Glamour Game Beauty Pageants Miss Austalia

DOCUMENTARY THE GLAMOUR GAME
FRIDAY NOVEMBER 23
7.30 pm

On Friday 23 November at 7.30pm, SBS Television will walk the run-way back to where it all began with The Glamour Game. This two-part documentary is a revealing and entertaining look at the changing face of beauty and fashion in Australia focusing on the beloved beauty pageant and the exciting face pace world of the fashion parade.

By exploring the dazzling history of the Miss Australia Quest and the emergence of our vibrant fashion industry, The Glamour Game, details how Australia has moved from its colonial past, to a strong and distinctive national identity. This exciting series uses never-before-seen archival footage, intimate stories from those who were there, and follows young hopefuls competing for a coveted place in today's beauty pageants and fashion world.

Episode One - The Pageant
Beauty pageants are back and the mother of them all was the original Miss Australia Quest. This episode features interviews with former Miss Australia's, from the 1927 winner, to the most remembered -Tania Verstak, who caused a controversy for being the first Non-Anglo Australian to be awarded the coveted title. The Pageant highlights how we now celebrate this cultural fusion with a behind the scenes look at contestants preparing to compete for the crown of Miss India Australia.

Episode Two - The Parade
The Parade is a colourful and stylish look at fashion in Australia from the arrival of Dior's "new look" to today. What was once considered second rate by wealthy socialites, Australian fashion is now heralded on the world stage with a new breed of cutting edge designers. The Parade uses archived footage of Australian designers and fashion of yesterday whilst documenting the journey of four young design students as they prepare to debut their individual collections at the prestigious International Fashion Week in Sydney.

The Glamour Games was written and directed by Aviva Zielger and Susan Lambert and directed by Veronica Fury.

Notable interviewees in the series include: Beril Jents, Tanya Verstak, Jenny Kee, Linda Jackson, Jane de Teliga, Prue Acton, Dr Catherine Driscoll, Helen Cooper and June Dally-Watkins

Episode 1 - THE PAGEANT

Director's Statement

I was once a finalist in the Miss Rhododendron Pageant in the Blue Mountains. As a little girl I was a follower of The Miss Australia Quest. Then as a feminist I became critical of it. Now, as a filmmaker, I am intrigued by the revival of pageants and the opportunity they provide to explore the changes in how we see ourselves as Australians. I admit to being hopelessly seduced by the glamorous archival images of the Miss Australia Quest and to watching other contemporary contests like Australian Idol.

What drew me to the project was the challenge of making a well-told story about beauty, celebrity and culture that uses the past to help us understand the present. I felt it had the ingredients for a really pleasurable and entertaining film and, thanks to the great characters and stunning archival footage, I feel that we, as a team, have met that challenge.

Making The Pageant has allowed me to communicate the place that beauty and beauty pageants play in our lives and how they represent the changing face of Australia. The interviews with the original Miss Australia Quest entrants, young and old, and the archival material of the times in which their stories are set, provide a unique look at Australian history. At the same time following today's entrants as they compete in the Miss India Australia Pageant has given the film a flavour of why young women in 2006 are still flocking to be crowned despite the critics of previous generations. Most interesting is looking at the changing idea of who best represented the face of Australia from 1927 until today.

The Pageant has allowed me to put together a film that, I believe, shows the richness, humour and beauty of Australian women from 1927 to 2007 whether they be entrants, winners, losers or critics of pageants that call themselves 'Miss Australia'.

- Susan Lambert, Writer/Director

Episode 2 - THE PARADE

Director's Statement

I am particularly interested in this film because of my own life long-life interest in fashion. Many of the issues raised in the history affected me personally.

As a girl I subscribed to an American fashion magazine called "Seventeen". I couldn't wait for a new issue to arrive in the post. When it did I would pore over the pictures for hours, creating my own dreams and fantasies about the exotic, different things I saw. I always wanted to have the clothes but of course unless I had them made, getting them was out the question.

I lived through the era when we all left Australia to find ideas and inspirations elsewhere. I love the idea of telling a story that reinforces the idea that it is no longer necessary to look elsewhere. Australia has changed and is so much the better for it.

I am also fascinated to uncover what seems obvious but isn't documented anywhere I have so far researched - how much Australian fashion identity and development have been influenced by post-war immigration.

I believe this film will find a large, popular audience. Everyone seems to have a fascination with fashion and the disproportionate number of women's magazines we have to the size of our population seems to give testimony to that fact.

Archive films are always a joy to craft and I think this one, in combination with the observational story of fashion school graduates we follow as they prepare for their first collection to be shown at Australia's International Fashion Week, will provide a wonderful human drama and counterpoint to the history in a genre in which I am particularly skilled.

