BIG DREAMERS: DVD

SYNOPSIS:
Tully was a prosperous sugar producing - and very wet - North Queensland town until Brazil dumped its sugar stockpile on the global market. At an emergency town meeting, someone proposed building The World's Biggest Gumboot in honour of Tully's record rainfall - like 7.93 metres in 1950. In late 2001, Town elder Ron Hunt hired out of towner Bryan Newell to build it, which irked local artist Roger Chandler. He got the contract for the frog to stick on the side of the boot. The cost blows out and construction is endlessly delayed - by rain. And in the end, will it really save the town?

Review by Andrew L. Urban:
Small town rivalries, dogged problem solving, sense of humour, sheer determination and its sister, bloody mindedness, help make this cheerful doco both entertaining and insightful. It's a perfect DVD to send overseas as a showcase of the Australian ethos, as found in country towns. Apart from the progress of making the boot - and its decoration of a frog in a controversial pose - the film offers vignettes of some of Australia's other large iconic statutes, like the Big Banana, the Big Orange, the Big Potato, the Big Lobster, the Big Koala, etc.

The characters we meet are indeed 'characters' and the project is a good example of good intentions being snared by the inevitable Murphy's Law. But it's not only the oversize gumboot makers that deserve our admiration - it's the filmmakers, who recorded the highlights of over 9 months of its troubled creation.

It's a testament to the film's fresh feel that as well as the 2007 Melbourne International Film Festival, the film has a swag of festival screenings to its credit: Silverdocs: AFI/Discovery Channel Documentary Festival, Perth Revelation International Film Festival, Palm Beach International Film Festival, Florida, USA, deadCenter Film Festival, Oklahoma, USA, ReelHeART International Film Festival, Toronto, Canada, Big Sky Documentary Festival, Montana, USA and the Byron Bay Film Festival, NSW, Australia.

Published February 14, 2008