''Journey Among Women'' is a 1977 Australian film directed by

Tom Cowan Thomas Cowan (born 28 August 1969) is a Scottish former footballer who played as a defender. During his career he played for Clyde, Rangers, Sheffield United, Stoke City, Huddersfield Town, Burnley, Cambridge United, Peterborough United, Yor ...

Plot

colonial Australia The history of Australia is the story of the land and peoples of the continent of Australia. Aboriginal Australians, People first arrived on the Australian mainland by sea from Maritime Southeast Asia between 50,000 and 65,000 years ago, and ...

, refined Elizabeth Harrington, daughter of the

judge advocate Judge-advocates are military lawyers serving in different capacities in the military justice systems of different jurisdictions. Australia The Australian Army Legal Corps (AALC) consists of Regular and Reserve commissioned officers that prov ...

and engaged to Captain McEwan, decides to help female

convicts A convict is "a person found guilty of a crime and sentenced by a court" or "a person serving a sentence in prison". Convicts are often also known as "prisoners" or "inmates" or by the slang term "con", while a common label for former conv ...

who are living in appalling conditions. The women manage to escape and Elizabeth goes with them. An aboriginal girl, Kameragul, shows them how to survive in the bush but Elizabeth almost dies of

malnutrition Malnutrition occurs when an organism gets too few or too many nutrients, resulting in health problems. Specifically, it is "a deficiency, excess, or imbalance of energy, protein and other nutrients" which adversely affects the body's tissues ...

. A convict, Emily, nurses her back to health. Months pass, and Emily is raped and killed by two men. Elizabeth leads the other convicts in a revenge attack against the men. Captain McEwan leads an attack on the women, in which he is killed. Elizabeth returns to her old life.

Cast

*Jeune Pritchard as Elizabeth Harrington *

Nell Campbell Laura Elizabeth Campbell (born 24 May 1953), better known as Nell Campbell or by her stage name Little Nell, is an Australian actress, singer, and former club owner. She is best known for her role as Columbia in the 1975 film ''The Rocky Horror ...

as Meg *Diana Fuller as Bess *Lisa Peers as Charlotte *Jude Kuring as Grace *Robyn Moase as Moira *Michelle Johnson as Bridget *Rose Lilley as Emily *

Lillian Crombie Lillian Crombie (born 1958) is an Aboriginal Australian actress and dancer, known for her work on stage, film and television. Early life and education Lillian Crombie was born in 1958. She is of the Pitjantjatjara/ Yankunytjatjara people of cen ...

as Kameragul *Therese Jack as Kate *Kay Self as Sheila *Helenka Link as Jane *Ralph Cotterill as Corporal Porteus *Martin Phelan as Captain Richard McEwan *Tim Elliot as Doctor Hargreaves

Production

The film was an original idea of Cowan's:

I was living in the bush, in
Berowra Waters Berowra Waters is an outer suburb of Northern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Berowra is located 40 kilometres north of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Hornsby Shire. Berowra Waters is no ...
, and it was so powerful. I happened to read this French
science-fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...
story called '' Les Guerrieres'' about a future society of women - like an
Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technolog ...
society - who were at war with the rest of society. Somehow in the combination of the wildness and strangeness and beauty of the bush and this story of wild women, I saw a parallel in how we perceived the bush and how the
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 * British English, ...
first saw the bush as ugly. Well, we now see it as beautiful. And how the sort of excesses of
radical feminism Radical feminism is a perspective within feminism that calls for a radical re-ordering of society in which male supremacy is eliminated in all social and economic contexts, while recognizing that women's experiences are also affected by other ...
, when it began, were seen as ugly - ranting and raving and being abusive and so on. But, in fact, behind it were very beautiful things - not just the women, but the
humanist Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the individual and social potential and agency of human beings. It considers human beings the starting point for serious moral and philosophical inquiry. The meaning of the term "human ...
ideas.

Cowan wrote the screenplay with producer John Wiley and playwright

Dorothy Hewett Dorothy Coade Hewett (21 May 1923 – 25 August 2002) was an Australian playwright, poet and author, and a romantic feminist icon. In writing and in her life, Hewett was an experimenter. As her circumstances and beliefs changed, she progressed ...

. Funding came from private investment, the

Australian Film Commission The Australian Film Commission (AFC) was an Australian government agency was founded in 1975 with a mandate to promote the creation and distribution of films in Australia as well as to preserve the country's film history. It also had a producti ...

and a $25,000 grant from the Experimental Film Fund. The film was shot over six weeks in 1976 near Berowra, north of

Sydney Sydney ( ) is the capital city of the state of New South Wales, and the most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Sydney Harbour and extends about towards the Blue Mounta ...

, on 16mm. Shooting was a turbulent experience, in part because everyone was living together on location and there were fierce arguments between Cowan and the cast over the direction the film was taking.David Stratton, ''The Last New Wave: The Australian Film Revival'', Angus & Robertson, 1980 p188-189

Post-production Post-production is part of the process of filmmaking, video production, audio production, and photography. Post-production includes all stages of production occurring after principal photography or recording individual program segments. Th ...

took eighteen months and the film was blown up from

16mm 16 mm film is a historically popular and economical gauge of film. 16 mm refers to the width of the film (about inch); other common film gauges include 8 and 35 mm. It is generally used for non-theatrical (e.g., industrial, edu ...

35mm 35 mm may refer to: * 135 film, a type of still photography format commonly referred to as 35 mm film * 35 mm movie film 35 mm film is a film gauge used in filmmaking, and the film standard. In motion pictures that record on fi ...

. Four minutes were taking out of the film after its premiere at the

Cannes Film Festival The Cannes Festival (; french: link=no, Festival de Cannes), until 2003 called the International Film Festival (') and known in English as the Cannes Film Festival, is an annual film festival held in Cannes, France, which previews new films ...

Release

The film was a success at the

box office A box office or ticket office is a place where tickets are sold to the public for admission to an event. Patrons may perform the transaction at a countertop, through a hole in a wall or window, or at a wicket. By extension, the term is fre ...

, in part because of its nudity and

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

scenes. Tom Cowan won a special award for "creativity" at the 1977 AFI awards.AFI Awards 1970-1979
accessed 30 Sept 2012

References

External links

*

* ttp://aso.gov.au/titles/features/journey-among-women/ ''Journey Among Women''at

Australian Screen Online The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia (NFSA), known as ScreenSound Australia from 1999 to 2004, is Australia's audiovisual archive, responsible for developing, preserving, maintaining, promoting and providing access to a national c ...

''Journey Among Women''
at Oz Movies {{Convicts in Australia 1977 films 1977 drama films Australian drama films Films about Aboriginal Australians Films set in colonial Australia Films set in the 19th century Films shot in 16 mm film 1970s English-language films