Tom Zubrycki

File:Tom Zubrycki.jpg

Tom Zubrycki (born 1946){{cite book |title=The Promise of Diversity: The Story of Jerzy Zubrzycki, Architect of Multicultural Australia |page=67|first1=John |last1=Williams |first2=John |last2=Bond |publisher=Grosvenor Books Australia |year=2013 }} is an Australian documentary filmmaker. He is "widely respected as one of Australia's leading documentary filmmakers", according to Jonathan Dawson.{{cite book |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ay5rIWCXlLsC&pg=PA56 |title=The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of the Documentary Film |first=Jonathan |last=Dawson |author-link=Jonathan Dawson |editor-first=Ian |editor-last=Aitken |editor-link=Ian Aitken (journalist) |publisher=Routledge |year=2013 |page=56 |chapter=Australia |isbn= 9781136512063}} His films on social, environmental and political issues have won international prizes and have been screened around the world.{{cite web |url=http://aso.gov.au/people/Tom_Zubrycki/ |title=Tom Zubrycki |work=Australian Screen Online |first= |last= |date= |access-date=2024-01-07}} He has also worked as a film lecturer and published occasional articles and papers about documentary film.{{cite web |url=https://independent.academia.edu/TomZubrycki |title=Articles & Papers |work=Academia.edu |first=Tom |last=Zubrycki |access-date=2024-01-07}}

Early life and education

Zubrycki emigrated with his parents from England to Canberra, Australia in late 1955.{{cite book |title=The Promise of Diversity: The Story of Jerzy Zubrzycki, Architect of Multicultural Australia |page=76 |first1=John |last1=Williams |first2=John |last2=Bond |publisher=Grosvenor Books Australia |year=2013 }} His father is Jerzy Zubrzycki (1920–2009), a university academic credited as one of the main architects of the Australian government’s policy on multiculturalism.{{cite book |title=The Promise of Diversity: The Story of Jerzy Zubrzycki, Architect of Multicultural Australia |pages=127–129 |first1=John |last1=Williams |first2=John |last2=Bond |publisher=Grosvenor Books Australia |year=2013 }}

Film career

=20th century=

While studying sociology, Zubrycki became inspired by the Canadian Challenge for Change scheme, which used film and video to empower local communities. In 1974 the Whitlam Labor government funded 12 video access resource centres across Australia which were modeled on the Canadian scheme.{{Cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1552765721/view?sectionId=nla.obj-1739120534&partId=nla.obj-1553068044#page/n28/mode/1up |title=Video centres face new crises |newspaper=The Bulletin |first=Sandra |last=Hall |volume=100 |issue=5172 |pages=29–30 |date=August 7, 1979 |issn=0007-4039 |via=Trove}} Zubrycki eventually became involved in the development of community video in Australia. One of his projects involved building and operating a mobile video production facility The Community Media Bus.{{Cite news |url=https://nla.gov.au/nla.obj-1588647952/view?sectionId=nla.obj-1756382766&partId=nla.obj-1588753434#page/n19/mode/1up |via=Trove |title=A bus ride out of despair |newspaper=The Bulletin |first=Brian |last=Hoad |volume=98 |issue=5028 |page=20 |date=October 16, 1976 |issn=0007-4039}}

The technical limitations of the portapak video tape analog recording system, plus his desire to reach wider audiences led Zubrycki to switch to 16mm film.{{cite magazine |url=https://theeducationshop.com.au/downloads/metro-and-screen-education-articles/metro-articles/from-video-to-film-and-back-again |title=From Video to Film and Back Again |magazine=Metro Magazine |issue=107 |first=Tom |last=Zubrycki |date=1997 |access-date=2024-01-01}} Zubrycki completed his first film Waterloo in 1981.{{cite web | title=Site search: Waterloo | website=Australian Screen Online | url=https://aso.gov.au/search/?q=WATERLOO&x=21&y=16 | access-date=2024-01-22}} The film, which focused attention on the negative social impacts of Sydney's rapid urban development, won the prize for Best Documentary in the Greater Union Awards at the 1981 Sydney Film Festival.{{cite web |url=https://online.sffarchive.org.au/archive/sff-archive-2019-edition/1981/1981-context |title=1981 Film Context |work=Sydney Film Festival |date=2019 |access-date=2024-01-22}}

