By Dongyun Kwon
Although it’s been more than 16 years since the Black Saturday bushfires drove the region to fear, the trauma has remained in the survivors’ daily lives.
The documentary film, Portraits of Regeneration, will reveal the challenging ten-year journeys of four groups of survivors following Black Saturday at the free premiere screening in Healesville.
Filmmaker Matthew Cairns said the screening was originally set for May 2020.
“At that time, there was what’s now known as the 2019-2020 Black Summer fires,” he said.
“That was one of the reasons why the screening was delayed because of the emergency situation, and then Covid came in.
“I feel really happy and relieved that the film is going to be finally screened in public thanks to the support of the Yarra Ranges Council.”
After experiencing two major bushfires, the 2003 Canberra bushfires and the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires, the local filmmaker was motivated to work on the film project Touch By Fire.
Cairns said he got an initial grant from Regional Arts Victoria to start documenting stories of people who’d gone through the fires.
“That expanded to a larger film project in conjunction with the Yarra Ranges Council, particularly the Yarra Ranges Regional Museum in Lilydale,” he said.
“From 2009 to 2012, I documented stories of residents, emergency services, some media and also the former Premier John Brumby at that stage, and that resulted in a film screening in 2012 and a DVD.”
In 2019, the 10th anniversary of Black Saturday, Cairns decided to make a follow-up film to see how the survivors went through the past 10 years.
He contacted four groups of previous project participants and was also successful in receiving the Victorian Government 10-Year Anniversary of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Community Arts Grant from Regional Arts Victoria to make another film.
The filmmaker said he’d chosen the four groups because each had been affected by the disaster slightly differently.
“They had different stories, and I wanted to bring those stories to the film and see how they had gone after 10 years,” Cairns said.
“I think it’s really important to try and show how people’s lives are affected, what the ongoing issues are, and how they live with those issues.”
The four groups were Paul Crowe with his involvement with the Callignee Hall reconstruction, the Draper family and their hopes of rebuilding their dream Callignee home, Kinglake’s Mountain Home Road residents who created a memorial recovery garden, and the Skinner family with their immense challenges with PTSD.
The premiere screening will be launched by the former Victorian Premier John Brumby AO at The Memo, Healesville on Saturday 17 May.
Cairns said the film participants will have the opportunity to speak to viewers through either short talk or musical performances in between segments of the film.
“Given that the film was (done) in 2019, I felt that the participants’ lives, (now) six years later, have changed even further. So rather than just screening the film from start to finish, I felt some sort of contemporising is needed so that the participants, who were involved, are given an opportunity to speak to the viewers,” he said.
The screening will commence at 1pm but the door will be open from 12pm with light refreshments.
For more information about this free premiere screening or to book a ticket, please visit the following website, yarraranges.vic.gov.au/Experience/Events/Portraits-of-Regeneration-Premiere-Film-Screening
