Going Down (film)

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Going Down
Going Down 1982.jpg
VHS cover
Directed by Haydn Keenan
Written byMoira MacLaine-Cross, Julie Barry, Melissa Woods (also credited as "Additional Directed Material")
Starring Tracy Mann
Vera Plevnik
Julie Barry
Moira MacLaine-Cross
Release date
  • 1983 (1983)
Running time
92 min
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
BudgetA$400,000 [1]

Going Down is a 1982 Australian film about young people living in a share house. [2]

Contents

The film's one-liner reads: "Four women friends leave behind the feral days of youth after a night of uncontrolled excess in inner-city Sydney during the early 1980s." [3]

Cast

Release

The film was self-distributed and ran for 14 weeks in Sydney but performed poorly in Melbourne. [5] In 2025, Muscle Distribution, as part of its first acquisition and theatrical release, restored the film in 4K for its first-ever U.S. run, premiering at BAM Rose Cinemas in New York. [6]

Reception

"A remarkable landmark in Australian independent filmmaking. Unfortunately, it is a landmark that few people noticed.” - Marcus Breen, Australian Film 1978 - 1992 (1993). [7]

"One of the first films to show the world the true gritty underside of Australian life, Going Down has become a cult classic for its realistic depiction of Sydney in the 1980s, a portrayal decidedly at odds with the sun, surf, sand and barbies of Australia's tourism campaigns." - Melbourne International Film Festival 2009 [8]

In the Sydney Morning Herald in 2011 Mark Swayer wrote "no film I've seen has better captured the chaotic heartbeat of the young sensation-seeker's Sydney." [1]

References

  1. 1 2 Mark Swayer, 'The morning after the night before', Sydney Morning Herald, 15 April 2011 accessed 13 October 2012
  2. ↑ David Stratton, The Avocado Plantation: Boom and Bust in the Australian Film Industry, Pan MacMillan, 1990 p. 144.
  3. ↑ "Video Overview Going Down (1983) on ASO - Australia's audio and visual heritage online". aso.gov.au. Retrieved 7 December 2022.
  4. ↑ Vagg, Stephen (2 August 2025). "A Tribute to David Argue". Filmink. Retrieved 2 August 2025.
  5. ↑ Haydn Keenan, 'Going Down', AACMI, January 2008 Archived 28 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine accessed 13 October 2012
  6. ↑ https://www.indiewire.com/news/breaking-news/aussie-indie-going-down-restoration-bam-muscle-distribution-1235104644/
  7. ↑ Murray, Scott, 1951-; Caputo, Raffaele; Australian Film Commission (1993), Australian film 1978-1992 : a survey of theatrical features / compiled and edited by Scott Murray; editorial assistant Raffaele Caputo, Oxford University Press in association with the Australian Film Commission and Cinema papers, ISBN   0195535847 – via National Library of Australia{{citation}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  8. ↑ https://miff.com.au/festival-archive/films/13404/going-down-1982-m


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