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Ronin Films

People

Jeni Thornley

The rug may take years to finish, years of dedication to a single intricate design, years of sitting at the loom with one aim - working at the rug. The finished rug is too much in the future, too far ahead to encourage her. It requires the patience of waiting. The principle in craftsmanship that calls us to work with materials may be the same principle which in a larger sense calls us to work with ourselves. Carla Needlman, The Work of Craft: An Enquiry into the Nature of Crafts and Craftsmanship, 1979.

Potter Carla Needlman's words resonate with my current documentary Island Home Country (2008) and diary films Maidens (1978) and To The Other Shore (1996). It's like starting out on a journey and not knowing how far it will take you or where to, but there's no doubt that at the end of it all, much has changed. It was similar with the historical (collaborative) feature documentary For Love or Money A History of Women and Work in Australia (1983). We had to take a waiting with approach too, as the collective process was so complex and arduous. It had its own timing. The process itself required the patience Needlman writes about. I think that's why I experience my filmmaking more like a craft, than part of an industrial system. Possibly the digital era of filmmaking and distribution breathes new life into filmmaking as a craft based practice