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Oranges and Sunshine

Coverage by Nobuhiro Hosoki

Story : Oranges and Sunshine tells the story of Margaret Humphreys, a social worker from Nottingham who uncovered one of the most significant social scandals of recent times: the deportation of thousands of children from the United Kingdom to Australia. Almost single-handedly, against overwhelming odds and with little regard for her own well-being, Margaret reunited thousands of families, brought authorities to account and drew worldwide attention to an extraordinary miscarriage of justice.

October 21, 2011 (Limited LA/NY 10/21)

Runtime:1 hr. 45 min.

 

Interview with Director Jim Loach and a social worker Margaret Humphreys

 

(Q) : What's interesting is how you get to see how he conceptualizes it.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : That's been quite interesting.
 
(Q) : And then how you've reacted to do you feel like you want to impose yourself, do you want to stay out of it. What did you think about the whole process and then how did you two interact?
 
(Jim Roach) : I remember sitting opposite Margaret in her office and her telling me about the man that had come back to meet his mum for the first time in 40 years. And that kind of became the heart of the film straightaway in my head. The idea that somebody would meet their mum again after such a long period of time and what that must have been like for that man and that woman, that mother. And during that time Margaret's own story started to come out little bit by little bit. But we didn't really decide ever to make the film or not make the film, really, we just kept meeting up and talking about it a little bit more. I mean funny enough, when I met Rona there was another script that she was working on; a comedy actually.

It wasn't really working and it seemed to be sort of getting more and more problematic, and it was then when I said there's this other thing. And she was really enamored with it. She loved it straightaway. And then Rona met Margaret and they got on very well and started to talk. So it was quite gradual really. The whole process was quite gradual. I mean "Empty Cradle" was definitely the jumping off point. There's definitely more of Margaret's story in the film than the book I would say.
 
(Q) : And what did you think about that?
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : It's a worry isn't it if a filmmaker comes along and says "Look, I'd like to translate your book, your memoir into a film." History is littered with failures on that front, isn't it? Tortured victims of the film. So it always had to be for me about the person making it. So that was very clear to me. This person had to have some social conscious and awareness and compassion and it had to be about those values rather than the values perhaps of the industry he represents and works in.

So that's a tough call, isn't it really? Baring in mind that I work with hundreds of people who have had this terrible betrayal all their lives, and the worry for me was would they then think I betrayed them, their confidence, their pain, their suffering? So that was the balance. So the person who was ever going to make this film in my lifetime had to be able to demonstrate they had those values. And it's alright me sitting in an office and thinking "This bloke's okay." But ultimately of course it's what the child migrants think. So for me they had to say "He's okay."
(Q) : And did you ever think you were going to be doing this?
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : Did I ever think I was going to be doing it? It wasn't something I wanted to do. What I wanted to do was for prime ministers to take responsibility for past policy. I didn't want to have to give in to a film. Although, I don't want that to sound terribly negative, because "Oranges and Sunshine," I think tells a story of truth, of integrity, and lifts our spirits because we can do things if we move. We can bring change if we move to people's lives and ultimately our own lives. So it's not been too bad.

(Q) : How long has it been from the time you started?
 
(Jim Roach): 2002 I think.
 
(Q) : Almost as long as making a documentary.
 
(Jim Roach): Nine years. Yeah, it's quite a while.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : It's a complex issue.
 
(Jim Roach) : Yeah. I mean in that time we met a lot of the former child migrants. Dozens and dozens. Probably many dozens certainly and got to know them sort of quite well.
 
(Q) : Margaret, you wrote your book back in the early '90s. Between times obviously it was quite controversial material I think. Was there any production company that wanted to make the film to get the story out back then in the '90s? Because it seems a long gap here. Did you have others approaching you before?
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : Yes I did. Respectful others.
 
(Q) : And what was it that made you turn them down?
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : Just wasn't the right time or the right person at that time.
 
(Q) : You don't think the social conditions might have made it much harder? Because they weren't as sympathetic.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : No, no. With any issues like this, when it's social, it's political, it's a whole range of factors isn't it, timing is always a crucial consideration. So it's always the person that values the timing. If those three things come together then you're pretty fortunate.
 
