Another office of the Netherlands Forces in the Pacific, therefore banned with support from the Waterside revisit Indonesia Calling Joris Ivens and Australia East Indies government-in-exile Ivens from war zones. So Ivens found Workers, the activist documentary was a film division. Joris Ivens, the that he and his crew were not invited Indonesia Calling! began to take shape. newly appointed Film Commissioner to join the first shipload of political The producer was Eddie Allison, who AUS began to assemble his unit. Among apparatus returning to Java with the later in 1946 made Coal Dust, and in the On August 17, 1945, a little over a week after American atom bombs levelled Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the young those drawn to work with Joris Ivens intention of crushing the insurgency early 1950s established the alternative was the Australian radio star, writer and re-establishing Dutch rule. distribution company Quality Films in Indonesian independence activist Soekarno, speaking from his front garden at 56 Pegangsaan Timoar in Batavia (now and actor Catherine Duncan (see Sydney that dealt with non-theatrical Jakarta) on behalf of the 90 million across an archipelago from Java to western Papua, proclaimed independence over ‘In Memoriam: Catherine Duncan Behind the back of the Australian distribution of eastern European art what was at that time the Japanese occupied Dutch colony of the Netherlands East Indies. These events delivered a 1915-2006, EFJI Newsmagazine 12: government the Dutch began forcing cinema and British and American Henri Pieck, 50 Million December 2006). She was something Indonesian soldiers under their ‘political’ documentaries. major foreign policy dilemma to Australian Labour Prime Minister Ben Chifley: should the Australians support their Indonesians silenced (detail), of a celebrity in Australia. She won an command in Australia onto aircraft Working clandestinely, while very ill, lithography, 1929. Coll. wartime European allies in repressing the post-colonial nationalists to the north? Or should they recognise regional Oscar in the mid 1940s for her radio for flights out of Bundaberg to fight with this remarkable ‘multi-cultural’ IISG. anti-colonial movements as essential partners in a new post-war world? In complicated ways they tried to do both, performances and was determined their countrymen across the islands. team, Joris Ivens with Marion Michelle to get into documentary filmmaking There was mutiny. Indonesians who as principle cinematographer, docu- and matters unresolved at that time – West Papua in particular – continue to trouble Australian-Indonesian relations Marion Michelle, Indonesian - the “it” avant-garde cultural form of refused service were arrested and mented the events of the blockade: and Australian workers during to this day. the moment. It was Catherine Duncan held behind barbed wire at Casino “a film about the ships that did not a waterfront rally in Sydney, who introduced Ivens to Indonesian in NSW. And when the Dutch started sail”; with commentary by Catherine November 1945. Coll. EFJI- independence activists. arresting Australians who refused to Duncan, and narrated by fellow Marion Michelle, © EFJI by John Hughes The scale of the exodus when the Dutch the internment camps that housed load munitions it became a matter for Australian New Theatre actor Peter fled Japanese occupation in early 1942 Dutch political prisoners evacuated 1 the press (October 1945). Loaded with Finch. was enormous. The whole apparatus from Dutch concentration camps in At precisely the moment that the troops, arms and ammunition, Dutch The film was made against enormous of Dutch colonial administration was western Papua, where Indonesian Indonesian independence crisis was government officials urgently tried to odds; there was very little available transported by ship and emergency independence activists had been unfolding, other arms of government leave Brisbane, where their navy was equipment or stock, indeed an airlifts through Broome and to other exiled since the 1920s. Australians in Australia were working toward mostly docked. The waterside unions Australian security file includes a hand ports in Australia. Fifty-seven aircraft became aware of the internment the establishment of a government refused to load the ships, the seamen written note; ‘Kodak agreed not supply arrived in Broome in one day; they of these men when one prisoner film production agency like that of manning tugboats refused to work. Mr Ivens with film footage’ (sic) (NAA: would refuel and return through managed to toss a note to a railway the Dutch, and of the National Film Dutch shipping and Dutch business A6126/XMO). Film stock may have treacherous skies threatened by worker at Liverpool Station in Sydney Board of Canada. ‘Nugget’ Coombs as was declared black across the country been ‘donated’ by Australian soldiers Director General of the Department as the Trade Union movement rallied in returning from Borneo, and ‘short ‘…to articulate the past historically does not mean to recognise it of Post War Reconstruction, initiated support of Indonesian Independence. ends’ were donated by Harry Watt, here in 1942 a series of actions that Eventually the ACTU came on board in Australia making The Overlanders. “as it really was”, but to grasp hold of a memory as it flashes up in resulted finally - with important under the slogan ‘everything Dutch is John Heyer shot scenes for the film, a moment of danger.’ and constraining, possibly crippling, black’ (Lockwood, 1975). as did Ken Coldicutt in Melbourne. compromises - in Cabinet approval for Large numbers of Indian seamen Arthur Higgins, Alex Poignant, Merv Japanese ‘zero’ fighters bringing files, during transfer to the internment the establishment of the Australian were flown into Australia by the Murphy and his partner at Supreme arms and personnel. In two weeks there camp at Cowra. After a long campaign National Film Board that held its first Dutch and Australian governments Sound, Gwen Oakley, all contributed were 8000 refugees from the Indies in those interned were finally released meeting in May 1945. with the intention that they would to work on the film. Broome. This hasty surrender provided (December 1943). They began to meet In June 1945, Joris Ivens spoke to a fill the role that the Indonesians Indonesia Calling! was screened the staging post for Japanese bombing with Indonesian seamen, soldiers meeting of the ANFB with an address had refused. But Indian seamen as publicly for the first time in Australia raids on Broome and Darwin. and administrative staff who were entitled ‘the meaning of documentary a rule were no more interested in at the Kings Cross Newsreel Theatre on working around the country with the film in national development’. Little supporting the reestablishment of August 9, 1946, to audiences mostly of Within twelve months or so the NEI government-in-exile. These were could he have known at that time colonial rule in the Asia Pacific region Indonesians. While arguments about Dutch were operating a number the people that formed the core of that he was soon to make a decision than the Indonesians. They too walked banning the film raged in Federal of government departments on Indonesian independence activism in regarding ‘documentary film in off in droves, leaving the Australian Parliament, prints were smuggled out Australian soil. Among these were Australia. national development’ that would government with the dilemma of what of the country and exhibited in out- exile him from his homeland for to do - as the ‘white Australia policy’ door screenings in villages in Java and Flyer for Australians with decades. was alive and well - with a growing elsewhere. information about the Ivens’ principle task as the Netherlands number of non-white, unemployed, young Republic of Indone- Film Commissioner was to make mutinous seamen. The frontlines of 3 sia, 1946. Coll. JIA/EFJI works documenting and presumably Indonesian Independence were here When the Australian National Film propagating harmonious civil affairs on the Australian docks, the ports of Board’s first Producer-in-Chief Stanley Bulletin Indonesian Sea- following the re-occupation of the Java, and with the propaganda war for Hawes arrived from Canada to take man, 1945. Coll. JIA/EFJI Netherlands East Indies, and then political support and public opinion. charge of the embryonic Film Division to establish a film unit for post-war - the production arm of the ANFB - he Clipping about action of reconstruction in cooperation with the 2 inherited Department of Information Dutch ships against Austra- Indonesian population. However, the Joris Ivens took the decision to back newsreel units. Some of the people lian demonstrators. United States’ FBI had been worrying the Indonesians, and to defy the Hawes wanted to hire in the late 1940s about Joris Ivens since opening their government that employed him. He and early 1950 were simply vetoed by file on him soon after he arrived resigned as NEI Film Commissioner security; others, having been hired, in the US to work on the Roosevelt and announced his reasons at a press were sacked without any consultation New Deal films (Power and the Land, conference at the Menzies Hotel in with Hawes at all. (Oral history 1940) and with Capra on the ‘Why Sydney (November 21, 1945). This was interview, Stanley Hawes: 1973) We Fight’ series during the war. The reported on the front page of the New Catherine Duncan slipped through; FBI considered him “one of the most York Times. Working out of his flat in early in 1947 she wrote and directed dangerous communists in the United Elizabeth Bay, with Marion Michelle, the Divisions first series, Australia States”. General Douglas MacArthur, Catherine Duncan, Indonesian activists and Your Future for the Immigration the Supreme Commander of Allied and former political prisoners, and Department: Men Wanted (1947),
