Fortunate/Unfortunate by Gordon Orange (a digital story from the Lake Illawarra MAP Project)
SYNOPSIS: The story of a man who kept making and losing fortunes over his life, but who never gave up. SCRIPT: Fortune was not always kind to my father. He did make three fortunes in his life. But he lost two. Dad came over from England and landed in Brisbane with 75 cents to his name. Fortunately, after a few years and quite a few jobs he was able to set himself up on a little farm in Boonah. Unfortunately we were forced off the land by the drought. I was only about four. I can remember we had a cow that was so weak it couldnt move and they had to put a Hessian bag and ropes around it to help it stand up under a tree. And wouldnt you know it, the night they sold up it rained cats and dogs. We moved down to Sydney. Dad got a job selling insurance to farmers, but things were tough. For about three weeks, we lived on bread and dripping and a big box of groceries my auntie sent up from Melbourne. Fortunately, Dad made enough money from the insurance to buy an estate at Albion Park Rail. He bought all the land from creek to creek and in two years he had sold the whole estate and was able to buy the Panorama Estate at Oak Flats and then, later on, Little Lake at Warilla. Unfortunately, the Depression hit. Well that left Dad high and dry and he lost all his estates because none of the people hed sold land to had any work. Fortunately, Dad had a good friend who gave him 60 acres of land on the Illawarra Highway at Albion Park and told him, Pay me when you can. And thats when we …
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Sometimes on a movie set unscripted things happen that become part of the finished film. While filming the scene when Rip first arrives home after his release from prison, he picked up Camper the dog, who promptly bit him. That wasn’t on paper, but director Jon Gunn immediately decided to keep it in the film. The favorite at the Deauville American Film Festival, winner of a dozen Audience Choice Awards for Best Picture, and recipient of the HEARTLAND TRULY MOVING PICTURE AWARD, LIKE DANDELION DUST is, according to USA TODAY, “the next Blind Side”. Directed by Jon Gunn (MY DATE WITH DREW, MERCY STREETS) from a screenplay by Academy Award® Nominated Stephen J. Rivele (ALI, NIXON), the film is based on the novel by New York Times best-selling author Karen Kingsbury. “Like Dandelion Dust” is a compelling drama about a young boy who lives an idyllic life with his adoptive parents on the coast of Florida. It’s a postcard childhood until the day they receive a disturbing phone call: his birth parents want Joey back. A judge’s decision could tear him away from the only home he’s ever known. One family is determined to keep the son they love, the other to begin a new life, one they’ve always dreamed of, and rise above the challenges of alcoholism and domestic abuse that have plagued them. Joey’s future hangs in the balance as issues of parenthood and class warfare play out. Someone must make the bravest decision of their life; sometimes the greatest love is letting go. Starring …
Video Rating: 0 / 5