(Q) : On the heels of that, we asked you about it being daunting, but then when you met her and really talked to her about it was it more daunting or did she make you more at ease?
 
(Jim Roach) : I think Margaret's parting words on the first meeting were "Think very carefully before you go any further."
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : I remember that. I remember that conversation, yes.
 
(Jim Roach) : I went away thinking I don't know. I just didn't know quite what to make of it. Obviously a few years in I understood much more fully. Fundamentally it's a very complex story and you're dealing with people who feel their identities have been taken. So then to represent them on screen, what may be perceived as their identity, the idea of getting that wrong would be terrible, really terrible for the real people. So that was maybe part of it.
 
(Q) : I don't know for Emily Watson, how easy or hard it is for her to meet people that are the living characters she's embodying. Had she done that before for any other movies?

(Q) : I wasn't sure she was alive at the time. Was she alive?
 
(Jim Roach) : No, she wasn't, but I think she got to know the family a little bit. Sorry, don't quote me on that. I don't know about that, all I know is that she felt like she had represented a real person on screen and that she'd done it one particular way and she was very keen to do this a different way I think.
 
(Q) : And then the extra challenge of having the person there or could potentially be there. How did you feel about it? Did you want to be there or not want to be there? Did you want to leave her to do what she had to do?
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : I wanted to leave them all to get on. I always say, I don't know what Jim feels about this but I always say look, the book's mine, I wrote "Empty Cradles," and the film's Jim's. And he's free to get on now; he's been given my approval for whatever that means. More importantly, he'd been validated by a small group of child migrants. It doesn't come much better than that I think if you're a filmmaker making a film about people who are still alive, who are still suffering, and who are here to criticize your work or endorse it. That must be pretty scary I think.

I really do think that. And so I felt from my position that he'd been given all the support that anybody could give anybody and so now get on with your job and let me get on with mine. I feel from my perspective that's what happened. I don't know if you ever felt any different. But he got on with the filming and I got on with two prime ministers who decided to do the decent thing.
 
(Q) : I heard that most of the kids who were sent to Australia were not being educated. Was there an intentional reason? You were talking about developing their country right after the War so was that the reason for not educating them? To make them work?
 
(Jim Roach) : The people that we met, they certainly told us that had received little or no education, and they certainly did a huge amount of manual labor, and that was the experience of the people that we met. A lot of them educated themselves, actually. That's what a few of them told us, they'd educated themselves after they left, amazingly.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : Well first of all it wasn't the intention to give them family life. I think if you start off telling children their parents are dead when they're not, that they haven't got anybody, and they've been sent away from their country…
 
(Q) : And everything they know.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : Everything they know, everything that they're familiar with, education kind of doesn't seem so totally important does it at that point? These orders of brothers or the churches, who were these children? Where did they come from? I remember when Tony, I'm happy to say his name, spoke to you and spoke to me publicly that when he went and asked "Do we have mothers?" People have asked me "Was I born?" And he was told by this so-called order of Christian brothers "Well you're the son of a whore, so just be grateful you're here." So I don't think they were going to spend too much on his education.
 
(Q) : Well we could get into a days long conversation about government, social engineering, right wing ideas. But it just astounds me about everything wrong you could possibly do to children this government did, and the lukewarm rationalizations that you show in the film. I can just image what they told you along the way or told you along the way. I'm curious to hear how they stood there and how it was to be confronting them and then they look you in the eye. Did they genuinely believe what they were saying or were they just trying to give you an answer to get you to go away?
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : What was very clear to me is that these institutions, I'll put it like that, really thought they were past the date of which this was going to come out. I don't know what I don't know; they know, don't they. I'm researching, I'm exploring. I don't know what's at the bottom of all of this and what the explanations are going to be. But you do know that when you get very defensive responses, when records aren't available, when records start to be destroyed, and when people sit opposite you and instead of saying "I am so sorry to hear this."

When they don't do that and they start talking about "Well you, Mrs. Humphreys," don't understand the standards of the day at that time," that's when you know you've got it right. Because when was it the standards of the day to betray children and families and abuse them and send them to the other side of the world? I just simply ask that question. Can you tell me when it was proper and lawful to abuse children? I'd like to know. There's no answer to that one. Sorry about that. It sounds rather pompous, isn't it? We could go on forever couldn't we, but that's the shortened version.
 
