50 Years Of Silence | |
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Directed by | Ned Lander with Carol Ruff and James Bradley |
Written by | Carol Sklan Jan Ruff-O'Herne |
Produced by | Carol Ruff Ned Lander |
Cinematography | John Whitteron Joel Peterson |
Edited by | James Bradley |
Release date |
|
Running time | 57 minutes |
Country | Australia |
Language | English |
50 Years Of Silence is a 1994 documentary film that tells the story of Japanese war rape victim Jan Ruff-O'Herne. [1]
In the Sunday Telegraph Sean Day-Lewis says Ruff-O'Herne "courageously and poignantly tells of her months providing as little comfort as she could after being forced to serve in a Japanese army brothel.." [2] Martin Massingberd wrote in the Daily Telegraph that is "was an inspiring film about a remarkable woman, whose undimmed warmth and sympath shone through her appalling ordeal as a triumph of the human spirit." [3] Michael Hutak of the Sydney Morning Herald writes "This film stands as a lasting testimony of those atrocities and a plea for victims to break the cycle of guilt and speak out." [4] Robin Oliver, also of the Sydney Morning Herald, states "The shattering contents of this documentary overwhelm the viewer and it is difficult to look beyond the story of Jan Ruff-O'Herne and consider the film itself, which is often disjointed and poorly edited." [5]
The Sydney gang rapes were a series of gang rape attacks committed by a group of up to 14 youths led by Bilal Skaf against Australian women and teenage girls as young as 14, in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia across several days in 2000. The crimes, described as ethnically motivated hate crimes by officials and commentators, were covered extensively by the news media, and prompted the passing of new laws. In 2002, the nine men convicted of the gang rapes were sentenced to a total of more than 240 years in jail. According to court transcripts, Judge Michael Finnane described the rapes as events that "you hear about or read about only in the context of wartime atrocities".
Richard John Sinclair Laws CBE is an Australian radio announcer. For 50 years, until 2007, he was the host of an Australian morning radio program combining music with interviews, opinion, live advertising readings and listener talkback. His distinctive voice earned him the nickname "the Golden Tonsils". Although officially retired between 2007 and 2011, he returned in February 2011 to host a morning program on 2SM and the Super Radio Network.
Miranda Devine is an Australian columnist and writer, now based in New York City. She hosted The Miranda Devine Show on Sydney radio station 2GB until it ended in 2015. She has written columns for Fairfax Media newspapers The Sydney Morning Herald and The Sun-Herald, and for News Limited newspapers Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph, Melbourne's Sunday Herald Sun, and Perth's Sunday Times. As of 2022, she writes for the New York Post. Some of her political opinion pieces and statements on race, gender, and the environment have been the subject of public scrutiny and debate.
Matthew James Johns is an Australian rugby league media personality, commentator and former professional player. An Australian international and New South Wales State of Origin representative five-eighth, Johns played his club football primarily with the Newcastle Knights, alongside his younger brother, Andrew. Since March 2011, Johns has been a co-host on the Triple M Sydney breakfast show called The Grill Team with Mark Geyer. Since 2012, Johns has been a part of the Fox Sports NRL coverage. He had his own show on Channel 7 for one season in 2010, The Matty Johns Show and since 2013 has hosted a rugby league analysis and light entertainment show on Foxtel airing two nights each week.
Blackrock is a 1997 Australian teen drama thriller film produced by David Elfick and Catherine Knapman, directed by Steven Vidler with the screenplay by Nick Enright. Marking Vidler's directorial debut, the film was adapted from the play of the same name, also written by Enright, which was inspired by the murder of Leigh Leigh. The film stars Laurence Breuls, Simon Lyndon and Linda Cropper, and also features the first credited film performance of Heath Ledger. The film follows Jared (Breuls), a young surfer who witnesses his friends raping a girl. When she is found murdered the next day, Jared is torn between revealing what he saw and protecting his friends.
Bilal Skaf is a serial gang rapist who led groups of Lebanese-Australian men to commit gang rape attacks against women and girls in Sydney in 2000.
Roland John Perry OAM is an Australian author and historian. His work includes three works of fiction and more than twenty documentary films. His book Monash: The Outsider Who Won the War was awarded the Fellowship of Australian Writers' Melbourne University Publishing Award in 2004 and described as "a model of the biographer's art."
Kenja Communication, or simply Kenja, is an Australian company co-founded in 1982 by Ken Dyers and his partner, Jan Hamilton. The word 'Kenja' is derived from the first letters of their names. There are four Kenja centres, in Sydney, Greater Western Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra. Kenja Communication runs classes, workshops and one-to-one sessions, as well as events and activities at different venues around Australia. It has gained public attention through court trials involving various members of the group, leader Ken Dyers' suicide following allegations of child sexual abuse, and the group's alleged involvement in the Cornelia Rau case.
