Latest news with #intergenerationalTrauma
ABC News
22-07-2025
- Entertainment
- ABC News
Moni director Alana Hicks wants to reimagine the Australian film industry
Papua New Guinean-Australian writer, director, and self-described "mad schemer" Alana Hicks is making waves in bringing Pacific stories to life on Australian screens — but she wants to change how it's done, too. Her latest work is Moni, a six-part SBS series filmed in Western Sydney among Australia's large Samoan and Pacific diaspora that explores the complexities of family, faith, and sexuality. Created and written by Taofia Pelesasa, Hicks said Moni was "as much about intergenerational trauma as it is about a mother and son relationship". "[It's] a representation of how patterns exist in all cultures, but particularly in Pacific Island cultures," she told Nesia Daily. "We have such a strong sense of family, tradition, respect, especially for elders. But we also have to acknowledge when that can go wrong and when people are silenced, when victims can be silenced. "We have to be able to allow them a platform to speak. And this starts a conversation." Moni, starring Chris Alosio as Moni, brought together Pasifika creatives from all over Australia. ( SBS ) Telling those stories meant rethinking not just what was on screen, but how things were done behind the scenes and on the set, embracing a different way of working — one rooted in Pacific values and community. Hicks said it was a different way of doing things that "doesn't quite fit with the model of traditional western filmmaking or TV making". "We need to reimagine how we do things in screen, film and TV and all digital, because there've been so regimented and hierarchical for so long in the Western tradition of filmmaking that it's very hard for us with a community collaborative approach," she said. "This can't just be one person's vision, like the director or the showrunner or the executive producer. This is a community project. This is a community story. So we all have to work together. "There is no one better than anyone else on set in a Pacific set because every single person is playing a part. You can't boss an aunty around just because she's an extra. "You don't say, 'Sit there. Don't eat first.' That's not how it works." 'It's a numbers game' With roots in Porebada village near Port Moresby, Hicks didn't just walk into her career. "I'm a mad schemer, I just scheme," she told Nesia Daily about her beginnings. "In that year 2018–2019, I set myself a challenge: every month, you go out and you try to apply for three opportunities. "So you're kind of balancing the hope and the rejection, disappointment, and you just keep cycling through that until something hits, because it's a numbers game. Alana Hicks is in her element on set. ( Supplied ) At the time, Hicks admitted it was hard. "I'd just had a couple of kids ... I was working a lot. I think we were living with my parents as well," she said. "But I kept applying, and something hit. "What also happens in the process of this is that you're developing your applications. You are honing your writing skills. You're actually trying to figure out what it is you're trying to say. "You're cultivating better applications, and you're going for the opportunities that actually are going to be right for you as well. I did that for 12 months." On the set of Chicken, a short film about a woman who is overcharged for a chicken at her local store. ( Supplied ) That process eventually opened doors and funding for Alana's first short film, Chicken, starring PNG actor Wendy Mocke. From there, she continued to grow. "For all the Pacific writers, directors, content makers out there, make it your own," she said. "The way we need to make it, [guided by our] fundamental values. That's the only way that we're going to make it, the way we know how."
Irish Times
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Times
Let Me Go Mad In My Own Way by Elaine Feeney: An ambitious, thoughtful, nicely layered book
Let Me Go Mad In My Own Way Author : Elaine Feeney ISBN-13 : 978-1-787-30348-5 Publisher : Penguin Guideline Price : £14.99 Claire O'Connor is a poet and lecturer in creative writing. She lived in London for about a decade with Tom but soon after the death of her mother she left him and returned to 'the West of Ireland' – Athenry. She decides to stay in the family home, a bungalow built beside the original farmhouse, now derelict. The novel by Elaine Feeney focuses on Claire's relationship with her siblings, her dead parents, and with Tom, who reappears some years after the split. We delve into the past, both Claire's childhood and the earlier history of the family and region. A brutal encounter with the Black and Tans during the War of Independence is a key moment. The history of colonialism in Ireland, and the particular socio-economic culture of east Galway are dealt with. In the fields of Athenry, horses vault the class divide. Hunting 'was far from being a sport of kings around these parts'. 'The women with wizened faces and men with booming voices, their riding style slightly at odds with the locals' join the farmers for the hunt. The queen of England wants to buy a mare from the O'Connors! [ Elaine Feeney on her new novel: 'I was pushing a sort of Chekhov dinner party in the west of Ireland' Opens in new window ] The colonial legacy is one of the novel's thematic strands and is linked to the story of domestic intergenerational trauma. John, Claire's father, is capricious and violent. Her mother and the children live in terror. The unravelling of the mystery surrounding the mother's death is shockingly disclosed towards the close of the novel. READ MORE Gender issues are also dealt with at a local and universal level. Claire follows Insta posts by Kelly Purchase, one of those awful American 'tradwives'. She finds Kelly absurd but compelling. Ironically, by the end of the novel, she hosts a splendid party (Pinteresque, naturally), revealing that Kelly has exerted influence. 'The crab was set on a bed of baby gem lettuce, dressed with some hard shell, samphire, cracked black pepper and fresh parsley.' The novel is written in transparent, unshowy prose. Not linear, the narrative maintains its focus on Claire and despite several time-shifts never confuses. The main themes are handled with insight and real depth, and the depiction of the peculiarities of east Galway society is ethnographically interesting and convincing. An ambitious, thoughtful, nicely layered book. Éilís Ní Dhuibhne is a writer and critic. She is a member of Aosdána