(Q) : It amazes me what the mentality of someone who becomes a bureaucrat and there's a program. Did you ever by the way, either of you, ever find out who really initiated this? Who personally, the guy who wrote, signed the paper?
 
(Jim Roach) : Well technically some of them it should have been the home secretary at the time, and I think there are a couple of people.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : There were a couple of people, particularly one person, and one person who's part of probably the character of the film. The Secretary of State signed his papers for deportation to Australia. So it was even at that level in an operational sense of policy.
 
(Q) : Did you ever figure out who was the guy that said "Hey, this is a great idea. Let's ship them all off."
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : The thing about this is this is all about isn't it the relationship between the state and the church, and probably other things as well. Big charities. Big, major charities. Once you get those three mucking about with kids and families and commonwealth and all these things, probably not a good combination.
 
(Q) : I mean the Christian Brothers are Catholic or Anglican?
 
(Jim Roach) : Catholic.
 
(Q) : Because I know Australia has a large Catholic population that isn't in the case in England because of all the Irish and such that they shipped off there and the Scottish.
 
(Jim Roach) : They're still quite powerful I think. They own a lot of land in Australia.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : They're very powerful in this country.
 
(Q) : Yeah I know because I was telling Jim that I had worked with an Irish publication, so I learned a lot about the Christian Brothers.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : They're global in their reach.
 
(Q) : It's almost scary. It is almost scary. There's a vast history in the battle between the Protestants and the Catholics of what they did to the Irish. Basically Australia was built on Irish slave labor in many ways, because that's who often got shipped out to either there or the Caribbean. Especially by Oliver Cromwell.
 
(Jim Roach) : Yeah that's what we were talking about before, what a much wider story this story is in that context of the British using its empire to move people around. But that's part of a much wider story, obviously.
 
(Q) : I was saying to Jim before, because we in America don't have a full appreciation of it except for the abuse of priests and children and all this and that. Although we hear about it in terms of the Catholics I'm sure it happens in all kinds of Christian organizations.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : You only have to go to Boston don't you to see what happened there. Boston really turned that around in a sense that the parishioners themselves came out and talked about it. America has a huge child abuse problem like Britain, and like Australia. Britain, America, Australia, other countries of course, have got huge child abuse problems.
 
(Q) : Once the kids grow up there are so many people that are just tight lipped about this incident because of physical and mental traumatic experiences. When you're talking to those people how was your experience? Those people might not be able to get a good job because of their experiences. You're asking her basically how did she get people to open up? And of course when you go back in to make the film was it easier or harder then to tell them that then we're making a film? So first you getting them up open up initially and then you within the framework of a filmmaker.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : It's very rare for a social worker to be working with the same people for 25 years. That doesn't really happen in the real world. But with this project that's what it's all about; building trust and building understanding. That's why it's called The Child Migrant's Trust. It was very clear to me in those early days that we weren't going anywhere until we could establish trust, and to do that that was one of the reasons why I had to stay there a long time on my own without my children, without my family. That was a symbolic gesture to say "I'm here alone for all of you, and I'm going to stay here alone for all of you until something happens that we can trust each other.

And if I say I'm coming back in November I won't give you a date, I won't give you a time, but over years you will know if I say I'm doing something I'm going to do it." So that was a terrible burden, I can tell you. You don't want your kids to get ill with chicken pocks just as you're about to go or anything like that. But that was the only way. And in my working life with them now, and Jim can comment because he's been an observer of this, I can only say that has worked. And so that was again quite a worry with the film, that they had to be part of that decision making. Not everybody, because that's not possible, but just a few people had to be part of that decision because actually it's their lives, not really mine. It's what's happened to them that needs to get out there.

So trust was important. You then ask what are the consequences of having this kind of childhood on adult life? And you really spoke about some of the relationships, addiction problems, high levels of suicide, being disconnected, feeling nobody, lonely, isolated. The consequences are enormous, they go on and on and on and will and have impact on the next generation, their children.

(Q) : And to not forget that they also weren't educated, so they were not going and living in a sophisticated situation where they're being able to articulate themselves through arts.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : No equality.
 