26 December 2006 | 12 December 2006 | 12 27 5 Christmas Under the Sun (1947) and job opportunities for those involved its legitimacy with the emerging here in Australia. Soon the Cold War instead nurtured another kind of This is the Life (1947). The security with Indonesia Calling! At one point the Indonesian leadership because of the Forces in contest within Australia, the locked off this early post-war optimism ‘secret history’. The remarkably salient services soon realised that the security apparatus of the Department support that had been demonstrated United Nations and in the region in the - optimism for both an independent memory that remains is that of the government’s film production house of Supply’s division that was managing by Australian citizens in the boycotts early post-war years enabled a start to cinema and ‘imagined communities’ effectiveness and value of a small - with its mandated brief to deliver all security around the Australian/UK and the film. be made to an independent Republic of independent nations forging their film, advocating independence, and government department film needs atom bomb testing suggested that The film documents the first crucial of Indonesia and to a committed and own futures with autonomy from performing it, in interesting times - had among its staff people who had these people should simply be culled six months of the blockade; however, engaged independent film culture metropolitan power. The Cold War worked on Indonesia Calling! during one of the many ‘restructures’ over the course of a four year period of the Film Division. over 550 vessels were affected. The Australian filmmaker John Hughes’ new project engages with Indonesia Calling! With an emphasis on the making of the film, fundamental relationships As the Cold War escalated, and Australia The suspicions held and damage Chifley Labour government’s refusal between Australia and Indonesia and the impact of Joris Ivens on the early post-war Australian documentary film culture. His most recent film The Archive became increasingly enmeshed in the done to the lives and work of all of to intervene against the waterfront Project, a feature documentary concerning the little known Realist film movement in Melbourne (1945-59) has been recognised with a number of awards UK/US nuclear programmes, these these people in the name of national unions, despite the government’s including Critics Circle, ‘Best Feature Documentary’, an Australian Teachers of Media Award, the inaugural ‘Joan Long Award for Achievement, Australian brought with them increased security security were, in each case, smear ambivalence, was undoubtedly a film history’, Australasian Film and History Conference, 2006 and the NSW Premier’s Award. Also in 2006, Hughes was awarded the ‘Stanley Hawes Award apparatus. Catherine Duncan was a without substance. factor in the success of the campaign. for Lifelong commitment to Australian documentary’. An on-line work presenting the 60 year history of Film Australia, entitled ‘Moving History’, made in prime target among many. Stanley Hawes’ defence of some of A negotiated settlement brokered collaboration with the national public broadcaster ABC On-line and Film Australia, can be accessed at: www.abc.net.au/aplacetothink/#watch/. The spooks concluded that her these people contributed to his own by a United Nations ‘Good Officers Previous work for film and television includes Hidden Treasures Series One & Two, The Art of War, River of Dreams, After Mabo, What I Have Written and One relationships with various men, Joris difficulties - he was under enormous Committee’ - a committee to which Way Street. He can be contacted at [email protected] Ivens among them, and others at suspicion and pressure during his Australia’s participation was the Australian National Film Board’s career with the variously named Film nominated by the Indonesians - Film Division constituted a threat to Division / Commonwealth Film Unit / delivered a United States of Indonesia national security. Indeed, the Division’s Film Australia. The security agencies under the leadership of Soekarno Recently I had the pleasure of travelling show Soekarno.” She notes that Ivens’ appreciation. It is an instance where Producer-in-Chief Stanley Hawes, was considered him a secret communist, which was handed sovereignty by the from Melbourne to Nijmegen for an film - ‘a film about the ships that did not the urgency of social justice – and in himself suspected of illicit relations classified him as ‘adversely known’ Dutch in late 1947. This became the introductory period of research with the sail’, documenting as it does the very this case a specifically post-colonial with Catherine Duncan. This, along and a security risk up until about a Republic of Indonesia in 1956. EFJI in pursuit of a project concerning effective boycott of Dutch ships by the ambition – to some extent negates with the fact that she was still believed year before he retired from the public After the Chifley-Evatt Labour govern- the making of Indonesia Calling! The Waterfront unions in Australia - does the aesthetic modernism that Bill to be in contact with Joris Ivens, led to service in 1970 (he was on limited ment fell in December 1949, the conser- project