Set in a Catholic seminary outside Melbourne in 1953, an era in which aspiring priests would begin training in their early teens for their eventual vocation, The Devil's Playground is a study not only of life in a religious school but also of its effects on the students' lives, morals, and mental states. The protagonist, thirteen-year-old Tom Allen, is constantly getting in trouble for his behaviour, which includes wetting his bed, showering in the nude, and always being late. Although he spends many hours in the chapel praying for guidance, his impure thoughts terrify him. The priests and brothers who teach him also struggle with their own desires, while at the same time arguing for greater discipline. Indeed, most of the order - postulates and priests alike - have doubts about their vocation. Through the loneliness, fear, and shame, Tom begins to ponder his future.
[Source: Australian Screen]
Devil's Playground
( dir. Rachel Ward
et. al. )agent
Australia
:
Matchbox Pictures
,
2014
Z1912252
2014
series - publisher
film/TV
'1988. Thirty-five years after Fred Schepisi's film The Devil's Playground, Tom Allen, now a psychiatrist, becomes a secular confessor to the Catholic clergy, and is soon embroiled in political and theological intrigue.' (Source: Screen Australia)'In a departure from Fred Schepisi’s film The Devil’s Playground, the television sequel Devil’s Playground focuses on the cultural impact of priest child abuse. It will be argued that the prolific mainstream media coverage of these crimes before the series was made, and anticipated during its screening, lent a form of permission to green light the production. In focusing on Case 28 of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, this article will draw attention to the problematic nature of dramatising priest abuse in mainstream Australian television. While victims have willingly voiced graphic details of the sexual violence they experienced as children, after decades of silence, it is as if networks and producers are only now awkwardly grappling with these uncomfortable realities. In the process of sanitising such abusive behaviour, they reduce the degree of cruelty that survivors are intent on communicating.'
Source: Sage Publishing.
The Devil's Playground
Strawberry Hills
Canberra
:
Currency Press
ScreenSound Australia
,
2002
Z1046714
2002
single work
criticism
'Christos Tsiolkas invites you into his twenty-five year journey of viewing, reviewing and re-imagining the film [The Devil's Playground]. He remembers his first illicit experience of the film at age thirteen and describes how his views of it changed in later years. As he chronicles the impact of The Devil's Playground on the development of his love of cinema, he also explores the film in terms of sexuality, politics, history and aesthetics.' -- Currency Press website (http://www.currency.com.au/film_index.htm)
Fred Schepisi : Writer, Producer, Director
Australian Film Television and Radio School
,
Chatswood
:
Australian Film Television and Radio School
,
1984
Z1620879
1984
single work
film/TV
Fred Schepisi talks about his career from its beginnings in advertising through his first Australian features, The Devil's Playground and The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, to his Hollywood productions, Barbarosa and Iceman. His basic message is that 'you must make pictures that you feel'.
Right Said Fred
Right Said Fred: Fred Schepisi - Film Director
( dir. Don Featherstone
)
South Melbourne
:
Featherstone Productions
,
1993
Z1669029
1993
single work
film/TV
Right Said Fred tracks director Fred Schepisi's career from his days as an advertising man through to his latest film project, Six Degrees of Separation. Illustrated with extracts from his movies, it also includes lengthy sequences from in-depth interviews recorded over the years; scenes of Fred at work in the cutting room and at a sound mixing session; and interviews with actors and colleagues, including Donald Sutherland and Meryl Streep.