(Q) These are guys that are laborer or probably taxi drivers and all, stuck with these kinds of jobs that they might not have had to take if they had had an education.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : I'm sure that's the case. Because one of the most problematic areas in psychological terms if people are inherently intelligent and they're not being educated, and that I can see is such a heavy burden.
 
(Q) : So speak about now observing her in process and then you having to go back in and deal with folks.
 
(Jim Roach) : We met theme as a set, we met many child migrants. We found them all very different, which was brilliant. Very different sort of personalities. Trust obviously, as Margaret says, was underneath everything. Some people would want to know in a very detailed way what you were going to do, and that's quite a hard question to answer because until we make the film frankly you don't really know what the film's going to be like.

Obviously you know what it's like in your head, but that's different to actually being a physical film, as we know. So some people would want to know in a very detailed way and so we'd talk about that. Other people I remember would be much more like "Actually I don't want to know at all," which is also quite interesting because in a way you felt like your responsibility was more to say "I really think we should talk about it and I'd like to know what you think." It was like sort of reverse psychology in a way.
 
(Q) : Has this been released in England?
 
(Jim Roach) : Yeah.
 
(Q) : How did it do?
 
(Jim Roach) : It did really well. Box office-wise it was great.
 
(Q) : Do you think it's going to be nominated for a BAFTA?

(Jim Roach) : Oh I never think about that sort of stuff. I can't think about that sort of stuff.

(Q) : You do have two great actors, well known to everybody.
 
(Jim Roach) : Honestly, the audiences were brilliant. Box office-wise it was good, but just standing in front of audiences was fantastic because they took it in such an honestly a kind of heartwarming, inspirational way. I mean they really responded to the Margaret character on screen and whenever Margaret was there in real life it was palpable. So it was very exciting, really exciting. Everything else I leave to the film gods.
 
(Q) : But you have to wonder you know. From our point of view it's a relatively obscure way to tell a story that is common to everybody. But from your point of view, my god, it's like right up and front, boy.
 
(Jim Roach) : Yeah, they're pushing absolutely. Emily did something really special, and we were shooting the film we knew it. Everybody on the crew could see it, that she was doing something really special and it was very exciting to go to work every day because of what would happen in front of the camera.
 
(Q) : I don't think we've seen her doing that in a long time.
 
(Jim Roach) : She totally lived it. I've talked about this before, but there'd be a sort of a golden moment which would normally be about mid-morning, and she would just live the moment. And you can't ask for any more when you're directing than that. She's a brave woman.
 
(Q) : Once they were there in Australia they had to pay money for the food or something? They could go different places to avoid those places there, so was that part of the reasons to make them pay for food to sort of make them stay?
 
(Jim Roach) : Certainly the people we met, one of the ultimate ironies it seemed to us, which was why we wanted to have it represented in the film, was that they actually thought as adults that they owed some sort of debt to the places that had housed them as children. And that was because, as it was explained to us that was because when they were there as children it was made explicitly clear to them "When you leave here and when you're working then you pay us back."
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : It's called charity.
 
(Q) : How did they rationalize the abuse? Was that just the Brothers were getting a tip?
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : It's called you're special.
 
(Jim Roach) : It is like the ultimate irony of the story.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : That was facetious of me, but yes, the relationship between an abuser and a child is always one about power, an abuse of power. You just have to remember that these children at that point were the most vulnerable children in Australia. Might well have been the most vulnerable children in the world, but at that point, in Australia the most vulnerable. And what do we then do with vulnerable children? We don't check up on them, we don't adhere to any safeguards, and we leave them at the hands and the no mercy of religious orders both male and female. Because there were girls involved in all of this who were with the nuns and you wouldn't want to hear too much about their lives, that's for sure.
 
(Q) : Did you get a chance to confront the nuns or the Brothers where anyone every admitted?
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : It's supposed to good for you isn't it?
 
(Q) : Yeah, so why didn't they admit it to you?
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : Because we're talking about criminality now.
 
(Q) : I know. You are a social worker so you would have the obligation.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : Well it's criminality, and at this point there's nobody that I know of, I can only say what I know, who's been arrested and had the full weight of the law thrown at them for abusing other people's children. That seems to be to be quite astonishing actually.
 