- Aviva Ziegler, Writer/Director

DIRECTOR BIOGRAPHIES

SUSAN LAMBERT - Director
<.>As an independent filmmaker Susan Lambert's films have won numerous awards at film festivals and have been screened, broadcast and released nationally and internationally. She has worked for, and had films commissioned by broadcasters in Australia, the United Kingdom and America.

Lambert's film and television work is primarily in documentary but includes drama. Her feature Talk was released theatrically in Australia and the US in 1995. Talk's leading actress was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role in the 1994 AFI Awards and the film was invited to major international film festivals.

In 1986, Susan Lambert was co-awarded a Documentary Fellowship by the Australian Film Commission. The result was Landslides, an experimental feature-length documentary which was released nationally in Australia in 1987and was televised by ABC TV in 1988.

In 1991 Lambert produced an episode of a major 8-part series of television documentaries entitled The Trouble With Medicine, produced as an international co-production between ABC TV, the BBC and WNET-13 (PBS New York).

In 1994 she produced the award-winning documentary A Bird in the Hand for Film Australia, a co-production for PBS (US) and ABC TV. In 1995 she co-produced and directed No Sex, No Violence, No News for ABC TV which was awarded a Silver Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival. In 2000 she co-produced and directed the controversial Tokyo Bound, Bondage Mistresses of Japan for Channel 4 (UK) and SBS TV. It was broadcast in the UK and Australia in 2001 and screened at Melbourne and Brisbane Film Festivals.

Lambert has written, produced and directed several critically acclaimed observational television documentary series, including Under the Hammer described as the "must see TV of the year" by the Sydney Morning Herald when it screened nationally to high ratings in 1997; Risky Business 1999 (SBS TV) described as a "winning documentary series" (Sydney Morning Herald) and "gripping drama" (The Age); the popular DIY Law, which screened on ABC television on 2002; and Love and Money which was broadcast on ABC TV in 2004.

In 2004 Lambert's production of the one-hour science history documentary Deadly Enemies screened on ABC TV and sold to Channel 5 (UK). She also produced the Australian version of the feature documentary 10 Days to D-Day for ABC TV. In 2006 Lambert's documentary The Good the Bad and the Ugg Boot was broadcast on ABC TV to a huge audience and critical acclaim. It is now distributed internationally.


AVIVA ZIEGLER - Director
Independent producer, director and writer, Aviva Ziegler is one of Australia's most experienced documentary filmmakers. Her film-making career began at the ABC on the trailblazing social issues documentary series Chequerboard. From there she went on to a broad range of roles in both commercial and public broadcasting television.

Aviva won a Logie for Best Documentary for Quentin, the highest-rating documentary ever seen on Australian television. In 2000 Aviva won her second Logie for the multiple-prize-winning, Facing the Demons (2000). Her personal documentary ...What is a Jew to You? (1996) has won much acclaim and numerous prizes at home and abroad, and has been screened worldwide.

In 2000 Aviva produced and directed Chequerboard Revisited, six half-hour documentaries, which screened to huge critical and ratings success on the ABC. The four-part series Plumpton High Babies (2001-2002) also aired on the ABC and was critically acclaimed.

A recent production Secrets of the Jury Room (2004) screened on SBS and was also highly critically acclaimed. Her film The Zeccolas (2007) was part of the Dynasty series that won a Logie in this year's awards.

As an executive producer at Film Australia, Aviva was also responsible for a wide range of films and videos, many of which have been highly successful on television both in Australia and abroad. Aviva continues to work as a freelance producer, director and writer for television and radio.

VERONICA FURY - Producer
Veronica Fury is an independent producer and company director of Fury Productions. Upon graduating from Griffith University's Film School in 2003 she produced two QPIX short documentaries for ABC TV. She went on to co-write and produce with Mark Chapman of Big Island Pictures, a one-hour historical documentary for SBS TV entitled Black Soldier Blues (writer/director Nicole McCuaig) which was short-listed for the prestigious NSW Premier's Award. Fury is currently in production with a one-hour biography on the late artist Ian Fairweather for ABC TV (writer/director Aviva Ziegler). She is also financing The Curse of the Gothic Symphony (writer/director Anthony Mullins), an exciting arts documentary for ABC TV. Fury has a number of projects in various stages of development.

Review: An interesting insight into the world & history of Beauty Pageants. The Glamour Game takes you on a unique journey into the history of Miss Australia and how it was seen in it's glory days and the journey to it's demise. With actual Pageant winners talking on their personal experience during the pageant and how it shaped their lives, it's a true insight into the glamour and grace that was the foundation of Miss Austalia and other Pageants.