Saturday Screening: Sadness

A mesmerising, poetic montage that brings to life the stories of William Yang’s family and friends.

Award-winning photographer William Yang explores issues of grief, family and identity in this film adaptation of his acclaimed stage performance, Sadness.

Sadness has two themes. The first involves a journey which Yang makes to Far North Queensland to investigate his uncle’s murder. Amid lush tropical landscapes he unravels the mystery of Fang Yuen’s death. Along the way, he discovers why his mother had been at such pains to deny his Chinese heritage and assimilate his family into Australian culture.

The second theme centres around grieving. Yang tells us stories of friends who have died of AIDS: ‘When I re-read my diaries from the early 90s, I saw that I had been to more wakes than I had been to parties. I felt compelled to tell these stories of my friends, to unburden myself of the things that I have seen.’

Tony Ayres delicately and skilfully weaves these threads to create a documentary that is elegiac and deeply moving, held together by Yang’s presence as compassionate witness. Layering his journey across time, place and culture, Yang reveals the profound unity between grief and love, which lies close to the core of human experience.

‘Tony Ayres’s complex and moving Australian [film] interlaces the AIDS-related deaths of Yang’s friends with his experience reclaiming his Chinese-Australian identity … [Yang’s narration] encourages the viewer to supply the emotion instead of being told how to feel’ – Chicago Reader

Curator of Photography, Anne O'Hehir, will provide a brief introduction to the film and insight into William Yang’s photography practice.

This title is held in the NFSA collection.

Saturday Screenings is a free program of film screenings presented monthly in partnership between the National Gallery of Australia and National Film and Sound Archive of Australia.