Blackrock is a play by Australian playwright Nick Enright that was first performed in 1995. It was adapted from a 1992 play by Enright, A Property of the Clan, which was inspired by the murder of Leigh Leigh in Stockton, Australia in 1989. The plays were both well received critically but attracted criticism from both Leigh's family and the media because of the fictionalisation of an actual murder. Despite repeated statements from Enright that the plays were a work of fiction, they have both often been considered by viewers to be a factual account. A Property of the Clan was shortlisted for a New South Wales Premier's Literary Award in 1993, and Blackrock won the AWGIE Award for Best Play in 1996. Blackrock was developed into a feature film of the same name in 1997.
The Mount Rennie rape case is the only gang rape in Sydney, Australia during the 1880s that led to a full conviction of the participants involved in the crime—young larrikins of the "Waterloo Push". The attack is sometimes referred to as the "Mount Rennie Outrage" or the "Waterloo Outrage". The crime was a pivotal point in New South Wales history, coming after a history of failure of other gang-rape trials in that time period.
Hugh John Massingberd, originally Hugh John Montgomery and known from 1963 to 1992 as Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd, was an English journalist and genealogist. He was chief editor of Burke's Peerage/Burke's Landed Gentry from 1971 to 1983.
The Tender Trap was a cabaret nightclub that ran in Sydney, Australia from December 1994 to January 2000. It was one of the most successful Sydney clubs of the 1990s. The Tender Trap club pre-dated the mid 90s lounge culture phenomenon, but as the phenomenon grew, so too did the popularity of the club.
Series 4, Episode 8 is the final episode of the fourth series of the British comedy-drama television series Cold Feet. It was written by Mike Bullen, directed by Ciaran Donnelly, and was first broadcast on the ITV network on 10 December 2001. The plot follows on directly from the previous episode, as Adam and Rachel, and Karen and David travel to Sydney, Australia for Pete and Jo's impromptu wedding. Adam is sceptical that Pete is truly in love with Jo, and Jo's rich father Rod suspects that Pete is only marrying her to get access to his money. Under pressure from Rod, Pete gets cold feet and he and Jo call off the wedding. The couple soon reconcile and marry with Rod's blessing. Meanwhile, David discovers that Karen has been having an affair with her colleague Mark and ends their marriage, and Rachel gives birth prematurely in a Sydney hospital.
Martin Fabinyi is an Australian film and television producer and director and music label owner and has written books on the local rock music scene. He was the chief executive officer of Mushroom Pictures from its formation in 1993 to 2009. His film projects include the features Chopper (2000), Gettin' Square (2003), Wolf Creek (2005) and Macbeth (2006). He is currently Head of Feature Films and Documentaries at Beyond Entertainment.
Jeanne Alida "Jan" Ruff-O'Herne was a Dutch Australian of Irish ancestry and human rights activist known for campaigning internationally against war rape. During World War II, Ruff-O'Herne was forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army. After remaining silent for fifty years, Ruff-O'Herne spoke out publicly from the 1990s until her death to demand a formal apology from the Japanese government and to highlight the plight of other "comfort women". On her death, the South Australian Attorney-General noted: "her story of survival is a tribute to her strength and courage, and she will be sorely missed not only here in South Australia, but around the world."
Fifty Years of Silence: The Extraordinary Memoir of a War Rape Survivor is a personal memoir written by Jan Ruff O'Herne, a "comfort woman" who was forced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army.
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The 1954 Great Britain Lions tour was a tour by the Great Britain national rugby league team of Australia and New Zealand which took place between May and August 1954. Captained by Dickie Williams, the tour involved a schedule of 32 games: 22 in Australia and 10 in New Zealand, with two three-match Test Series against both nations.
The tour began inauspiciously, with Great Britain losing four of their first seven matches, including the First Test against Australia in Sydney. Moving into the Queensland leg, the Lions' results improved, and they won all nine of their matches in the state. This included victory in the Second Test in Brisbane.
A common feature of many of the tour matches was rough play, punches being throw in and out of tackles. The July 10 match against New South Wales was abandoned by the referee seventeen minutes into the second half due to persistent brawling by the players.
One week after the abandoned game, Australia won the Third Test to claim the Ashes by a 2–1 margin.
Moving to New Zealand, Great Britain lost the Second Test, but recovered to win the Third Test and the series, by a 2–1 margin.
The tour concluded with three matches in five days back in Australia at Sydney, Canberra and Maitland.
Despite being a British team – five of the squad were Welsh, two from Scotland and hooker Tom McKinney from Northern Ireland – the team played, and were often referred to by both the press at home and away, as England.