Violetta discovers a timeless building while searching for her father, meeting creatives protecting their studios from an impending threat. A documentary about the cultural treasure, the Nicholas Building. Director: Zeta Hamilton-Durkin Producer: Benjamin Mazzarella Director of Photography: Isabella Sanderson Original Score: Max Efron Editor: Poppy Adams Assistant Editor: Zeta Hamilton-Durkin Starring: Violetta Vacirca Louise Macdonald: Milliner Stephen McLaughlan: Gallery owner Armani Hollindale: Second-hand bookstore owner Brendan Dwyer: Shoemaker Mary Burgess: Handweaver Dario Vacirca: President of Nicholas Building Association

An artistic individual has a revelation on a first date.

A loud satire of the poem Lady of Shalott wherein a shallot exemplifies the historical lunacy of women living in a world they cannot participate in. In the Ladies of The Small Onion, there is an escape from control, unlike the tragic 1832 poem titled Lady of Shalott by Alfred Tennyson. When Shalott turns away from her obedient work of painting the reflection of the vegetable through a mirror, it is not due to a passing knight, but because the small onion is taken away by Elaine of Astolat. Seeing the shallot directly for the first time, liberating chaos ensues. Ironically, the audience is aware that the terror is overblown, as the cause of it is minute. In primaeval Dada style, recitations of the original poem play in reverse to create the soundscape, as if to undo the damage of it. According to art historian Dr Catherine McCormack, Tennyson’s poem illustrates how historically speaking, “women have not been allowed to look”. Building on this, scholar Nina Auerbach argues that images of angelic, corpse-like women were fuelled by cultural fears of unregulated female desire. To empower the Lady in this tale, the two ‘women’ reject the concept of sitting and suffering silently. They are rambunctious. Filmed in Montsalvat, benefitting from its Victorian architecture, the characters stare, frozen with the shallot at the camera for silly lengths of time. Moreover, ‘cross-dressing’ alongside the inclusion of Lancelot from the original story contribute to the hysteria over the tower and vegetable, involving exaggerated swooning, munching, terrible singing, laughter and peculiar noises. This film embraces self-expression, highlights the shallowness of romanticising feeling powerless, but foremost emphasises the absurdity of female oppression.

Though we are not smiling over vacuums waiting for our ‘honey’ to come home, according to the 2016 Australian census, domestic household duties remain overwhelmingly unshared in heterosexual families. Inspired by Louise Bourgeois, who acknowledges the gender and artistic material hierarchy with spiralling textile sculptures, Rebecca Horn and German Expressionist artist Lavinia Schulz, I wanted to highlight the oppression of women in a way that ultimately explores freedom; creating a feeling of hope that there could be a release from these problems. Starring: Zeta Hamilton-Durkin, Lee Hamilton-Rose and Ana Ramljak.

Won the SRC Film Night (2019), which was exciting innit. Shown at The Rising Sun Film Festival (2021), The Sun Theatre, Yarraville, nominated for 2021 Mocktail Award at JMC Academy Martini Film Awards.

This is the trailer for my Unit 3/4 Media short film.

Written, directed and props designed by Zeta H-D. Completed for Year 11 Media Studies with Kalani Giddey. First scripted film.