Ann Turner
A wife and mother is consumed by the thought that her husband's co-worker is trying to win him away from her and their family.
The ebb and flow of erotic desire makes for a summertime splash in this vibrant realisation by Ann Turner. Inspired by a Jeffrey Smart painting, Turner's work starts out baking in the sun before it takes a cool dip beyond the sexual shoreline.
Set in the summer of 1910 in Australia the film follows the story of 14 year old Alan Marshall (Alexander Outhread) as he stumbles out of childhood towards the exciting yet forbidding world of adulthood. For Alan, despite the effects of polio, there is only one passion in life - to become a great horseman just like his hero, the reclusive horse trainer East Driscoll (Russell Crowe). Alan is one of East's few friends and also one of the few who knows about the affair between East and the aristocratic English woman Grace McAlister (Charlotte Rampling). Things inevitably take a turn towards the tragic when East becomes determined to force Grace to leave her husband and run away with him. Hammers Over The Anvil is an evocative coming of age film from Australian director Ann Turner.
Dallas, an American golf tutor, arrives in a quiet Sydney suburb to teach at the local school and sets about causing chaos with the family she stays with.
Reporter Judith Wilkes leaves her husband and two sons in Sydney and goes to Malaysia to cover the story of the Vietnamese boat people. She becomes romantically involved with Kanan, and strikes up a friendship with Lady Minou Hobday, who keeps a regular vigil at "Turtle Beach" where the refugees try to land secretly in the hope that one day her own children will arrive. Accompanying Minou one night, Judith witnesses a brutal massacre by the Malaysians which spurs her on to expose the horrors of the internment camps at Bidong.
Set in mid 1950s Australia, with the fear of communism in the air and the country's farmlands overrun by a plague of rabbits, the film depicts a long hot summer seen through the eyes and over-active imagination of nine year old Celia. Shaken by the death of her beloved Grandmother, Celia finds herself adrift between the cruel games and rituals of childhood and the incomprehensible world of grown-ups. With monstrous creatures stalking her dreams by night, those imagined terrors blur by day with the banal brutality of the adult world and lead to tragic and shocking consequences. Ann Turner's refreshingly unsentimental debut feature is a dark fable of childhood's end. An enthralling film to rank alongside Lord of the Flies, The 400 Blows and Stand By Me.
Kate's love for her brother's wife and the ensuing feelings of guilt lead her to an obsession with the supernatural.
