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Databases
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Support for the documentary
- Documentary of Australia. (n.d.). Prison Songs. Retrieved from https://www.documentaryaustralia.comPRISON SONGS is a documentary musical made in 2014, during the last days of the operation of Darwin’s Berrimah Prison – the largest correctional centre in the NT. As the first documentary musical made for Australian television, PRISON SONGS received rave reviews prior to screening on SBS.
Introduction
Prison Songs is an award winning documentary centred on the lives of the inmates of Darwin's old Berrimah jail and featured the work of singer/songwriter Shellie Morris and composer and playwright Casey Bennetto (Keating! - The Musical). Shelley and Casey have created a multimedia concert experience which will premier at the Darwin Festival. The musical features Shellie Morris, Ernie Dingo and Kamahi Djordon King, accompanied by a live band, who perform the hip hop, blues, country, reggae and gospel songs from the documentary - tunes that tell of life on the inside, mishaps of the past and hopes for the future.
Sydney Writers' Festival
SBS One. (2015). Prison Songs. [Television broadcast]. Retrieved from ClickView https://clickv.ie/w/SgSd
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About Prison Songs
- News.com.au (2015, January 3). Prison Songs is the groundbreaking musical documentary filmed inside a Darwin jail. Retrieved from http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/tv/prison-songs-is-the-groundbreaking-musical-documentary-filmed-inside-a-darwin-jail/stTake one Darwin prison, a makeshift recording studio, an eclectic mix of inmates and some deeply personal songs about their lives, hopes and regrets, and you’ve got the basis for a groundbreaking new documentary.
- Mathieson, C. (2015, January 1). Songs from the inside tell a story. Age, The (Melbourne). p. 3.When it comes to the vexed topic of incarceration rates for indigenous Australians, the statistics are blunt and often overwhelming. In the new SBS documentary Prison Songs, the numbers are no less confronting: 80 per cent of the inmates in Darwin's Berrimah Prison are indigenous, and more than half will reoffend and re-enter the Northern Territory's prison system at some point. But the film looks beyond this with a different kind of number - the musical type.
- Knox, D. (2014, December 29). Prison Songs. Retrieved from http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2014/12/prison-songs.htmlPrison Songs is billed as “Australia’s first musical documentary’ where the subjects express themselves through songs written by Casey Bennetto (Keating: The Musical) and Indigenous singer/songwriter Shellie Morris. It is captivating, heartbreaking, uplifting and unique.
- Houston, M. (2015, January 4). Prison song Sunday 9.35pm, SBS One. Canberra Times. p. 21. Retrieved from http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/tv-guide/jailhouse-rocks-in-prison-songs-doco-from-darwins-berrimah-20141229-120y5q.htmlDocumentary musical? Really? It's the kind of idea that on paper sounds absurd but in practice makes beautiful sense. Earlier this year the Prison Songs production team was given comprehensive access to Darwin's Berrimah Prison, in anticipation of its decommissioning at the end of 2014. Their mission was to tell the stories of the inmates. That's unusual, but not unheard of. What makes this extraordinary is that key members of the production team were indigenous singer/songwriter Shellie Morris and Casey (Keating! The Musical) Bennetto, who took those stories and crafted songs from them, which the inmates then performed.
Study Guide
- Cook, C. (2015). Prison songs study guide. Victoria: ATOM.Students will use media arts to express themselves as citizens, consumers, creators and community members. They will deepen their creative and critical knowledge and engagement with media. They will explore and control the language codes, conventions and processes of media practice and become responsive and ethical creators and users of media who can communicate stories in conventional and imaginative ways.
Awards
- Beyond. (2015, May, 12). Prison songs director wins best director in a documentary in the Guild awards. Retrieved from http://www.beyond.com.au/blog/beyond/2015/05/12/prison-songs-director-wins-best-direction-in-a-documentary-at-the-australian-directors-gIn 2005, these two writers got together to read and discuss their work, both privately and with an audience at the Sydney Writers' Festival. Their readings form a conversation, a dialogue of poems, as they travel through urban and outback landscapes, noting the imagery of life on the road from their different perspectives.
- Atom Awards. (2015). Retrieved from http://atomawards.org/2015-tertiary-industry-entry/prison-songs/Prison Songs finalist in: Best Indigenous Resource and Best Documentary – General.
Musical Adaptation
- Poulsen, J. (2015, August 12). Ernie Dingo and Shellie Morris’ ‘Prison Songs’ may go down as Darwin Festival’s greatest success story.It promised to be the “heart of the festival” but the musical theatre adaptation of documentary film, Prison Songs, may well go down as the Darwin Festival’s greatest success story.