EVA ORNER ON TRUTH

Through her gift for storytelling and pursuit of the facts, Oscar-, Emmy- and Aacta-winning filmmaker Eva Orner is giving a voice to those who have had theirs silenced.

I’ve been making documentaries for more than 20 years and people often ask me why I tell the stories I tell. I think it comes back to background and family story. Like 27 per cent of Australians, I am first generation. My parents were born in 1937, in Poland, Jewish. Three of my four grandparents perished in the Holocaust. My maternal grandmother, Eva, who I’m named after, was gassed at Treblinka before her 30th birthday. It is somewhat miraculous that my parents survived. They were fortunate to be allowed to come to Australia in the ’50s as immigrants, and as a result I had a wonderful life here receiving a great education and living free from persecution. My family history has informed a lot of my work.

In August 2014, I returned home to Australia from the US, where I had been based since 2004, to start production on what was my most challenging project yet. Chasing Asylum is a film that takes a critical look at Australia’s harsh refugee and asylum-seeker policies, some of the toughest in the world, specifically designed to deter people from coming to the country by boat. I felt the need to expose the actions of the Australian government to Australians and the rest of the world. We needed to bear witness.

We managed to film secretly inside the detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru in a way no-one had previously. If I had known how hard it was going to be to make this film, I likely wouldn’t have done it. Chasing Asylum is a film about places you’re not allowed to go to and people you’re not allowed to talk to – and halfway through the making of the film, new legislation made it a criminal act with a prison sentence of up to two years for people working with asylum seekers to speak out about what was happening. This whistleblower legislation was an affront to democracy and, after two years, is finally being amended.

They say democracy dies in the dark. What the brave whistleblowers in my film taught me, as I had earlier learned from my family history, is that the courage of people who risk everything to speak out not only defends those in insufferable conditions but also our democracy itself. In a time of fake news, we need to expose the truth now more than ever.

Chasing Asylum is available on itunes

MY GRANDPARENTS WERE TAILORS, my parents worked in interiors, so I grew up with fashion and that grew into an appreciation of the creative industries. At the same time, I was always passionate about politics. My mum came here from Chile, fleeing after the military coup, and my dad came from India. Politics, identity and those sorts of conversations were part of my family life.

SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE I’M THE ONLY PERSON IN THE ROOM WHO ISN’T A TRAINED ARCHITECT or musician or filmmaker and it can be really challenging, especially when you’re self-educated. I don’t have a degree in this stuff but I’ve spent the past 15 years, or maybe longer now, working in and around this world and I do know a lot about it. It can be really hard to have the confidence to back yourself and say, I know this stuff and I’m entitled to have an opinion about it and voice that opinion.

I’M TICKLED BY THE FACT I CAN BE CONSIDERED YOUNG AT 37. It’s unusual to have people under 40 in local government. Structurally, it’s not really designed for people who aren’t retired. It’s really time-consuming, the hours are irregular. If you have a young family or a full-time job or work in the public service, there are so many things that rule you out of being involved in local politics. It means we’re not getting a full picture of our communities.

SINCE MY LATE TWENTIES I’VE BEEN BEATING MYSELF UP ABOUT MY TIMELINE. Do I have kids and when do I have kids and how do I do this and how do I balance that?

I have so much respect for the women who balance a family and demanding careers. I think we need to be more supportive of ourselves and each other and acknowledge the reality that it’s impossible to have it all.

SO MUCH OF OUR SOCIETY IS POWERED BY OLDER WOMEN AND YET THEY CAN OFTEN BE INVISIBLE. I’m inspired by the older women I see working as activists, people who are contributing so much of their time and energy to the causes that matter to them. Women, at every age, are what drive the community, but I’d love to see that labour being shared more between men and women. Women get a lot out of it and I think men could get a lot out of it, too.

I LOVE DREAMING UP WHAT I’M GOING TO WEAR and trying to come up with something completely new. It’s my favourite way to keep myself amused. I think you can bring joy to other people and say so much with fashion. I come from a line of confident dressers. We used to walk down the stairs every morning and get reviews of our outfit, even as a kid. It’s a family thing. Now, if it makes me smile and laugh then I know I love it.

WHEN YOU LOOK AT ALL THE THINGS THAT WOMEN HAVE TRADITIONALLY BEEN ALIGNED WITH, they’re the things we disregard as being silly or superficial – and we need to reclaim some of these artforms and forms of expression. There’s a thoughtfulness, a craft, a mastery to fashion and we need to own it. It’s not frivolous – it’s about expression and making. It’s architecture for the body.

A curator, arts, culture and creative-industries expert, and committed change-maker, councillor Jess Scully brings life and colour to the City of Sydney council and the world beyond.