Sunday Too Far Away
| Sunday Too Far Away | |
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DVD Cover
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| Directed by | Ken Hannam |
| Produced by |
Gil Brealey Matt Carroll |
| Written by | John Dingwall |
| Starring |
Jack Thompson Robert Bruning Reg Lye Max Cullen Peter Cummins John Ewart |
| Music by | Patrick Flynn |
| Cinematography | Geoff Burton |
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Production
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| Distributed by | Roadshow (Australia) Columbia-Warner (UK) |
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Release date
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Running time
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94 minutes |
| Country | Australia |
| Language | English |
| Budget | A$300,000 |
| Box office | A$1,356,000 (Australia) |
Sunday Too Far Away is a 1975 Australian drama film directed by Ken Hannam. It belongs to the Australian Film Renaissance or the "Australian New Wave", which occurred during that decade.
The film is set on a sheep station in the Australian outback in 1955 and its action concentrates on the shearers' reactions to a threat to their bonuses and the arrival of non-union labour.
Acclaimed for its understated realism of the work, camaraderie and general life of the shearer, Jack Thompson plays the knock-about Foley, a heavy drinking gun shearer (talented professional sheep shearer), and while he makes a play for the station owner's daughter Sheila (Lisa Peers), the film is a presentation of various aspects of Australian male culture and not a romance; the film's title itself is reputedly the lament of an Australian shearer's wife: "Friday night [he's] too tired; Saturday night too drunk; Sunday, too far away".
Sunday Too Far Away won three 1975 Australian Film Institute awards: Best Film, Best Actor in a Leading Role and Best Actor in a Supporting Role.
In 1956, gun shearer Foley joins a new shearing team. He shares a room with Old Garth, a once great shearer who is now a drunk. Foley and his team battle to get in a new cook, Old Garth dies and Foley befriends the grazier's daughter. Foley loses his status as top shearer to Arthur Black and blows most of his money in gambling. The shearers go on strike and Foley and his team get involved in a brawl with non union labour.
The film was the first feature produced by the South Australian Film Corporation. They wanted to make a film about the Gallipoli Campaign and considered a co-production with Crawford Productions. John Dingwall was signed to write it. However the film fell through when Crawfords fell out with the SAFC. Dingwall, still under contact to them, proposed instead a treatment called Shearers, based on his brother-in-law, who was a shearer. Matt Carroll at the SAFC was particularly enthusiastic and recruited Ken Hannam to direct.The original treatment concerned the 1956 shearer's strike. This ended up being condensed greatly.
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Wikipedia