Melita Jurisic Movies
- 1998
Novelist Richard Flanagan (Death of a River Guide) rewrote his screenplay for this film into his second novel, published in 1998. He also made his directorial debut with this Australian drama about European refugees who sought a new way of life in Australia. Flanagan lives in Australia's island state of Tasmania, the setting for this tale of a father seen from his daughter's viewpoint. Back in Hobart after a 20-year absence, unmarried 36-year-old Sydney resident Sonja Buloh (Kerry Fox) is pregnant and planning an abortion. The sight of her alcoholic father Bojan (Kristof Kaczmarek) recalls her childhood, and the film flashes back to show Bojan arriving from Slovenia with wife Maria (Melita Jurisic). One winter she abandons Bojan and three-year-old Sonja and vanishes into the night. Employed by Tasmania's hydroelectric company on remote corners of the island, Bojan is forced to have friends watch Sonja, but after a molestation of the eight-year-old Sonja by Picotti (Jacek Koman), Bojan begins working in Hobart to take care of her himself. He finds happiness with kind-hearted Jean (Essie Davis), owner of an apple orchard, but Sonja's objections to her father's lover, end the affair. When the bitter Bojan turns to alcohol, his drunkenness eventually prompts the teenage Sonja to flee. Shown at the 1998 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kerry Fox, Rosie Flanagan, (more)
- 1991
- PG13
Australian director Paul Cox, skilled at intense psychological stories about lone souls looking for comfort in a cold world, was at his best with this original script co-written by the director and Barry Dickins. Martha is a 78-year-old woman living out her final days. Not a maudlin tale of a lonely woman wasting away, A Woman's Tale focuses on a human who manages to maintain an amazing vitality in the face of death. She encourages her young nurse, Anna (Gosia Doborowolska), to use her flat for romantic trysts; she looks in on Billy (Norman Kayes), an elderly neighbor, and she resists attempts by her son Johanathan (hris Haywood) to place her in a nursing home. Sheila Florance's performance as Martha is a marvel, especially given the art-imitates-life aspect of production: Florance was terminally ill, and she died soon after she was nominated for the Best Actress Award for Australia's Academy Awards. ~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Sheila Florance, Gosia Dobrowolska, (more)
- 1987
- PG
The year is 1933. Ruby Rose (Melita Jurisic) is an Australian woman living with her Welsh immigrant husband Henry (Chris Haywood) in the Tasmanian highlands. Cut off from her superjudgmental family, for whom Henry had once worked as a humble farm hand, Ruby remains isolated in her tiny house. Superstitiously terrified of the dark, she begins developing her own folklore about the inky blackness that surrounds her each night; this folklore eventually develops into Ruby's own personal religion, created to ward off the evils that she imagines lurk in every corner. Only by venturing out of her house and rekindling her relationship with her embittered father is Ruby able to exorcise her fears. Almost hypnotic in its stark beauty, Tale of Ruby Rose is proof enough that writer/director Roger Scholes deserves to be far better known. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Melita Jurisic, Chris Haywood, (more)