(Q) : I can't believe that nobody's sued anybody, even in a civil court.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : Well if they'd been in America it might have been a different story. In Australia there's a time limitation. It's a whole time limitation period where there's always a cutoff point, as if the world's like that. Somebody's pain stops because of that or somebody's injustice is halted because of some date that's there. I'd love to have the time to campaign to get that moved. I'd love to but too much going on all the time.

(Q) : They've done that to some degree in the States with rape where they've moved to back from like five years or something to 10 or 20 now so that they could have prosecuted them in the States.

(Margaret Humphreys) : Exactly. But this would have to be moved back about 50 years. This is a long way back now. So I think the time limitation period in Australia is something like 30 years. What I really wanted the attorney general to do there was to say "This is so exceptional that in this really exceptional case, historical abuse, and all the circumstances, I am going to change that situation just for this and this alone." But I've been spectacularly unsuccessful in those areas.
 
(Q) : Are the majority of them dead by now? The abusers?

(Margaret Humphreys) : Quite a lot of the Brothers have died. The named perpetrators. Because these perpetrators it wasn't just one child it was a lot of children. A lot of children. A lot of boys traded for another one. So the Brothers would trade the children, which is pretty gross isn't it? So they've gone scot-free, and of course who are those responsible? Ultimately I take the view, have taken the view it's not my job to spread this around, it's who is ultimately responsible, and ultimately responsible for children is government.
 
(Q) : Well the government that sent them and also the people that ran.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : That received them. The government that received them.

(Q) : And ultimately you have to ask yourself how could the Administration of the Brothers? You can't believe they're all sitting there like a little devil cult going "Oh boy, more children." Somebody's just ignoring. We'd like to believe that not every priest is a perpetrator.
 
(Q) : We'd like to.
 
(Q) : What was the Australian government's reaction?
 
(Q) : We know about the English reaction but what about the Australians?
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : The Australian government has apologizes to child migrants. The previous prime minister, Kevin Rudd apologized just before Gordon Brown. Can I just add that Gordon Brown did not apologize just because the Australians had. People tend to take that view. That is a very simplistic view and it wasn't like that at all.
 
(Q) : I mean he does have a moral bone in his body here and there.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : We saw it. On that day we saw it.
 
(Q) : How did you come up with the title "Oranges and Sunshine"? It's not an obvious title.

(Jim Roach) : It was Rona Munro's idea. Rona Munro wrote the script. She's very good at titles and we'd text titles to each other and she texted me about three or four and I thought they were all rubbish and I texted mine and she thought all those were rubbish. Then we had another working title and then I remember getting the text one day and just immediately loved it.
 
 (Q) : So once you saw it completed and yourself on the screen you didn't go running screaming out of the room? Or were you "Wow, I don't look so bad"? Or "I don't remember" or "I do remember."
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : We did anticipate meltdown before we got there, that's for sure. I must say I didn't really want to go and see it but I had to, so we went as a family. Jim set it up for us to go on our own as a family in November and see it. It was pretty quiet on the train down, I'll tell you. It was pretty hard to sit through. A bit surreal. Because one of the things you have to do to survive all this is to not look back. Tomorrow's another day and you have to keep your eyes to, if you like, the greater good.

The longer term view and vision is always for that man or that woman you met yesterday is to meet their mom and dad, to understand their family, to understand what they've lost and appreciate what they've found. So that's always there and everything else that you do is completely secondary. Jim's film's never the top of my priority on a working day ever.
 
(Q) : What do you think of that, Jim?
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : You knew that, didn't you, Jim? Ever really. So to go and see the film it was a big moment. We all felt, in fact I think the best compliment I think that anybody could ever have given Jim that night was my daughter. And my agent was in the room with us, who I know very well, and of course he was pretty nervous. And he said he was very relieved after about 10 minutes he heard me just laugh and laugh, because of course I recognized the characters and I knew that they'd just got it. So he said he could hear me laugh, he said at first he thought I was crying. And at the end of it he turned to my daughter and said "Rachel, what did you think?" And she said, and I'll never forget it, "I never wanted it to end. I wanted the film to go on and on."
 
