Fighting Films

A detail from the Hungry Mile - ScreenSound

Nothing less than a revolution in Australian cinematic history - this is how National Secretary Paddy Crumlin describes the WWF film unit in his forward to Fighting Films by Lisa Milner.

In 1953 Australian wharfies turned film making on its head.

Two aspiring film makers were working under the hook on the Sydney wharves. It was the politically heady days of the Cold War, Communism and culture in the union. The WWF was home to the New Theatre, artists and intellectuals. And it was this cross pollination that led to a blossoming blue collar art.

The waterfront became a stage. Wharfies starred in strikes and stopworks, the Hungry Mile, the Bull System. Their films not only documented the day, they dramatised the past with workers performing alongside professional actors in productions by Keith Gow, Norma Disher and Jock Levy.

It was the first ever film production unit within a trade union anywhere in the world and its films were so successful they were screened at international and local film festivals, took out awards and are still used by film makers to this day.

Fighting Films, a History of the Waterside Workers Film Unit traces the birth of the unit on the Sydney wharves, profiles its creative talent, its mentors, union statesmen like Jim Healy and Tom Nelson, its 14 films, political and artistic influences, its expansion into the construction, mining and media industries and its demise.

But her book is not only an historical record, it also examines the social forces behind the beginning and end of this unique episode in union history - including the breakup of working class communities on the waterfront. Workers and Wharfies' families were resettled in suburban red brick blocks, alienating workers from their workplace and each other. Falling membership and the shrinking finances of the union as well as political divisions within the labour movement and the ACTU rejecting a move to house the group as a national labour film unit all contributed to its demise.

Combining art and politics is largely dismissed by the western world as mere propaganda of little or no artistic merit and very often this is the case. But the work of the WWF film unit is rare in showing real artistic genius.

Likewise Lisa Milner's book Fighting Films may be academic, but her work is also a colourful and lively account of the era - an easy read and a good read.

"The WWF films and our forward thinking and inclusive culture are the unions' armour against future attacks," Paddy Crumlin concludes in the preface. "This book is a worthy and authoritive voice in the halls of academia for students of labour and film. But, like the films themselves, it should also be on the curriculum for any union delegate, activist or person who comprehends the value and importance of the labour movement."

Fighting Films by Lisa Milner, published by Pluto Press is available from the union rooms for $20. VHS copies of the films are also available from the union for $15 each.

ScreenSound Australia has a selection of photos from the films which can be ordered via their website.

http://www.screensound.gov.au/screensound/screenso.nsf