Melanie Rodriga (née Read; born 30 September 1954) is a

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

film maker Filmmaking or film production is the process by which a motion picture is produced. Filmmaking involves a number of complex and discrete stages, beginning with an initial story, idea, or commission. Production then continues through screenwritin ...

lecturer Lecturer is an academic rank within many universities, though the meaning of the term varies somewhat from country to country. It generally denotes an academic expert who is hired to teach on a full- or part-time basis. They may also conduct re ...

, and author.

Early life

Born in

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

, Malaysia, Rodriga was the third child of Daphne Mary (Billie) and Albert Thomas (Bertram) Read. She is of

Eurasian Eurasia ( , ) is a continental area on Earth, comprising all of Europe and Asia. According to some geographers, physiographically, Eurasia is a single supercontinent. The concept of Europe and Asia as distinct continents dates back to antiq ...

( Malay-

Chinese Chinese may refer to: * Something related to China * Chinese people, people identified with China, through nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity **Han Chinese, East Asian ethnic group native to China. **'' Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic ...

- Portuguese) ancestry on her mother's side and

British British may refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. * British national identity, the characteristics of British people and culture ...

ancestry on her father's side. Her father was a pianist arranger of the British Dance Band Era, playing with

Bert Ambrose Benjamin Baruch Ambrose (11 September 1896 – 11 June 1971), known professionally as Ambrose, was an English bandleader and violinist. Ambrose became the leader of a highly acclaimed British dance band, Ambrose & His Orchestra, in the 1930s. ...

and Henry Hall, among others. The family moved from Malaysia to

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

in 1961, and lived in the eastern suburb of

Vaucluse Vaucluse (; or ) is a department in the southeastern French region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. It had a population of 561,469 as of 2019.

. Rodriga graduated from Kambala CofE Foundation School for Girls in 1972. She then traveled to England where she studied filmmaking at Ravensbourne Polytechnic, Bromley, Kent.

Early career

Rodriga's career began in Sydney in 1974 at the

Australian Broadcasting Corporation The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) is Australia’s principal public service broadcaster. It is funded primarily by grants from the federal government and is administered by a government-appointed board of directors. The ABC is ...

, where she was trained in production management and

film editing Film editing is both a creative and a technical part of the post-production process of filmmaking. The term is derived from the traditional process of working with film stock, film which increasingly involves the use Digital cinema, of digital ...

for both drama and documentary. Her first film as writer/director was the 1976 experimental short ''Curiosities''. In 1979 she edited ''Witches and Faggots, Dykes and Poofters''. This was one of the first documentaries about the lives of gay and lesbian people in Australia set against the backdrop of the first

Sydney Mardi Gras The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras or Sydney Mardi Gras is an event in Sydney, New South Wales attended by hundreds of thousands of people from around Australia and overseas. One of the largest LGBT festivals in the world, Mardi Gras is the ...

and the arrests that followed. In 1980, having moved to

, Rodriga began writing and directing her first three short films: ''Second Sight'', about

Sally Rodwell Sally Katherine Rodwell (16 May 1950 – 15 October 2006) was a New Zealand multi-disciplinary artist who worked mainly in the fields of theatre, film, and poetry. Her creative work included performing, directing and writing; making masks, puppe ...

and Deborah Hunt of theatre group Red Mole, ''Them's The Breaks'', a documentary about street kids, and ''Hooks and Feelers'', a short feature based on the

Keri Hulme Keri Ann Ruhi Hulme (9 March 194727 December 2021) was a New Zealand novelist, poet and short-story writer. She also wrote under the pen name Kai Tainui. Her novel ''The Bone People'' won the Booker Prize in 1985; she was the first New Zealand ...

story.

Later career

Rodriga's first feature-length film, '' Trial Run'' (1984), starred

Annie Whittle Annie Whittle is a British-born New Zealand singer and actress who has appeared on such shows as ''Shortland Street'', where she played Barbara Heywood for four years and has had a singing career that has spanned three decades. She was previousl ...

and was edited by

Finola Dwyer Finola Dwyer (born 10 July 1963) is a UK-based New Zealand film producer and editor, best known for her films '' An Education'' and ''Brooklyn'', produced with frequent collaborator Amanda Posey. Career In 2015, Dwyer produced an historical ...

. It was the first film in New Zealand to be written and directed by a woman. "New Zealand's Cinema of a Perilous Paradise" by Ian Conrin In Horror International Steven Jay Schneider, Tony Williams Eds. Wayne State UP p115
/ref> Whittle's character relocates to a remote cottage which appears to be haunted by a previous occupant. Conceived by Rodriga as a feminist thriller, and seen by some critics as a feminist form of "Kiwi Gothic," ''Trial Run'' was feminist in its work practices as well as its ethos: twenty of the twenty-nine people on the production crew were women. Together with

Gaylene Preston Dame Gaylene Mary Preston (born 1 June 1947) is a New Zealand filmmaker with a particular interest in documentary films. Early life and family Born in Greymouth on 1 June 1947, Preston was educated at Colenso High School (now William Colenso ...