(Q) : Oh that's cool. How old is your daughter?
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : Oh she's in her 30s and she's a social worker. I thought what a thing to say. She just sat there.
 
(Q) : How does your husband feel?
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : He's been pretty cool about it.
 
(Q) : He seemed quite helpful in the movie. All through the years he was very helpful while you were away.
 
(Q) : It probably made you appreciate him even more.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : There's always the backroom boys are the ones who make it happen. So he always says "I'm the backroom boy, but don't ever underestimate that."

(Q) : How was it when the survivors saw it?
 
(Jim Roach) : It was amazing. A brilliant screening.
 
(Q): Yeah let's hear about that.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : They cried, didn't they?
 
(Jim Roach) : Very emotion.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : Remember the first time? Just ran out crying, didn't they? Do you remember that?
 
(Jim Roach) : Yeah it was in Perth in Western Australia and it was a hugely emotional occasion.
 
(Q) : We tend to see it from the male point of view more than the female point of view. How were the women, the girls as well that saw it?
 
(Jim Roach) : Very emotional.
 
(Q) : So you were able to gather up as many that you sent out throughout the net to everyone that you knew?
 
(Jim Roach) : Yeah.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : You gave them the private screening, didn't you?
 
(Jim Roach): Yeah.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : That was more worrying than anything that day, I felt.
 
(Jim Roach) : Yeah. Because you don't presume to know which way it's going to go.
 
(Q) : That must have been nerve-wracking to anticipate that.
 
(Jim Roach) : Yeah it was very nerve-wracking, very nerve-wracking. I hoped that they would recognize their experiences on screen in some way. It was really emotional. It was an amazing screening and they did. Very, very complimentary, so it was good.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : They were just completely overwhelmed, and particularly the women as well. I mean they all cried, they all came out crying, didn't they? We went back to the trust's house in Perth and I mean it was incredible really. They just got chairs out almost in a circle and we don't do our work like that, and Jim sat there and they just couldn't find the words. What they really wanted to say is thank you for representing our childhoods in a respectful and truthful way. They couldn't quite say it like that because they were so upset for each other.
 
(Q) : The government, Australians, it's been in Australia as well?
 
(Jim Roach) : Yeah. We had a brilliant box office result in Australia so I think they've all seen it. I was only there for two weeks when we were promoting it just before it opened, but as far as I understand it a lot of people have seen it. I haven't spoken to anyone in government so I can't say what their reaction was.
 
(Q) : And no Christian Brothers?
 
(Jim Roach) : No, god knows about them.
 
(Margaret Humphreys) : I think people in the government, both British and the Australian government, from what I pick up have been quite moved by the film. I think for them, if I was them, and I certainly picked this up, it isn't a film that's about blame. It's a film that's about responsibility really. So he just says it as it has been. People can go away I think from this film and everybody, all of us can take what we want from it.
 
(Q) : Jim, obviously you've done a great film. Your father's a great filmmaker so how much did you learn from him? Did you visit on his sets or you just learned all yourself?
 
(Jim Roach) : I've taken a lot from my dad of course because we talk all the time. He's a big texter because he's got a BlackBerry, so I get a lot of texts or BlackBerry messages. We talk all the time and we spoke about this. We spoke about it at script stage and we talked about it when it was in the cutting room. He made some very good suggestions. I remember the film was running at about two hours and we cut about 10 minutes out, which is kind of normal obviously because an hour and three quarters is about the right length for the film, but it's all about where you cut obviously and how you're going to tell your story in the most compact way.

So it was good. To me it's not that big of a deal because I don't really see him as a filmmaker, I just see him as my dad who happens to make films. Sometimes in Britain people think it's hard to get their heads around that, but honestly it's not like having a filmmaker in the room, it's like having a dad in the room.
 
(Q) : So what are you working on next after this?
 
(Jim Roach) : I'm working on a script with Rona Munro which we're really excited about. It's got two sisters and that's about as much as I'm allowed to say I'm afraid, but it's only because it's at a stage where I shouldn't really talk about it. And I'm working on a script here in the United States. I love getting away from England. England's a pain in the ass for me. England is difficult for me to make films and I increasingly think that's the case. I think it's probably no coincidence I ended up in Australia to make this one. I love being here.

 
 
End.