Melanie Rodriga (née Read; born 30 September 1954) is a
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
film maker
Filmmaking (film production) is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, starting with an initial story, idea, or commission. It then continues through screenwriting, casti ...
Kuala Lumpur
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Malaysia
Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federation, federal constitutional monarchy consists of States and federal territories of Malaysia, thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two r ...
, Rodriga was the third child of Daphne Mary (Billie) and Albert Thomas (Bertram) Read. She is of
Eurasian
Eurasia (, ) is the largest continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. Primarily in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Eastern Hemispheres, it spans from the British Isles and the Iberian Peninsula in the west to the Ja ...
(
Malay
Malay may refer to:
Languages
* Malay language or Bahasa Melayu, a major Austronesian language spoken in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and Singapore
** History of the Malay language, the Malay language from the 4th to the 14th century
** Indonesi ...
-
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
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**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
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-
Portuguese
Portuguese may refer to:
* anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal
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) ancestry on her mother's side and
British
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
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ancestry on her father's side. Her father was a pianist arranger of the British Dance Band Era, playing with
Bert Ambrose
Benjamin Baruch Ambrose (11 September 1896 – 11 June 1971), known professionally as Ambrose or Bert Ambrose, was an English bandleader and violinist. Ambrose became the leader of a highly acclaimed British dance band, ''Bert Ambrose & His Or ...
and
Henry Hall (bandleader)
Henry Robert Hall, CBE (2 May 1898 – 28 October 1989) was an English bandleader who performed regularly on BBC Radio during the British dance band era of the 1920s and 1930s, through to the 1960s.
Early life and career
Henry Hall was born i ...
, among others. The family moved from Malaysia to Sydney in 1961, and lived in the eastern suburb of
Vaucluse
Vaucluse (; oc, Vauclusa, label= Provençal or ) is a department in the southeastern French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. It had a population of 561,469 as of 2019.Ravensbourne Polytechnic, Bromley, Kent.
Early career
Rodriga's career began in Sydney in 1974 at the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is the national broadcaster of Australia. It is principally funded by direct grants from the Australian Government and is administered by a government-appointed board. The ABC is a publicly-own ...
, where she was trained in production management and film editing for both drama and documentary. Her first film as writer/director was the 1976 experimental short ''Curiosities''. In 1979 she edited ''Witches and Faggots, Dykes and Poofters''. This was one of the first documentaries about the lives of gay and lesbian people in Australia set against the backdrop of the first Sydney Mardi Gras and the arrests that followed. In 1980, having moved to
New Zealand
New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...
, Rodriga began writing and directing her first three short films: ''Second Sight'', about Sally Rodwell and Deborah Hunt of theatre group Red Mole, ''Them's The Breaks'', a documentary about street kids, and ''Hooks and Feelers'', a short feature based on the
Keri Hulme
Keri Ann Ruhi Hulme (9 March 194727 December 2021) was a New Zealand novelist, poet and short-story writer. She also wrote under the pen name Kai Tainui. Her novel '' The Bone People'' won the Booker Prize in 1985; she was the first New Zealan ...
story.
Later career
Rodriga's first feature-length film, '' Trial Run'' (1984), starred
Annie Whittle
Annie Whittle is a British-born New Zealand singer and actress who has appeared on such shows as ''Shortland Street'', where she played Barbara Heywood for four years and has had a singing career that has spanned three decades. She was previousl ...
and was edited by
Finola Dwyer
Finola Dwyer (born 10 July 1963) is a UK-based New Zealand film producer and editor, best known for her films ''An Education'' and ''Brooklyn'', produced with frequent collaborator Amanda Posey.
Career
In 2015, Dwyer produced an historical dra ...
. It was the first film in New Zealand to be written and directed by a woman. "New Zealand's Cinema of a Perilous Paradise" by Ian Conrin In Horror International Steven Jay Schneider, Tony Williams Eds. Wayne State UP p115 /ref> Whittle's character relocates to a remote cottage which appears to be haunted by a previous occupant. Conceived by Rodriga as a feminist thriller, and seen by some critics as a feminist form of "Kiwi Gothic," ''Trial Run'' was feminist in its work practices as well as its ethos: twenty of the twenty-nine people on the production crew were women. Together with
Gaylene Preston
Dame Gaylene Mary Preston (born 1 June 1947) is a New Zealand filmmaker with a particular interest in documentary films.
