Wartime drama Parer’s War took us back to 1942. With Darwin under attack, war documentary maker Damien Parer is filming Australian troops fighting the Japanese in New Guinea. He knows he needs to make a film that will shake up Australian’s out of their complacent ways. When he returns to Sydney the film he has made, Kokoda Front Line, is a sensation and even wins an Oscar (the first Australian film to do so).
Working for the legendary film studio Cinesound under the auspices of Ken Hall as well as working for the Ministry of Sound, Parer is caught between wanting to document the hard world of soldiers on the front line and dealing with his feelings for Marie Cotter, the woman he loves but who he is unable to commit to knowing that the atrocities of war have changed him forever.
Made to tie in with the Anzac day commemorations this is a poignant, extremely well made drama.
production details
Australia / ABC-1 – Pericles Films / 1×90 minute episodes / Broadcast Sunday 27 April 2014 @ 8.30pm
Writer: Alison Nisselle / Biography: Damnien Parer, Kokoda Front Line by Neil McDonald / Executive Producers: Greer Simplin, Jo Bell / Producer: Yvonne Collins / Director: Alister Grierson
cast
Matt Le Nevez as Damien Parer
Adelaide Clemens as Marie Cotter
Rob Carlton as Ken Hall
Nicholas Bell as Bob Hawes
