One Night the Moon (2001)

One Night the Moon is a 2001 Australian musical non-feature film starring husband and wife team Paul Kelly, a singer-songwriter, and Kaarin Fairfax, a film and television actress, and their daughter Memphis Kelly. Directed by Rachel Perkins and written by Perkins with John Romeril, it was filmed on Andyamathanha land in the Flinders Ranges, South Australia for six weeks in early 2000. Kelton Pell portrayed an Aboriginal tracker, Albert Yang with Ruby Hunter playing his wife, who searches for the missing child. Musical score was by Kelly, Kev Carmody and Mairead Hannan, and with other artists they also contributed to the soundtrack. The film won ten awards, including two Australian Film Institute (AFI) Awards.

One Night the Moon was inspired by the story of indigenous tracker, Alexander Riley as depicted in Black Tracker (1997), a documentary directed by Riley's grandson, Michael Riley. Alexander Riley had worked for the New South Wales police in Dubbo in the early 1900s, finding wanted criminals, missing persons and hidden caches. Composer/singer Mairead Hannan saw the documentary and formed a project with her sister Deirdre Hannan, Kelly, Carmody, Alice Garner, Romeril and Perkins. Aside from the search for a missing child, the film deals with the racist attitude depicted by the father's refusal to use an indigenous tracker. The film was Paul Kelly's cinematic debut, while his then wife, Fairfax had a lead role in two related TV mini-series Harp in the South and Poor Man's Orange in 1987, and roles in films Belinda (1988) and Young Einstein (1989). Fairfax had her film debut with a minor role in 1982's Starstruck which had Paul Kelly and the Dots supplying a song for the soundtrack.

Synopsis

Set in the 1930s Australian Outback, starring singer Paul Kelly as a farmer, Jim Ryan, newly settled in the area. He is the father of a girl, Emily (Memphis Kelly, his real life daughter), who climbs out the window of their farmhouse one night and follows the moon into the hills. Rose Ryan (Kelly's then wife Kaarin Fairfax and mother of Memphis) comes to check on her daughter only to find that Emily is missing.

Actors