Zubrycki's documentaries are personally intimate views about contemporary issues. He usually employs a "documentary observational mode" and his films are narrative-based and character-driven.{{cite magazine |url=https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/ielapa.956919964873757|title=Tom Zubrycki: On Filmmaking, History and Other Obsessions |magazine=Metro Magazine |issue=144 |first=Patrick |last=Armstrong |date=January 2005 |pages=96–100 |url-access=subscription }}

Zubrycki's first films to employ this style focused on the victims of Australia's rapid economic and social re-structuring. They were Kemira - Diary of a Strike (1984){{cite web | title=Kemira - Diary of a Strike | website=Australian Screen Online | url=https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/kemira-diary-strike/ | access-date=2024-01-22}} about an underground colliery sit-in strike near Wollongong which won an AFI Award for Best Documentary in 1985,{{cite magazine |url=https://theeducationshop.com.au/downloads/metro-and-screen-education-articles/metro-articles/showing-some-fight-kemiras-challenge-to-industrial-relations/|title=Kemira's challenge to industrial relation|magazine=Metro Magazine |issue=156 |first1=Rebecca|last1=Coyle|first2=Lisa|last2=Milner |date=2007 }} and Friends & Enemies (1985){{cite web | title=Friends & Enemies | website=Australian Screen Online | url=https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/friends-and-enemies/ | access-date=2024-01-22}} about a protracted and bitter union dispute in Queensland that saw the rise of the New Right in Australia. In a case study of Friends & Enemies in the journal Studies in Documentary Film, Debra Beattie (2020) comments, "In showing the suffering and despair of workers and their families Zubrycki is like the Angel of History in Walter Benjamin's great mediation on the Paul Klee painting Angelus Novus".{{cite journal |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17503280.2019.1595918 |title=Time, Memory and History in the Labor Documentary film: An examination of Friends & Enemies |journal= Studies in Documentary Film |volume=13 |number=2 |pages=93-102 |first1=Debra |last1=Beattie |date=2019 |doi=10.1080/17503280.2019.1595918|url-access=subscription }}

In 1988, Zubrycki was contracted by Film Australia to write and direct a documentary commissioned by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) and funded by The Australian Bicentennial Authority. However, owing to an editorial difference between the filmmaker and the ACTU, the film Amongst Equals was never officially completed.{{cite web | title=Amongst Equals | website=Australian Trade Union Institute | date=2022-12-13 | url=https://atui.org.au/film/amongst-equals/ | access-date=2024-01-22}} Zubrycki claimed that he was forced to re-write history in accordance with the wishes of key ACTU officials who wanted to de-emphasize direct industrial action as a way of improving wages and conditions.{{cite news |url=https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/213877272?searchTerm=tom%20Zubrycki |via=Trove |title=The Amongst Equals story |newspaper=Filmnews |first=Mark |last=Styles |date=February 1, 1991 |page=5 |access-date=2024-01-01}}{{cite journal |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17503280.2019.1595920 |title=Zubrycki’s point: Amongst Equals, utilitarian film in the Australian labour movement |journal=Studies in Documentary Film |volume=13 |number=2 |pages=103-126 |first1=John |last1=Hughes |date=2019 |doi=10.1080/17503280.2019.1595920 |url-access=subscription }}

In the early 1990s, Zubrycki's focus turned to migrant and refugee families and the stresses caused by cultural conflict, and the search for identity and home. In 1993, he completed Homelands,{{cite web | title=Homelands | website=Australian Screen Online | url=https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/homelands/ | access-date=2024-01-22}} about an El Salvador refugee family and the anatomy of a marriage under stress.{{cite news |title=Film captures revolutionary's haunted past |work=The Australian |first=Anne|last=Lim |date=October 15, 1993 }} Margaret Smith (1993) reviewing the film in Cinema Papers comments on "its compelling images, empathetic characters, multi-layered storyline and sheer force of its narrative".{{cite news |title= Tom Zubrycki's "Homelands" |work=Cinema Papers |first=Margaret|last=Smith |date=October 5, 1995 }} This was followed by Billal (1995),{{cite web | title=Billal | website=Australian Screen Online | url=https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/billal/ | access-date=2024-01-22}} a documentary that followed the aftermath of a racially motivated incident involving a Lebanese teenage boy and his family.{{cite news |title=How ethnic conflict left a young man with brain damage |work=Sydney Morning Herald |first=Deborah |last=Hope |date=October 5, 1995 }} Reviewing the film for Variety, David Stratton described the film as a "thought-provoking, and all too brief document of considerable impact".{{cite news |title=Billal |work=Variety |first=David |last=Stratton |date=July 1, 1996 }}

=21st century=

Zubrycki's next film was The Diplomat (2000), about the former exiled East Timor leader Jose Ramos-Horta and the final two years of his 25-year campaign to secure his homeland's independence.{{cite news |title=A star is born as country torn |work=The Weekend Australian |first=Sian|last=Powell |date=10 June 2000 }} Jonathan Dawson called it his most "internationally successful" film.

