As a Fundraiser for the Relay For Life, the Warrnambool Buddhists group screens Oranges and Sunshine at the Reardon Theatre Port Fairy at 1.30 and 7.30pm Friday 7 October. Rated M 104 mins Admission $12
Oranges and Sunshine tells the story of Margaret Humphreys (Emily Watson), a social worker from Nottingham, who uncovered one of the most significant social scandals of recent times; the mass deportation of130,000 children from the United Kingdom to Australia and Canada, 7000 to Australia from 1940 to 1967. Single-handedly and against overwhelming odds, Margaret reunited thousands of families and drew worldwide attention to an extraordinary miscarriage of justice. Children as young as four had been told that their parents were dead.
When Harold Haig was 10 years old, a man in a suit came to visit. "He said to me, 'Would you like to go to this wonderful place called Australia where the sun shines all day every day and you pick oranges off the trees, live in a little white cottage by the sea and ride a horse to school?'" remembers Haig, who is 73 but looks younger, with Pete Postlethwaite cheekbones and flowing white hair. "While I was letting this sink in, he added, 'Well, you know you're an orphan, your parents are dead, you've got no family, you might as well go.'" Haig was one of the children from British care homes .
"What Margaret did for me and for thousands of child migrants is to give us back our lives, give us back our identity, and shine a light in where there was just darkness." Where would he be without Humphreys? "I have my doubts about whether I'd be here alive," he says. "You should ask, where would all of us be?"
“Jim Loach's debut is a powerful, deeply moving, understated account of a major social injustice that went unreported for many years and only this past year received an official apology from the two governments involved, those of Great Britain and Australia”(2009). Phillip French, The Guardian
“But the film, like Humphreys herself, is not an attempt at recrimination; it shows how a single individual can bring about enormous change and make a difference, where perhaps organisations, Governments, political parties and other groupings are impotent.”
“Oranges and Sunshine is a triumph of storytelling on screen and puts us through the emotional wringer - as it should.” Louise Keller, Urban Cinefile
Oranges and Sunshine tells the story of Margaret Humphreys (Emily Watson), a social worker from Nottingham, who uncovered one of the most significant social scandals of recent times; the mass deportation of130,000 children from the United Kingdom to Australia and Canada, 7000 to Australia from 1940 to 1967. Single-handedly and against overwhelming odds, Margaret reunited thousands of families and drew worldwide attention to an extraordinary miscarriage of justice. Children as young as four had been told that their parents were dead.
When Harold Haig was 10 years old, a man in a suit came to visit. "He said to me, 'Would you like to go to this wonderful place called Australia where the sun shines all day every day and you pick oranges off the trees, live in a little white cottage by the sea and ride a horse to school?'" remembers Haig, who is 73 but looks younger, with Pete Postlethwaite cheekbones and flowing white hair. "While I was letting this sink in, he added, 'Well, you know you're an orphan, your parents are dead, you've got no family, you might as well go.'" Haig was one of the children from British care homes .
"What Margaret did for me and for thousands of child migrants is to give us back our lives, give us back our identity, and shine a light in where there was just darkness." Where would he be without Humphreys? "I have my doubts about whether I'd be here alive," he says. "You should ask, where would all of us be?"
“Jim Loach's debut is a powerful, deeply moving, understated account of a major social injustice that went unreported for many years and only this past year received an official apology from the two governments involved, those of Great Britain and Australia”(2009). Phillip French, The Guardian
“But the film, like Humphreys herself, is not an attempt at recrimination; it shows how a single individual can bring about enormous change and make a difference, where perhaps organisations, Governments, political parties and other groupings are impotent.”
“Oranges and Sunshine is a triumph of storytelling on screen and puts us through the emotional wringer - as it should.” Louise Keller, Urban Cinefile
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