Celia (DVD)

Directed by Ann Turner

Set in mid 1950s Australia, with the fear of communism in the air and the country's farmlands overrun by a plague of rabbits, the film depicts a long hot summer seen through the eyes and over-active imagination of nine year old Celia.

Shaken by the death of her beloved Grandmother, Celia finds herself adrift between the cruel games and rituals of childhood and the incomprehensible world of grown-ups. With monstrous creatures stalking her dreams by night, those imagined terrors blur by day with the banal brutality of the adult world and lead to tragic and shocking consequences.

Ann Turner's refreshingly unsentimental debut feature is a dark fable of childhood's end. An enthralling film to rank alongside Lord of the Flies, The 400 Blows and Stand By Me.

Winner: 1989 Grand Prix, Créteil International Women's Film Festival

“... marks a feature debut of astonishing skill... forceful, outlandish and highly provocative” Empire ****

“Transfixing, assured, extremely lucid… recalls the deceptive serenity of Blue Velvet” Janet Maslin, New York Times

"I rate Celia as one of those classics of childhood such as Reed’s The Fallen Idol or Truffaut’s The 400 Blows” Tom Hutchinson, The Mail