Judi Farr Movies

Florence Broadhurst was best known as a leading Australian interior designer who turned a small business into one of the nation's largest wallpaper companies. However, Broadhurst's past was something of a mystery to many people, and not without reason -- she was a woman with a gift for assuming and shedding identities at will, and Australian filmmaker Gillian Armstrong looks at her remarkable life and times in this documentary. In 1899, Broadhurst was born in a farming community in Queensland, and from an early age she had a powerful desire to see the world. By the time she was in her mid-twenties, Broadhurst had made her way to Shanghai and was gaining fame on the cabaret circuit. Later on, Broadhurst moved to England and fabricated an impressive history as a blue-blooded socialite for herself, and by the time she returned to Australia she had convinced those around her she was a moneyed and talented designer and enjoyed a very successful career until her shocking murder in 1977. Unfolding Florence: The Many Lives of Florence Broadhurst tells the story of her life through newsreel footage, vintage photographs, animation, dramatic reenactments, and interviews with her family and friends. Unfolding Florence received its North American premiere at the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Set in Australia, this romantic drama chronicles the renewal and the vengeance of an abused child who grows up to become the troubled April, a young mother who is kidnapped during a robbery and taken to an abandoned warehouse where she later falls for a crook who is as physically scarred as she is emotionally scarred. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi

Christina Stead's novel For Love Alone was a best-seller in Australia, but remains essentially unknown to the outside world. The same can be said for this 1986 film version, likewise a homegrown Australian product. Set in the 1930s, the film stars Helen Buhay as a starry-eyed young girl chafing under the oppressive attitudes of society in general and her father in particular. She kicks over the traces to enter into a romance with college Latin professor Hugo Weaving. Still not realizing that Weaving considers her a pleasant diversion and nothing more, Helen nearly misses out on a chance for happiness with liberal-minded banker Sam Neill. Once she's settled down with Neill, the idealistic Buhay is smitten by another aesthete, poet Huw Williams. Neill encourages this affair, hoping that Buhay will eventually realize that there's more to true love than mere sexual impulsiveness. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

In this youthful drama, a teenager attempts to put her life back together after attempting suicide. The events leading up to the attempt are presented via flashback. Included are scenes of the conflicts between her parents, her sister, and her boyfriend. All of these struggles lead her to marry an aspiring poet. Once married she is appalled to discover that she has become just like her father: loud and domineering. ~ Sandra Brennan, Rovi