Freotopia > quizzes > quiz 11: films
Fremantle Films Quiz
These all have something to do with Fremantle. There are ten 'questions'. Just so that you have a score you can post in Facebook — without looking anything up, give yourself two points for each individual item you get right: the title, director, writer, main actors (not the setting, as that's usually in the question), up to a total of ten per film. That will give you a total score out of 100.
And only then look at the answers, linked from the bottom of this page.
1. This unreleased feature film begins with the main character, a homeless person, diving into Fremantle Harbour from a derelict jetty in what used to be called Dago Bay. A major scene occurs inside South Fremantle Power Station (possibly the only feature film partly filmed there). There is also a dialog filmed on Monument Hill.
2. This feature film was written and directed by a lawyer who made his one film, did his dough, and went back to practising law. It's a fine film - the storyline is just a little wishy-washy. A house was built for the film set on an island in the electorate of Fremantle, and an outstanding cast assembled, among whom, in only one scene, the other Fremantle connexion, a brilliant playwright and excellent actor, is opposite one of Australia's greatest, and comes off very well indeed. [This 'question' was changed in the second draft of this quiz.]
3. This short film was directed and written by a Fremantle resident who has a page on this website. It was broadcast on both the ABC and SBS in 2000 but is not listed in IMDb.com. It was shot on the banks of the Canning River at Mount Henry, near Aquinas College. One of the actors was also in Bran Nue Dae.
4. This telemovie made for Channel 9 in 2012 was (very briefly) partly shot right outside my house in Stack Street Fremantle inside and outside the offices of what is now Perth Security Services, which is ironical given that the subject is a true story of a 'great' robbery. It's the second of two films with confusingly very similar titles, with only word different. Another difference between them is that one implies they didn't do it, while the other one seems to suggest that they did. A book about the crime (not credited on the film, and which was unobtainable for a while, effectively banned) was by Avon Lovell. One of the actors (now deceased) also lived right over the road from that location; for those couple of days he walked from home to work in one minute.
5. This TV series was available in Australia on Foxtel from December 2019. It's one a small group of filmed stories in which the plot requires the main actors to get to Perth from the other side of the country. (Another one will appear below.) The eighth, final part of the eight looks to me as though the house which is the end of the journey is in John Street Cottesloe, but the final scene is of bathing at ... Bathers Bay. Strongly recommended; great show.
6. A feature film in which the quest is to bring a friend's ashes from Sydney to be buried in Fremantle Cemetery, close to those of a pop idol who is well known to have been interred there.
7. This feature is less remembered for its political story about nuclear-powered warships and a conspiracy involving the Americas Cup defence than for the fact that it has a celebrity TV chef in a leading role and her group, the Jam Tarts, appearing in a couple of scenes.
8. In this feature film, the boys' FX Holden breaks down on their way to Kalgoorlie to lose their virginity in a brothel in Hay Street. The garage they call into in the film was actually at the southern end of Davies Street Beaconsfield, so I've just been reliably informed this very day.
File:Freotopia quiz https: australiancinema.info img garage.jpg
Screenshot from the film, at the 57th minute, showing the garage which a resident of Davies Street, Peter Koffel, clearly remembers. He says he 'witnessed it'.
9. This feature documentary film is about a choir originally directed by an Italian-Burmese woman who has gone on to become a Member of the Order of Australia. One of the women in the choir is remembered as having been the subject (and title) of a play mounted by Deckchair Theatre in 1992 when it was in the 'Old' Customs House in Phillimore Street. The main character in the play was played by an actress who was also in the first film on this list.
10. I don't know much about this film as I haven't seen it yet, as it's only just been released, so I'll just quote the blurb from IMDb.com: "When her all-male house-cleaning business gets out of control, a mature woman must acknowledge her own appetite if she is to make a new life for herself." I do know quite a lot of it was shot in Fremantle.
This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 4 March, 2022 and hosted at freotopia.org (it was last updated on 27 April, 2024), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.