Early life and family
Born in Greymouth on 1 June 1947, Preston was educated at Colenso High School (now William Colenso Co ...
's '' Mr Wrong'', ''Trial Run'' marked a turning point in New Zealand cinema. According to Barbara Cairns, "From this moment on, the centrality of the white, male hero, or anti-hero ... was if not displaced, then constantly undermined." Cairns argues that Rodriga's ''Trial Run'' was the more daring of the two films as it focused "not on the unknown, external danger to women, which the thriller uses most potently, but on threats within the family." In 1986-87 Rodriga directed three episodes of the seven-part TV serie ''Marching Girls'' This pioneering series was conceived by actor-write Fiona Samuel as a response to the lack of challenging female roles in New Zealand television.
Rodriga's next feature, ''
Send a Gorilla
''Send a Gorilla'' is a 1988 New Zealand comedy film directed by Melanie Read.
Synopsis
Valentine's Day is the busiest day in the year for three young women and their singing telegram service. Their Send A Gorilla Singing Telegram Company has ...
'', was conceived and developed with three of her Marching Girl colleagues. Set on Valentine's Day, the film was a feminist critique of the commercialisation of Romance. The film is frenetic and has some fine comic moments, while having a serious feminist subtext. In the 1990s Rodriga focused on TV drama and documentary (and changed her surname to Rodriga early on in the decade). ''The People Next Door'' (1994) was New Zealand's first prime time documentary dealing with gay and lesbian culture. In 1997 Rodriga moved to Perth, Western Australia. While teaching screen production and screenwriting at Murdoch University, Rodriga directed her third feature film,
Teesh and Trude
''Teesh and Trude'' is a 2002 Australian drama film directed by New Zealander Melanie Rodriga, and was adapted from an original stage-play by Wilson McCaskill. The film was produced and shot entirely in Western Australia with Production Investmen ...
(2002) starring
Linda Cropper
Linda Cropper (born 1 January 1958) is an Australian actress, primarily known for her role as Geraldine Proudman in the TV series ''Offspring'' and as Dame Nellie Melba in the television series '' Melba''. An shortened edited version of the te ...
Peter Phelps
Peter Phelps (born 20 September 1960 in Sydney) is an Australian actor, singer and writer. He is notable for his role as Trevor Cole in ''Baywatch''. Phelps is also known for his roles in the internationally successful Australian series '' So ...
an Bill McCluskey ''Teesh and Trude'' tells the story of a day in the life of two working-class single mums in Perth, Western Australia. The film was nominated for 3 ustralian Film Institute Award in 2003. Critics were divided by the film's gritty social realism:
In 2010, Rodriga wrote, directed and produced her fourth feature film '' myPastmyPresent'', shot on location in the
Margaret River
The Margaret River is a river in southwest Western Australia. In a small catchment, it is the eponym of the town and tourist region of Margaret River.
The river arises from a catchment of just 40 square kilometres in the Whicher Range.
...
region of
Western Australia
Western Australia (commonly abbreviated as WA) is a state of Australia occupying the western percent of the land area of Australia excluding external territories. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to th ...
. ''myPastmyPresent'' is a young lesbian love story with Buddhist themes shot with an entirely
undergraduate
Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, in the United States, an entry-le ...
crew. It played at the 16th
Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival
Seattle Queer Film Festival (formerly known as the Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival) is an annual film festival in Seattle. The 25th Annual Seattle Queer Film Festival will take place October 14–24, 2021. It is the largest LGBTQ film festival ...
. In 2015 the feature film 'Pinch' (w/d Jeffory Asselin) which Rodriga executive produced, won best feature at the WA Screen Awards.
Perth
Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...
, where she ran the Graduate Screen Program].
Personal life
Rodriga identifies her sexual orientation as fluid, and identifies as lesbian and queer as of 2018. She has written that she disagrees with "the assumption that sexuality is biologically or genetically driven" and believes in "allowing young people the freedom to make up their own minds about their sexual preference(s)."