In 2003, Zubrycki returned to Australia and made Molly & Mobarak. This observational documentary charts the unfolding relationship between a young Hazara man fleeing the Taliban who has been granted a temporary protection visa, and the daughter of one of his English teachers. David Stratton (2003), reviewing the film, wrote: "In humanizing an Afghani asylum-seeker, Zubrycki is being politically contentious".{{cite news |title=Molly & Mobarak |work=Variety |first=David |last=Stratton |date=June 7, 2003 }} Efforts to prevent the film from screening to parliamentarians and their staff in Canberra shortly after the film’s release were ultimately defeated.{{cite news |title=Parliament backs down on film ban |newspaper=The Canberra Times |date=November 3, 2003 |page=3}} Molly & Mobarak generated much commentary about the ethical nature of the filmmaker/subject relationship. Kate Nash (2003) observes: "Power circulates in the documentary relationship as filmmaker and participant pursue their own vision for the project… both make themselves vulnerable within the relationship".{{cite journal |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1386/sdf.4.1.21_1 |title=Exploring Power and Trust In Documentary - A Study of Tom Zubrycki’s Molly and Mobarak |journal=Studies in Documentary Film |volume=4 |number=1 |pages=21-33 |first1=Kate |last1=Nash |date=2010 |doi=10.1386/sdf.4.1.21_1 |url-access=subscription }}

In 2007, Zubrycki made Temple of Dreams,{{cite web | title=Temple of Dreams | website=Australian Screen Online | url=https://aso.gov.au/titles/documentaries/temple-dreams/ | access-date=2024-01-22}} about an Islamic Youth Centre and its battle with the local municipal council that wants to shut it down. Like his earlier film Billal, the focus was on Lebanese Muslims in the suburbs of south West Sydney, young people whose identity is split between a war-torn homeland and contemporary Australia. Suzie Khamis (2004) notes, "These films prove a powerful counterpoint to a wider cultural tendency: to see Australian Lebanese Muslims though a narrow and detrimental prism".{{cite book |url=https://www.austlit.edu.au/austlit/page/C779199 |chapter=Lebanese Muslims Speak Back: Two films by Tom Zubrycki |title=Diasporas of Australian Cinema |first=Suzie |last=Khamis |publisher=Intellect Books |year=2019 |editor1-first=Catherine |editor1-last=Simpson |pages=147-157 }}

In 2011, Zubrycki completed The Hungry Tide, a personal story about the impact of climate change on the small Pacific nation of Kiribati, which premiered at the Sydney Film Festival and screened in competition at IDFA.{{cite magazine |url=https://realtimearts.net/article/105/10453|title=A nation Slips Under The Waves|magazine=Real Time Arts|issue=105|first1=Dan|last1=Edwards |date=2011 }}{{cite magazine |url=https://www.academia.edu/108060112/|title=The Documentary as Privileged Access|magazine=Lumina Journal |issue=8|first1=Tom|last1=Zubrycki|publisher=Australian Film, Television and Radio School |date=2011 |via=Academia.edu}} Shweta Kishore (2012) reviewing the film in Metro Magazine comments, "In The Hungry Tide, Tom Zubrycki peels away levels of obfuscation to reveal an urgent story of people facing the terror of climate change on their doorstep".{{cite magazine |url=https://theeducationshop.com.au/downloads/metro-and-screen-education-articles/metro-articles/document-the-hungry-tide/ |title=The Hungry Tide - a review |magazine=Metro Magazine |issue=171 |first=Shweta |last=Kishore |date=2012 |access-date=2024-01-01}}

In 2018, Zubrycki was commissioned to write a platform paper about the issues facing the documentary film sector in Australia. The resultant monograph The Changing Landscape of Australian Documentary{{cite book |url=https://catalogue.nla.gov.au/catalog/8040950 |title=The Changing Landscape of Australian Documentary |series=Platform Papers |volume=58 |first1=Tom |last1=Zubrycki |publisher=Currency House |location=Strawberry Hills, NSW, Australia |year=2019 |isbn=9780648426516 }} was published a year later. It reviews the history of documentary in Australia, and argued a strong case for government regulation of streaming platforms to compell them to invest in Australian documentaries.

