Incredibly, another movie featuring older people’s homelessness has been released in cinemas, and this time it’s much closer to home, shot entirely in Melbourne.
Some Happy Day explores the parallel lives of two women. Tina, who is sleeping rough on the St Kilda foreshore, and Frances, a social worker with nerves of steel yet mired in problematic personal relationships. A chance encounter in a crisis centre office set them on a collision course, with both of the protagonists’ secret yearnings, fears, regrets, and past traumas coming unraveled.
The feature, created and produced on a modest budget was independently funded and had in-kind support from many community organisations, including Sacred Heart Mission, Southport Community Centre and the City of Port Phillip. It provides an unadulterated glimpse into the lives of the forgotten and unseen humans at the fringes of our society.
It showcases the unrelenting realities of the environment in which Frances and countless other support and social workers face, those who try to look beyond the exterior unkemptness, the slurred speech, and bouts of anger and exasperation from their clients bogged in a broken system to reinstall some semblance of confidence, recovery, structure, hope, and future.
One particularly poignant moment is when Frances confronts Tina on what many victims of domestic abuse ignore. ‘Did he take all of your money?’ After a pregnant pause, Tina responds, ‘Yes, but Ben is a good boyfriend… and he can’t survive without me, you know.’ A revelation which is common and perhaps too painful for many women and men in abusive relationship crystalises; when abuse manifests in other forms than physical violence, and the sense of familiarity was too overwhelming for the victims to consider a new lease on life on their own.
The work done by producer and director Catherine Hill, a support worker with over two decades in the sector, is intimate and cautiously optimistic in its theme and execution. Many members of the local community who were invited to be part of Some Happy Day have lived experience of surviving without a home. Some Happy Day will certainly leave all of its viewers, with a great deal to reflect on. The next time they walk past a person lying on the footpath with their life’s worth of belongings strewn bare next to them, they will hopefully see them as humans deserving of opportunities; hurting temporarily, needing to be believed in, and needing secure shelter.
Some Happy Day is screening at Classic Cinemas in Elsternwick on Thursday March 10th and Wednesday March 16th. Future screenings will be advised on the film’s website. somehappydayfilm.com. If members aren’t able to make it, we may be able to organize a screening of the movie at a HAAG Meeting – let us know if you’re interested.