Going Down - Bondiwood

Going Down
1982 | 92 mins | 15+

The Story:

Four young women celebrate the departure of one of their group for New York. Knowing their group is about to break up the night produces truths unspoken and discovery of what really matters in life. An unforgettable and riotous odyssey through the underbelly of Sydney.

Notes:

World Premier of the restored legendary Sydney street movie. Rejected by Government cultural authorities for funding GOING DOWN was financed independently and was the first Australian film made for by and about the young people it depicted. It opened to rave reviews and queues down George St. At last here was a film that depicted the real lives of young people from their own point of views. No sermonising, preaching or m oral judgements. One of those nights we’ve all had where you say yes to everything. No pans across the wide brown land this – more an electric ride that makes you want to hit the town, have a couple of drinks and some of the other after the movie. One of the first Australian films to screen at Sundance where it was star Nicholas Cage’s favourite film.

Reviews:

"...while Going Down has all the wit and inventiveness that tempt a critic to call it the best Australian film in years, its basic strength is a riotous realism that should appeal to youth audiences in droves." Meaghan Morris Financial Review"Going Down is a film that has been little screened or critically discussed locally since its release. Yet not only is it, unarguably, a key work in the history of independent feature filmmaking in this country for the way it combines and mutually enriches both naturalistic and expressionistic approaches to narrative cinema, it is also in its own terms one of the finest and most memorable films made in Australia." Adrian Martin, Cinema Papers

“reminds me of Fellini’s I Vitelloni” La Stampa, Italy

Q+A with Director Haydn Keenan & Writer/Actor Moira Maclaine-Cross