Dir. Jon Bell

86 min

Rated M:  Mature themes and course language

The second edition of NearShore Cinema invites you inside the Watchtower, a sandstone structure dated to the 1820s, for Jon Bell’s The Moogai (2024). The film follows a young Aboriginal couple with a newborn child as they are haunted by a child-snatching spirit.

Dir. Tracey Moffatt

18 min

Rated G: The content is very mild impact

The exploration of motherhood and intergenerational trauma within a distinctly Australian historical context will be accompanied by Tracey Moffatt’s 1989 35mm film debut, Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy, which portrays an exhausted daughter caring for her infirm mother against a dreamlike backdrop of the Australian outback, shot entirely in the studio. The film’s theatricality is heightened by the striking colours of the outhouse, sandstone ranges and the violet hues of a twilight sky. Night Cries was nominated for Best Short Film, Golden Palm Award, at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival.

Please join us for the second edition of NearShore Cinema with an intimate screening in the Watchtower.

3:00pm | light refreshments outside the Watchtower

3:30pm | Night Cries: A Rural Tragedy (1989), dir. Tracey Moffatt (18min)

3:48pm | The Moogai (2024), dir. Jon Bell (86min)

5:15pm | Screening concludes, stay to enjoy the sunset.

This event is strictly capped at 20pp. Free entry.

Present your Humanitix booking confirmation for complimentary drinks and snacks.

NearShore Cinema is La Perouse Museum’s film program born from a passion for storytelling and shared viewing experience.

As part of the Museum’s headland-wide programming, NearShore Cinema brings communities together through moving images that meditate on history from diverse perspectives, reflect on our immediate realities and look into the future. Aligning with the central themes that guide our exhibition planning and collection development, the film series will explore First Nations culture and knowledge, coastal environment, maritime explorations including the French connection, telecommunications and science.

From feature films and family-friendly screenings to archival footage, short films and video works by local artists living and working on Bidjigal Country, NearShore Cinema invites audience of all ages and diverse backgrounds to encounter cinema in a place rich with memories and imaginations.

Bring your family, settle into a bean bag in the courtyard of the 1882 Cable Station, and join us at the headland after sunset for an evening of collective viewing, listening and dreaming.