Shouting a message to the world through film

Jude Kalman’s life is anchored here with husband Glenn, but her passion for work takes her into Africa and Asia where she shoots her stories and gives a voice to the disadvantaged and the refugees who need to be heard

Bulletin

WHEN you grow up hearing stories about the time your father was shot in the head escaping a communist dictatorship, perhaps it should come as no surprise that you feel compelled to share the tales of refugees.

And yet, Jude Kalman’s career has been a continual revelation – even to herself. While the Gold Coast’s cultural renaissance continues, it is still considered a curiosity to see our own independent filmmaker recognised internationally – with a screening of her work at no less than the United Nations headquarters in New York on February 20, the World Day of Social Justice. But for Jude, while honoured, it is just another day at the office.

Her briefcase is a suitcase that has travelled throughout Africa, Asia and Australia, working with refugees and NGOs in South Sudan, Mozambique, Kenya and beyond. It’s a far cry from her Gold Coast childhood, when she attended Marymount College and enjoyed a daily breakfast of Coco Pops and days at the beach.

“I was such an Aussie kid, I loved my Coco Pops, I had no idea what poverty meant and I completely took my education for granted,” she says.

“I was always drawn to filmmaking. From about the age of 17 it was my industry. But even as I was having commercial success, I was just drawn to work with NGOs (non-government organisations) and tell these stories that we don’t always hear in Australia.

“It seems obvious now, but it took me a long time to realise that my connection to refugees and people in wartorn countries or who were living in poverty, came from my own parents.”

Jude’s father escaped from Hungary after World War II, surviving a gunshot to the head as he fled, leaving his family behind.

Her mother left the country with her own family in 1956 during the Hungarian Revolution, and the pair met in Australia.

Jude says while her father would regularly talk about his experiences – even showing her friends his gunshot wound – her mother was tight-lipped about her life as a refugee.

“Dad would talk about all this stuff and here’s me, just eating my Coco Pops. It was two different worlds for him,” she says. “I went to Hungary when I was 20 and I met all of Dad’s family – and we all look the same. Mum’s family came to Australia with her so I’d always known them, but that was the first time I met the Kalmans.

“I always wanted to do a documentary with Dad, but he got dementia and then he died. He was 90. Yet you always think you have more time.

“When I go to Africa, it always amazes me the entrepreneurial spirit that so many of the people have. They take any opportunity they can and they make the most of it. And that’s my parents too.

“When I went to Nigeria and talked to the people who were displaced by Boko Haram, or talked to the people fleeing from South Sudan, I’m in awe how incredible and resilient they are. But that’s my parents, too.

“Maybe I didn’t realise it at the time, but I must have been listening while I was eating all those Coco Pops.”

Despite her personal story, Jude’s preferred position is behind the camera, which was why she was so surprised to be recognised by the UN.

But this new role is thanks, in part, to her co-star – Gold Coast councillor Glenn Tozer.

The pair married in July 2017 and she admits her husband is also possibly her biggest fan.

“I’m just not big on selfpromotion,” she says.

“I can find the stories and ask the questions and film and edit, but I don’t like the publicity part. The fact that (short documentary) Katura’s Story is showing at the UN is all thanks to Glenn. He actually entered it into a

Russian film festival. Then I got this email about some awards that was written in broken English and Glenn was like ‘that’s not spam’. It turns out I’d won and through that, it’s being shown at the UN. “Good on you, Glenn. “He’s actually been fantastic. Even though I’m home most of the year, I’m still away a lot. But he knows I couldn’t not tell these stories – and he celebrates that.

“I remember thinking as I approached the age of 40, well, if I ever meet someone they’re going to have to deal with what I do because I’m not stopping. And then I met Glenn and it’s crazy but we work. We’re different but we complement each other. I love chainsawing and he likes working in the kitchen.”

Jude’s award-winning short documentary, Katura’s Story, was made in partnership with Mission Educate, a Gold

Coast-based charity that has been working in Beira, Mozambique, for almost 20 years. Working with locals, the charity has overseen the construction of a primary and secondary school that now educates 2000 Mozambican students.

The documentary follows All Saints Anglican School student Katura Halleday, a finalist for the Gold Coast Young Citizen of the Year award, as she visits the King of Kings school in Mozambique and meets the girls whose education she has sponsored.

“In 2001, Mozambique was the poorest country in the world. It rose up to fifth or sixth from the bottom, then Cyclone Idai came and just wiped out everything,” Jude says. “They are rebuilding and education is the key to progress.

“When I film, I usually work according to the ‘better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission’ method. I was filming a woman on the beach who was cleaning her fish by the ocean and she saw me and just started screaming at the camera in Portuguese. I thought, uh-oh. But then they told me what she was screaming: ‘Let the world see that we need education so the children don’t end up like me.’

“That was so powerful. Education didn’t really exist in Mozambique until the 1970s. It’s almost a luxury.