's '' Mr Wrong'', ''Trial Run'' marked a turning point in New Zealand cinema. According to Barbara Cairns, "From this moment on, the centrality of the white, male hero, or anti-hero ... was if not displaced, then constantly undermined." Cairns argues that Rodriga's ''Trial Run'' was the more daring of the two films as it focused "not on the unknown, external danger to women, which the thriller uses most potently, but on threats within the family." In 1986-87 Rodriga directed three episodes of the seven-part TV serie
''Marching Girls''
This pioneering series was conceived by actor-writer Fiona Samuel as a response to the lack of challenging female roles in New Zealand television. Rodriga's next feature, '' Send a Gorilla'', was conceived and developed with three of her Marching Girl colleagues. Set on Valentine's Day, the film was a feminist critique of the commercialisation of Romance. The film is frenetic and has some fine comic moments, while having a serious feminist subtext. In the 1990s Rodriga focused on TV drama and documentary (and changed her surname to Rodriga early on in the decade). ''The People Next Door'' (1994) was New Zealand's first prime time documentary dealing with gay and lesbian culture. In 1997 Rodriga moved to Perth, Western Australia. While teaching screen production and screenwriting at Murdoch University, Rodriga directed her third feature film,

Teesh and Trude ''Teesh and Trude'' is a 2002 Australian drama film directed by New Zealander Melanie Rodriga, and was adapted from an original stage-play by Wilson McCaskill. The film was produced and shot entirely in Western Australia with Production Investme ...

(2002) starring

Linda Cropper Linda Cropper (born 1 January 1958) is an Australian actress, primarily known for her role as Geraldine Proudman in the TV series ''Offspring'' and as Dame Nellie Melba in the television series '' Melba''. A shortened version of ''Melba'' was s ...

Susie Porter Susie Porter (born 1970 or 1971) is an Australian television, film and theatre actress. She made her debut in the 1996 film '' Idiot Box'', before rising to prominence in films including '' Paradise Road'' (1997), '' Welcome to Woop Woop'' (1997 ...

Peter Phelps Peter Phelps (born 20 September 1960 in Sydney) is an Australian actor, singer and writer. He is notable for his role as Trevor Cole in ''Baywatch''. Phelps is also known for his roles in the internationally successful Australian series '' Son ...

and Bill McCluskey. ''Teesh and Trude'' tells the story of a day in the life of two working-class single mums in Perth, Western Australia. The film was nominated for three Australian Film Institute Awards in 2003. Critics were divided by the film's gritty social realism: In 2010, Rodriga wrote, directed and produced her fourth feature film '' myPastmyPresent'', shot on location in the

Margaret River The Margaret River is a river in southwest Australia, southwest Western Australia. In a small catchment, it is the eponym of the town and tourist region of Margaret River, Western Australia, Margaret River. The river arises from a catchment ...

region of

Western Australia Western Australia (WA) is the westernmost state of Australia. It is bounded by the Indian Ocean to the north and west, the Southern Ocean to the south, the Northern Territory to the north-east, and South Australia to the south-east. Western Aust ...

. ''myPastmyPresent'' is a young lesbian love story with Buddhist themes shot with an entirely

undergraduate Undergraduate education is education conducted after secondary education and before postgraduate education, usually in a college or university. It typically includes all postsecondary programs up to the level of a bachelor's degree. For example, ...

crew. It played at the 16th

Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival Seattle Queer Film Festival (formerly known as the Seattle Lesbian & Gay Film Festival) is an annual film festival in Seattle. The 28th Annual Seattle Queer Film Festival will take place October 12-22, 2023. It is the largest LGBTQIA+ film festiv ...

. In 2015 the feature film 'Pinch' (w/d Jeffory Asselin) which Rodriga executive produced, won best feature at the WA Screen Awards.

Academics

Rodriga has a PhD from

Murdoch University Murdoch University is a public university in Perth, Western Australia, with campuses also in Singapore and Dubai. It began operations as the state's second university on 25 July 1973, and accepted its first undergraduate students in 1975. Its ...

Perth Perth () is the list of Australian capital cities, capital city of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth-most-populous city in Australia, with a population of over 2.3 million within Greater Perth . The ...

, where she ran the Graduate Screen Program].

Personal life

Rodriga's sexual orientation as fluid. She is a

lesbian A lesbian is a homosexual woman or girl. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate nouns with female homosexu ...

and

queer ''Queer'' is an umbrella term for people who are non-heterosexual or non- cisgender. Originally meaning or , ''queer'' came to be used pejoratively against LGBTQ people in the late 19th century. From the late 1980s, queer activists began to ...

as of 2018. She has written that she disagrees with "the assumption that sexuality is biologically or genetically driven" and believes in "allowing young people the freedom to make up their own minds about their sexual preference(s)."

Filmography

References

Reviews

Film Ink Review of Teesh & Trude by Drew TurneySBS Movie Show Review of Teesh & TrudeVariety Review of Teesh & Trude by David Stratton
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rodriga, Melanie 1954 births Australian feminists Australian film directors Australian people of Portuguese descent Australian women film directors Buddhist feminists Lesbian feminists Australian LGBTQ film directors Living people Murdoch University alumni Academic staff of Murdoch University New Zealand Buddhists New Zealand feminists New Zealand film directors New Zealand people of British descent New Zealand people of Chinese descent New Zealand people of Malay descent New Zealand people of Portuguese descent People from Kuala Lumpur Queer feminists Queer women New Zealand LGBTQ film directors