Julia Scott-Stevenson

Julia is a writer and researcher of all things documentary, and even dabbles in making them herself from time to time.

It’s Like That

25 August 2011 | 0:00 - By Julia Scott-Stevenson

This is an oldie but a goodie. It’s Like That was made in 2003 and I first saw it and was moved by it a few years ago at a film festival, but its subject matter is no less pertinent today. A short animation about children in detention, the video is now available to watch at Australian Screen - the online component of the National Film and Sound Archive. I don’t know if it’s only recently been added, but it’s a good time to view it given the current focus on an asylum seeker swap deal with Malaysia.

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It’s Like That is a short animation that uses the real voices of children in detention centres to talk about their experiences. These voices are laid over animated knitted bird puppets, with evocatively sad faces. These segments are also interspersed with simple line drawings that illustrate the broader parts of the stories - an apple being eaten, a boat going down in flames. It’s quite disturbing to listen to a young boy explain so matter-of-factly that if they return home his mother will die. Almost as disturbing as the fact that eight years after its production, there are still children in detention.

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About this Blog

Julia Scott-Stevenson Julia is a writer and researcher of all things documentary, and even dabbles in making them herself from time to time. She lived in the Pacific Islands of Fiji and Samoa for a few years, where she made a documentary about the inaugural Miss Tokelau beauty pageant and a short documentary about climate change in Samoa, which screened at the inaugural Pacific Climate Change Film Festival. While in the Pacific she was subjected to limited internet connectivity, and was staggered to discover the possibilities in online documentary on her return at the end of 2008. She has since been making up for lost time by undertaking a PhD researching cross-platform documentary, and also working on a database documentary about volunteers. Julia is also on the programming team for Antenna International Documentary Film Festival.

 
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