Movie Time review, Radio National Friday 19.08.2005

Movie Time review, RADIO NATIONAL

Friday at 8.35pm, repeated Sunday at 11.35am
presented by Julie Rigg
Friday 19.08.2005
David Bradbury: Blowin' In The Wind

Now to the Australian documentary filmmaker David Bradbury, who's just been honoured with the Chauvel Award for a career of activist filmmaking.

Previous awards have gone to Geoffrey Rush, Bryan Brown, and documentary makers Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson. The award is named for pioneer filmmakers Charles and Elsa Chauvel, who had a lifetime's struggle to make and finance independent films here.

The award to David Bradbury is significant. This Oscar-nominated documentary maker, whose films begin in l980 with the profile of Vietnam combat photographer Neil Davis (Frontline) and continues through Chile: Hasta Cuando? and in l988, State of Shock...has had a struggle to get broadcasters here interested in funding and screening his films in recent years.

We had such a strong response from Radio National listeners to The Deep End when I interviewed Bradbury in Brisbane at the time of the award, I’ve decided to rebroadcast it for MovieTime listeners.

Bradbury's latest documentary Blowin' In The Wind looks at the devastating legacy of illness, birth deformities and cancer left in Bosnia and Iraq because of the use of depleted uranium weapons. It also asserts the strong probability that these weapons are being used in joint training exercises with Americans and Australians here. Despite denials from defence authorities about any risk from such weapons, Bradbury’s film includes interviews with the Australian Army’s former health and safety officer in the first Gulf War, now very ill, and a couple who live in Byfield, on the edge of the military training facility and test firing site at Shoalwater Bay in Queensland. After bearing three healthy children, the mother gave birth to a grossly deformed baby which died soon after birth.

Bradbury himself had planned to sail into Shoalwater Bay reserve to collect soil samples, but turned back, worrying about what would happen to his young family if he became ill as a result of the exposure to depleted uranium. The film leaves no doubt about its effects.

David Bradbury's film has screened at the recent Sydney and Brisbane Film festivals, and will be released nationally by Dendy Films later this year.

Presenter: Steve Austin & Trish Lake

Documentary-maker David Bradbury

Australian documentary maker David Bradbury has filmed some extraordinary scenes in world history; the final days of the Shah of Iran, life under Augusto Pinochet's military dictatorship in Chile, and the struggle between the Free Papua Movement and the Indonesian military.

David began his career in 1972 as a radio journalist with the ABC, and has since received an Academy-award nomination for one of his films. He graduated from the Australian National University with a degree in political science.

Two of his first journalistic assignments were to cover the Spring Revolution in Portugal in 1974, and the overthrow of the Greek military junta in Athens the same year. In 1977 David smuggled himself into the border area of Papua New Guinea and West Papua and brought out photos and the first ever interview with the Free Papua Movement.

David Bradbury's first film was Frontline, a portrait of legendary Australian news cameraman Neil Davis in Vietnam. It earned him an Academy Award nomination. Frontline also won first prize at the Sydney and Melbourne Film Festivals, the coveted Grierson award at the American Film Festival and was screened worldwide on PBS, BBC and TF1 in France.

Another of David's films, Public Enemy Number One, followed the life of controversial Australian journalist Wilfred Burchett, the first western correspondent into Hiroshima after the bomb was dropped. Burchett was vilified by the mainstream press in Australia for his coverage of "the other side" in the Korean and Vietnam wars. David's film won the Golden Gate Award for Best Documentary, the Christopher Statuette, Best Documentary at the Sydney Film Festival, and an AFI award, but was never shown on Australian TV.

His latest film Blowin' In The Wind is about the joint military training facility at Shoalwater Bay near Rockhampton. This film follows on from Shoalwater: Up for Grabs which David worked on with then Midnight Oil lead singer Peter Garrett. Blowin' In The Wind looks at some of the health issues surrounding the Shoalwater Bay training facility and the effects of depleted uranium in theatres of war.

Frontline Films' patrons include Geoffrey Rush, David Williamson, Thomas Keneally, Judy Davis, Peter Garrett, Max Gillies, and Paul Kelly.

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