If there are two things that I always make time for whenever I am in Sydney, one is the Hawkesbury River and the other are the South Sydney Rabbitohs. Of course, the former exists up north between Manly and Newcastle while the latter sits below downtown Sydney near Mascot, Coogee, and Redfern. Where the twain shall meet is on Dangar Island, a small residential...
Back in 2005, the movie Oyster Farmer introduced me to the idyllic and beautiful Hawkesbury River region; a place that very few American tourists to the land down under had ever seen, let alone have ever heard about. During the film, there is a scene where Alex O’Lachlan’s character, Jack Flange, disembarks the train at Wondabyne, a tiny platform on the...
To really get this story on the Hawkesbury River moving forward, we must go back to the beginning. To a place, far, far way. To a time, a long, long time ago. To New York City, in August of 2005! I had just heard of a foreign film from Australia that was being shown at one of those fancy, yet obscure indie-film houses in lower Manhattan. A limited run of this...
Back in the summer of 2005, I read about an Australian foreign film in the New York Times called “Oyster Farmer”. At the time, I had developed a real fascination with Australian culture, and I had to check out this movie for myself. I went to an afternoon showing of it at the Quad Cinema in lower Manhattan. Little did I know what I was in for. The film...