Home by Christmas
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Gaylene Preston
Chelsie Preston-crayford
Martin Henderson
Tony Barry
Tina Cleary
Alun Bollinger
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
Gaylene Preston was always keen to ask her father Ed about his experiences in WW2, when he was part of ANZAC campaigns in North Africa and Italy. Though he proved reluctant to talk about that time, she finally managed to tape rather extensive interviews with him in 1990, shortly before his death. These tapes create the framework for the recreated scenes of Ed's experience in an attempt to convey the realities of one man's war and, by extension, illuminate a collective history. Defeat in the Egyptian desert meant Ed spent years in a POW camp, while back home his wife gave birth to their son in his absence. Domestic life is depicted here too, with Preston's mother Tui coping with a newborn child and the loneliness she endures when her husband is declared missing.
