By Peter Douglas
Hills audiences are in for a rare treat, with a second helping on offer for the hugely popular documentary, ‘The Family’.
After the success of last year’s MIFF Travelling Showcase screening, the film returns to the Cameo for another special Question and Answer session about the making of the documentary with director Rosie Jones.
The feature-length film focuses on the sect known as The Family, which operated mostly out of the Lake Eildon area and from a house on Belgrave-Ferny Creek Road throughout the ’60s and ’70s.
Run by the charismatic Anne Hamilton-Byrne, the apocalyptic sect, to a large degree, was shut down after a police raid in the mid ’80s.
The documentary features some of the victims of the sect who were either born into the sect through members, or acquired through what were believed to be adoption scams.
The children were isolated from the outside world and dressed identically.
The documentary says the children were also subjected to numerous abuses, including being beaten, starved and injected with the drug LSD.
The Friday session has been sold out already, so organisers have added another Question and Answer screening for Sunday 26 February.
Book quickly.
Tickets available at www.cameocinemas.com.au.
