Tea and Pictures

Based on my play, Not Still Lives 

“Art is a problem of relationships” Margaret Preston: Aphorism No 29

TEA & PICTURES

1990

Writer/Director. A 30 min drama/ Documentary film.

About the Australian Modernist artists, Margaret Preston and Thea Proctor played by Genevieve Picot and Susan Lyons with Michael Carman as George Lambert, Ian Scott as Harold Cazneaux and voice of Bill Preston, Robert Lyon as Leon Gellert, John Concannon as Basil Burdett.

Cinematographer, Sally Bongers; Sound Recordist, Geoff Wilson; Art Director, Jan Mackay; Assist. Art Director, Amanda Johnson; Storyboard, Suzanne Fegan, Costumes, Rose Chong & Peter Jago; Makeup, Lloyd James,  Editor, Edward McQueen Mason; Titles, Oliver Streeton. Composer, Sarah Hopkins; Consultant Producer, Margot McDonald. Produced by Susan Weis & Claire Jager.

Funded by AFC, Womens Film Fund & Film Victoria. 

The production was a gut wrenching ordeal for me. The film was shot in Melbourne in Feb/March 1989. We had moved to Darwin two years before and our children were very young - barely three and turning six and I had to be in Melbourne and away from them for two months. There was no money in the budget to enable me to return to Darwin during the shoot -  airfares and STD phone calls were very expensive then.  I came home at the end of the shoot before the editing had commenced. I was unable to return for health/family and financial reasons. I lost artistic control of the film, resulting in me taking my name off the finished film as director. It had taken nearly seven years to get the film made, so it was a heart breaking experience.