Wide Open Sky

This is quite a story. You will follow the activities of an inspirational choral music teacher, as she travels through several towns in north-western New South Wales (Australia). She has to develop a mass choir of school children for a special concert held each year in one of the larger towns in this area. Partly because of the large distances involved, partly because very few of the students have any knowledge of choral music whatsoever and partly because of the economic circumstances of the area, the challenges are great. However, the audience at the screening I attended found the whole process extremely absorbing, and engagingly told. As well as the leading music teacher, there are quite a few other adults involved, and they too are really interesting, and vital to the success of this venture which she has undertaken for ten years. The interviews with the children themselves are also beautifully handled. Many have repeated interviews as they progress, and there are a small number of them who are featured in more detail to represent the experiences of the whole group, and they are excellent choices. On top of all this, technically the film is very good. You could have expected low budget wobbly hand-held cinematography, but you do not get it. The film is shot and edited with great skill. Excellent.

I saw Wide Open Sky at the Sydney Film Festival and I haven't been part of a cinema audience that engaged for years - it came from nowhere to win the audience award for docos. It's beautifully put together, funny and interesting and while the reviews seem to insist on calling it 'heartwarming' it's much better than that. It's about kids and schools in western NSW and a music teacher who travels around and picks kids with talent to come together for a choir that performs one weekend a year, mostly from schools where there are no formal music lessons.

It's visually gorgeous and the cinematographer must have been unobtrusive to the point of invisibility to get out of the kids what she did. It's well-structured and really tightly pulled together with humour and compassion without ever seeming hurried, or dragging, or selling anything about the story short. It touches on issues like equity of opportunity, unrecognised talents and education and funding priorities but never labours the point, everyone on screen was treated with respect and all of the impacts of distance and isolation and small towns were present but were handled with a light touch. The filmmakers must have picked through hours of film to piece together a complex set of stories into a beautifully clear narrative arc. And I loved the interviews with the parents! If you or your family have never seen outback NSW, or are interested in education or music, or geographic equity, or choirs, or the best ways to train groups of girls vs boys, or want to know the best busking spots in Brewarrina (don't give up your day job), trot along and see it. If you think your inner-city/suburban kids are getting a bit blasé about how much opportunity they have, send THEM along - it's absolutely suitable for school-age kids. It's just a glorious film.

Wide Open Sky is a beautiful, poignant movie that tells a great story of a choir master and the youth of remote Australia as they excel beyond expectations. These stories are rarely captured with such sensitivity and intelligence. I am not an expert on large screen techniques. All I can say is that the atmosphere,the movement, the techniques, pure youthful voices and the story lines gel together to reflect the gentle but harsh realities of isolation in Western NSW, Australia. The movie captures Australian space gently and respectfully in ways I have not seen. A viewer will be challenged to change their career, seek to support the choir master as the youth meet her high expectations.