Island of the Hungry Ghosts
by Gabrielle Brady, Australia, Germany, United Kingdom 2018, 94'
SCREENPLAY: Gabrielle Brady   SOUND: Leo Dolgan
CAMERA: Michael Latham   PRODUCER: Alexander Wadouh
EDITING: Katharina Fiedler   LANGUAGE: English

Schermo dell'Arte - Archivio Film
Presented at Lo schermo dell'arte Film Festival 2018

 On Christmas Island, a tiny Australian protectorate in the middle of the Indian Ocean, 50 million red crabs migrate from the jungle to the sea every year. On the same island, thousands of migrants seeking asylum from their Middle Eastern and African countries are held indefinitely in high-security facilities. Poh Lin is a counselor  who lives on the island with his family. He works to give the detainees psychological support, and bears witness to their dramatic stories and emotional decline. 
Gabrielle Brady's film is full of evocative and exciting moments. The director closely observes the tragedy of people subjugated and made powerless by the authorities, separated from their loved ones by force. But a look at nature’sancient, deep cycles, such as the crabs’ slow journey to the ocean, give a message of hope stronger than the brief and violent human history of this small wild island.


Gabrielle Brady
 
Gabrielle Brady (1984) is an Australian artist and filmmaker. She studied Documentary Direction at the Cuban International Film School (EICTV). She has travelled between Cuba, Mongolia, Indonesia, the Australian Central Desert and Europe for the past ten years.
Her short movie Island has been commissioned as part of the Guardian’ s documentary series and awarded at the Sheffield Festival in 2017. Island of The Hungry Ghosts is her first feature film.

Selected Filmography
2017 Poor Poor Jerry 2017 Controfigura 2014 The Show MAS Go On 2013 The Picture of Ourselves

 

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