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Bedevil
Australia, 1993, 90 minutes, Color, VHS/35mm/DVD
Order No. W99426
BEDEVIL is the stunning debut feature from Tracey Moffatt (NIGHT CRIES, NICE COLORED GIRLS) and the first feature directed by an Australian Aboriginal woman. Inspired by ghost stories she heard as a child from both her extended Aboriginal and Irish Australian families, Tracey Moffatt has constructed a sublime trilogy in which characters are haunted by the past and bewitched by memories. All three stories are set in Moffatt’s highly stylized, hyper-real, hyper-imaginary Australian landscape. In the first story MISTER CHUCK, a young boy is fascinated and terrified by a swamp that is haunted by the ghost of an American GI. CHOO CHOO CHOO CHOO finds a family living by railroad tracks haunted by strange happenings. The mother (played by Moffatt) is drawn to the tracks at night as she senses the horror of a past tragedy. The final story, LOVIN’ THE SPIN I'M IN, follows a woman who resists eviction attempts by her landlord so she can keep vigil for her dead son. Made with the participation of the Australian Film Finance Corporation.
"BEDEVIL captures the allusive quality of parochial, local, familial ghost stories, the sort of stories that are passed down through generations, that are repeated and embroidered upon so that eventually they are woven into quotidian discourse and a passing reference can evoke a complex texture of ghostliness.” — Lesley Stern, Photofile
AWARDS, FESTIVALS, & SCREENINGS

- Cannes Film Festival
- Vancouver Film Festival
- Sydney Film Festival
- Melbourne Film Festival
- The Museum of Modern Art
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QUOTES

“Speaks of the ghosts that haunt our histories.”
John Conomos
Art and Australia
“Slyly comic.”
Michael Fitzgerald
Time
“Frequently dazzling tapestry.”
David Stratton
Variety
“A stunning visual assault which envelops the ideas she initiated in her short film, Night Cries.”
Tait Brady
Melbourne Film Festival
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