Alphaville - Journal of Film and Screen Media

The Last Goldfish Su Goldfish, Joanna Newman, and Julie Ewington

Abstract: A few years before filmmaker Su Goldfish’s father, Manfred Goldfish, died she interviewed him on camera. He was reluctant to talk about the uncomfortable truths of his past, his previous marriage, his two other children and the persecution and murder of his family in Germany. “You can watch all that in a documentary”, he used to say to her. The Last Goldfish (Su Goldfish, 2017) became that documentary. This article contains three responses to the film. The first section, “Losing Harry”, written by Su Goldfish, focuses on the impact Manfred’s experiences had on his son Harry, connecting that experience to the despair of children currently held in the Australian Regional Processing Centre on Nauru. The second part, “Internment”, is written by historian Dr Joanna Newman whose research on refugees in the British West Indies grounds Manfred’s reluctant memories of rescue and internment in Trinidad in historical fact. The third section of this composite reflection, “Citizen of the World”, is a response from curator and scholar Julie Ewington who reflects on the film’s unravelling of hidden traumas and the unspoken histories in families

Lauren Carroll Harris - ‘I Thought of Home’: Large and small histories in The Last Goldfish

‘I Thought of Home’: Large and small histories in The Last Goldfish By Lauren Carroll Harris 20 November 2017 A modest new Australian documentary retracing one woman’s family history reveals the grand narratives of 20th century displacement and distress played out on a human scale.

https://search.informit.com.au/fullText;dn=698952775873061;res=IELLCC

A Cinema Of Intersecting Identities

Today The Last Goldfish premiered at the 2018 New York Jewish Film Festival. This article by George Robinson reviews three of the main films of the festival including ours.

"Goldfish is a deft nonfiction filmmaker whose sense of the intricate structure of “The Last Goldfish” gives the film much of its considerable attraction. Her work has echoes of American independent filmmakers Su Friedrich and Barbara Hammer, but the result is very much her own unique blend of post-Shoah diaspora identity and calypso rhythms."

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New Year's Eve 2017 - What an amazing year!

It’s New Year’s Eve and the end of a wonderful year for our film The Last Goldfish. The most incredible thing that happened in 2017 is that we finished the film. Yes!! It’s been a labour of love and would never have happened without the skills and imagination of the team. Martin Fox - editor, Louise Wadley - script editor, Carolyn Johnson - producer, Liberty Kerr - composer and our sound designer Yulia Akerholt.

We were over the moon to premiere at Sydney Film Festival on June 8, 2017 and then we headed off to the Adelaide Film Festival. There were ten screenings around Australia as part of the Jewish International Film Festival, we appeared in the Bundaberg - Sydney Travelling Film Festival and had two sold out screenings at the gorgeous Golden Age Cinema. Qantas has been screening the film over December and will continue to fly us around the world in January and February in 2018. Amazing!

2018 will see the film festival ScreenWave showing us off in Coffs Harbour and Bellingen. Mardi Gras Film Festival is screening us as part of Queer Screen’s premiere film festival which is part of the 40th Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Festival. Also in 2018 we will see the film heading to North America. The start of the international life of our film will begin this January with the New York Jewish Film Festival followed by the Chicago Jewish Film Festival.

So Happy New Year everyone, to my colleagues, our supporters and our audience. I hope 2018 is full of wonder and amazement, success and joy. And as 2017 comes to an end we also hope that 2018 sees the end of the inhumane treatment of the refugees on Manus and Nauru. My father Manfred was lucky to escape the fate suffered by most of his family but that luck was also helped by the kindness of strangers and the policies of governments. We can make a difference.

#WithRefugees

#BringThemHere