To The Other Shore: A film by Jeni Thornley      

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To the Other Shore is a deeply personal study of motherhood as a "rite of passage." It interweaves moments from the filmmaker's childhood, family life, psychotherapy and yoga with catastrophic world events, such as the Holocaust, the Vietnam War and Chernobyl to document truths about maternal experience for women today. Grethel's tale from the fairy story Hansel and Grethel mythically counterposes the personal story to further explore the themes of freedom and individual responsibility.

To the Other Shore dissolves the boundary between public and private history and becomes a contemplative work, acknowledging German filmmaker Syberberg's maxim "that the issue is to mourn through art." The film is a multi-faceted tapestry of original dramatisations, music, poems and excerpts from international and local films, including Eva Braun's Home Movies, Teshigahara's Woman of the Dunes, Greenaway's The Cook, the Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, Freeman's The Letters of Sylvia Plath and the filmmaker's home movies, her award-winning diary film Maidens and co-directed feature documentary For Love or Money: A History of Women and Work in Australia.

"To the Other Shore is concerned with the catastrophe of birth and the return of the infantile emotions of love, guilt, hate, envy and rage in motherhood."
Felicity Collins, Film Lecturer, Latrobe University

"To the Other Shore reveals the deeply transforming experience of the therapeutic encounter."
Sarah Gibson, Filmmaker/Therapist

"I love To the Other Shore. It's like a psychic journey. It has so much depth and sincerity."
Jane Campion, Filmmaker

In 1996 Jeni completed To the Other Shore as a companion work to her Master of Fine Arts - Art and Life: Meditations on Birth, Death, Film and Psychoanalysis at the College of Fine Arts, UNSW. She is currently a consultant reader for documentary film with the NSW Film and Television Office, a consultant film valuer and developing her next project.

For more information, including how to order To the Other Shore, email anandi@nectar.com.au, or visit the homepage: http://www.nectar.com.au/anandi/

Anandi Films P/L
PO Box 320
Newport Beach NSW 2106