harks back to the silent movie era. Tawadros’ expressive music score and Meredith’s sensitive use of sound offers viewers a meditative, inner experience of social change. Editor Lindi Harrison and I initially layered guide track music into the rough cut and the ‘affect’ was compelling, confirming my instinct that the ‘silent film’ conventions of image and music with no speaking voices was the perfect mode for Super 8 film in the digital era.
JENI THORNlEY INSTAGRAM
Contribute to Memory Film’s distribution via Documentary Australia
Distributor Antidote Films
“Antidote Films is proud to represent Memory Film and is seeking further theatrical opportunities, after which we will make Memory Film available on Antidote Streaming to be followed by a release on specialist sites such as DocPlay, Brollie and Chronicle plus Educational sites later in 2024″.
Gil Scrine, Antidote Films, Australia-All Rights