Filmography

List of films in which Zubrycki played a role such as director, writer or producer. All films source to Screen Australia, unless otherwise cited.{{cite web |url=https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/the-screen-guide/p/tom-zubrycki/24462 |title=Tom Zubrycki |work=Screen Australia |access-date=2023-12-15}}

1981 Waterloo (Director, producer)
1984 Kemira - Diary of a Strike (Director, Producer)
1985 Friends & Enemies (Director, Producer)
1990 Lord of the Bush (Director, Producer)
1990 Amongst Equals (Writer, Director)
1991 Bran Nue Dae (Director, Producer)
1993 Homelands (Director, Writer, Producer)
1995 Billal (Director, Writer, Producer)
1996 Exile in Sarajevo (Producer)
1998 Whiteys Like Us (Producer)
2000 Stolen Generations (Producer)
2000 The Diplomat (Director)
2001 The Secret Safari (Director, Writer)
2002 Gulpilil - One Red Blood (Producer)
2002 Making Venus (Producer)
2003 Molly & Mobarak (Director, Producer, Dir of Photography)
2005 Vietnam Symphony (Director, Writer)

2006 The Prodigal Son (Producer)
2007 Temple of Dreams (Director, Writer, Producer)
2008 Mad Morro (Producer)
2009 The Intervention (Producer)
2011 The Hungry Tide (Director, Producer, Dir. of Photography)
2012 Light from the Shadows (Producer)
2013 The Sunnyboy (Producer)
2016 Dogs Of Democracy (Producer)
2017 Hope Road (Director, Producer, Dir. of Photography)
2017 The Panther Within (Producer)
2018 Teach A Man To Fish (Producer)
2020 The Weather Diaries (Producer)
2021 Ablaze (Producer)
2022 Senses Of Cinema (Co-director, Co-producer)
2023 [https://letterboxd.com/film/memory-film-a-filmmakers-diary/ "Memory Film - a filmmakers diary"] (Co-producer).
2023 Kindred (Co-producer)
2023 The Carnival (Producer)

Awards and honours

1984: AFI Awards, Best Documentary, Kemira - Diary of a Strike{{cite web | url=https://www.aacta.org/aacta-awards/winners-and-nominees/range/1980-1989/year/1984/ | title=Winners & Nominees }}
1993: Film Critics Circle of Australia Award for "Homelands".
1998: International Emmy, Exile in Sarajevo{{cite web | url=https://www.iemmys.tv/international-emmy-awards/winners-archive/ | title=Winners Archive – International Academy of Television Arts & Sciences }}
2000: AFI Award, Best Documentary, The Diplomat{{cite web | url=https://www.aacta.org/aacta-awards/winners-and-nominees/range/2000-2010/year/2000/ | title=Winners & Nominees }}
2000: AFI Award, Best Direction, The Diplomat
2009: Cecil Holmes Award presented by Australian Directors Guild.
2010: Stanley Hawes Award presented by the Australian International Documentary Conference "in recognition of outstanding contribution to documentary filmmaking in Australia".{{cite journal |title=The Stanley Hawes Address |journal=Lumina Journal |number=3 |publisher=Australian Film, Television and Radio School |first=Tom |last= Zubrycki |date=2010 }}
2021: Victorian Premier's History Award, with Alec Morgan and Tirki Onus, for Ablaze – A Feature Documentary{{Cite web|date=2021-10-27|title=Winners 2021 – Victorian Community History Awards|url=https://prov.vic.gov.au/winners-2021|access-date=2021-10-27|website=prov.vic.gov.au}}
2021: Film Critics Circle of Australia Award for "Senses Of Cinema" joint award with John Hughes{{cite web | url=https://au.variety.com/2023/awards/news/film-critics-circle-of-australia-awards-winners-8930/ | title=Film Critics Circle of Australia Awards: Winners Revealed | date=28 February 2023 }}

References

External links

{{Official website|http://www.tomzubrycki.com/}}

Category:Living people

Category:Australian documentary filmmakers

Category:Year of birth missing (living people)