One Night The Moon - Background

Background

A 1997 documentary, Black Tracker on Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) TV, concerned an indigenous tracker called Alexander Riley from Dubbo, New South Wales. Singer-songwriter Mairead Hannan saw Black Tracker, she liked the story about a young boy who disappeared near Dubbo in 1932 and was tracked by Riley. Hannan wanted to tell the story as a musical for a project sponsored by ABC TV's Arts and Entertainment department. Mairead enlisted her sister and fellow composer Deirdre Hannan, then other composers/performers Paul Kelly, Kev Carmody and Alice Garner to help with the project. Screenwriter John Romeril and director Rachel Perkins were approached and together wrote the screenplay. Garner was due to take the part of Rose Ryan, the mother, but became pregnant so Kaarin Fairfax (Kelly's wife) undertook the role. Aside from the search for a missing child, the film deals with the racist attitude depicted by the father's refusal to use the indigenous tracker. The original story was about the tracker seeking a young boy who had gone missing, but Perkins decided a missing girl would have greater impact and also shifted the focus to the despairing mother. Fairfax and Kelly volunteered their seven-year-old daughter, Memphis Kelly, for the part of the lost child. Location filming occurred on Andyamathanha land in the Flinders Ranges and other sites in South Australia for six weeks early in 2000. Kelton Pell portrayed the indigenous tracker, Albert with Ruby Hunter playing his wife. Musical score was by Kelly, Kev Carmody and Mairead Hannan, and with other artists they also contributed to the soundtrack.