INDONESIA CALLING: Joris Ivens not have any footage of Indonesia. She Nichols talks about as one voice in the security vetoes for decades afterwards contracts from 1946 until 1970; vative Menzies government reversed in Australia revisits the making of the also makes the important point that a dynamic of documentary tradition as on a number of people with whom he was never given public service the momentary autonomy of Australian film, fills out a number of dimensions high degree of violence accompanying it negotiated notions and practices she was associated. These dossiers, of permanency). They also suspected foreign policy achieved in the war and of the historical context of events the independence struggle has been of realism, modernism and rhetoric course, were secret, and none of those him of being a spy, possibly because immediate post war years in favour of depicted, and elaborates something of insufficiently represented in many (Nichols in Bakker, 1999). effected, despite what suspicions they he had been recommended to the policy development mediated through the legacy that this small film had in accounts favouring the depiction of a may have had, could know of their National Film Board by the first Film the old metropolitan powers. Australia Australia for an emerging tradition of heroic independence movement. (EFJI Within a tradition of advocacy and existence, let alone being given the Commissioner, Canadian Ralph Foster, participated in the covert trafficking of independent documentary here. Newsmagazine 9: November 2003:21) activism – a tradition that comes into opportunity to know their accusers or who fell foul of the Canadian Espionage arms to anti-Soekarno uprisings in the focus today with the emergence of new answer the allegations against them. Royal Commission of 1946. Moluccas in 1952. The ongoing covert Readers will be familiar with ‘Indonesia Gerda Jansen-Hendriks’ essay, (and in forms of agit-prop cinema drawing destabilisation against the ‘non-alig- Calling!’, Joris Ivens’ twenty-two another register the essay from Robert on new technologies for production, “An undoubted communist” the This Canadian Royal Commission also ned’ movement finally climaxed with minute, 1945-46 film made under very Hamilton and Laura Kotevska) remind distribution and exhibition – it may security files asserted of Catherine undermined John Grierson, a friend of devastating force in the military coup trying conditions and following Ivens’ us of that often complex historical be that films like ‘Indonesia Calling!’ Duncan, “she slept with anyone and Hawes, and Film Commissioner at the of 1965 that deposed Soekarno and resignation in Sydney in November 1945 complicity between myth, advocacy, are suddenly recognisable in their did not care who knew it.” And all those time with the National Film Board of brought the pro-American dictator as Film Commissioner for the Dutch nationalism, and documentary. immediacy, their militancy, their networked with her therefore: “due to Canada. Grierson left Canada ‘under Soeharto to power. Estimates vary, East Indies. The EFJI Newsmagazines urgency and their usefulness. The old their past intimate relationships with a cloud’ at this time as a result of the and the number of those killed during have published a number of essays Within the extraordinary oeuvre of documentary ‘sell-line’: ‘films with Communist Catherine Duncan ... could smears against him. (Kristmanson, purges that followed over several related to this work; Robert Hamilton Joris Ivens’ documentary century a purpose’, a slogan devalued and be call(ed) “to heel whenever it suited 1998, Don Wall in Scher [ed], 1992) years will never be known, but best and Laura Kotevska’s essay arguing ‘Indonesia Calling!’ is sometimes dormant now for some time, in the Marion Michelle, During the her”. Furthermore, the security logic estimates say something in the order that the film anticipates an Australian considered more a ‘pamphlet’ than present moment suddenly regains its shooting of Indonesia Calling: concluded, “Consequently information 4 of 800,000 people were killed in multi-culturalism at a time when the a work inviting nuanced aesthetic pertinence. Indonesian seamen, Joris Ivens concerning the current activities of Complex military and diplomatic what the New York Times described at notorious ‘white Australia’ policy was and British filmmaker Harry the Film Division... could be passed negotiations proceeded on the ground the time as “one of the most savage still practiced is one example (EFJI Bibliography: Watt, 1945. Coll EFJI-Ma- not only to the Communist Party of in Indonesia, at the UN in New York and mass slayings of modern political Newsmagazine 11: November 2005). Cottle, Drew and Keys, Angela, ‘From Colonial Film Commissioner to Political Pariah: Joris Ivens and rion Michelle © EFJI Australia but also abroad, possibly to between ‘stakeholders’ in Australia, history”. (Guardian [UK], July 19, 2000) the Making of Indonesia Calling’, Senses of Cinema online:
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