A LIFELONG love of film was sparked within Erin McCuskey in her childhood home.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy parents would shoot Super 8, four-to-six weeks later the film would arrive, and they would project it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt was an opportunity to see ourselves on a whole wall; us kids running around.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was a real founding moment for me in my love of the moving image because the lounge room was dark, you could hear the flicker of the projector, and it was a cinematic experience.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were a big Irish family and didn\u2019t get the opportunity to go to the movies all the time, so that was our movies.\u201d<\/p>\n
As a youngster, McCuskey learnt from her father how to use a film camera, and with a mum and many sisters to follow around at home, she had her own \u201crockstars\u201d to capture.<\/p>\n
Heading to university to study film and media, she gained an understanding of how to shape a story and messages on screen, and has been making movies for decades since.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy work has progressed enormously in that time but has maintained the themes of family, home, and the expression of that freedom for women.\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of my films include dancing and twirling because, for me, it\u2019s just so important to dance for those who can\u2019t.<\/p>\n
\u201cOver that time, I\u2019ve really honed my ability with layering images, so they\u2019re quite cinematic, they\u2019re very poetic, and they\u2019re designed to engage an audience where they bring their heart to the forefront.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen people walk out of my films, they\u2019ve had an experience, they\u2019ve felt something. If my films can support someone to feel something, whether that be happy, sad, fear, disappointment, or lots of joy, then I feel like I\u2019ve been successful at my art.\u201d<\/p>\n
This week, a 93-minute retrospective of McCuskey\u2019s films, Dancing Shadows<\/em>, was screened at Thornbury Picture House as part of the Unknown Pleasures: Australian independent cinema<\/em> series.<\/p>\n Co-curator, film director Bill Mousoulis, described her work as some of \u201cAustralia’s great unknown pleasures,\u201d and said she \u201cdeserves greater recognition as a filmmaker.\u201d<\/p>\n McCuskey said the event \u201copens doors\u201d for her.<\/p>\n \u201cScreening a retrospective in Melbourne, for a regional artist, is just so incredibly rare, and I\u2019m so grateful because it allows my name and my work to go beyond the borders of where I work on Wadawurrung country,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve screened across the world in various formats and festivals and so on, but to have that recognition in Australia is crucial to an artist\u2019s capacity to build their career.<\/p>\n