A HIVE FUND FILM

Produced with the assistance of the Adelaide Film Festival, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia Council for the Arts & Screen NSW.

Written & Directed by Lynette Wallworth   |   Produced by Kath Shelper   |   73 minutes

© 2024 Scarlett Pictures Pty Ltd, Lynette Wallworth and Adelaide Film Festival.

Set against the stunning backdrop of the industrial seaside town of Port Kembla, a feisty and resilient community group have determined to take back the responsibility that most of us leave to someone else – to care for their own dead. Scattered throughout are stories that cut to the core revealing why this small band have decided to take on a practice that for most is taboo. 

As their plans for community-based funerals gather momentum one of their own is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.  TENDER is at once a heartbreakingly beautiful and beautifully funny glimpse of an extraordinary community taking on one of the most essential challenges of human life…its end.

Tender is a story that demanded a doco because it’s subject matter touches us all, eventually.

Tender is the story of one community teaching itself how to be as present in death as we have learnt to become in birth. They are not trained or equipped but they are willing to learn and what they learn they share throughout this film; during which one of their most loved members is diagnosed with lung cancer. As they struggle to take on the responsibility of end of life with dignity, humour and cost effectiveness, they do so with the imminent understanding that their friend Nigel is probably about to die. These two realities converge in Tender and they are a revelation in the power of community spirit.

Our film is the gift of the knowledge they gained and as such it is something we can all learn from. It is as funny as they are and as deep-hearted too. I didn’t know the community well when I began filming, I knew only my friend Jen, but I learnt to see why she loves them and why they, of all people, would grasp this nettle and hold on tight. And I came to know the very softly spoken Nigel who quietly placed himself at the heart of this film and let the camera keep rolling. He let us stay because he thought this subject mattered to everyone, and he was right. Tender is his legacy and our learning; his wish would be that its fire and incentive could bring about change.

- Lynette Wallworth

Since completing the film, the Port Kembla group have succeeded in setting up their fully functioning funeral service in the old fire station in Port Kembla, in their quest to offer an alternative funeral experience. The service is very successful and has aided so many people in their time of need. While there are many small, family-owned funeral homes in Australia, the largest multi-national company, InvoCare, is listed on the stock exchange. In the year of our production, its after-tax profit was $48.9 million dollars. InvoCare owns more than 220 funeral homes in Australia including Simplicity, Guardian and White Lady Funerals plus cemeteries and crematoria. Tender Funerals is a not-for-profit venture.

LYNETTE WALLWORTH - DIRECTOR

Lynette Wallworth is an Australian artist/filmmaker whose immersive video installations and film works reflect on the connections between people and the natural world, as well as exploring fragile human states of grace.  Her work uses immersive environments, interactive technologies with gestural interfaces and narrative long form film to engage with viewers.  Her most recent works include the feature documentary TENDER tracing the beginnings of a community-led funeral company and CORAL an immersive film for full-dome digital planetariums with an augmented reality companion work.

Wallworth’s work has been shown at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts and the American Museum of Natural History, New York; the Sundance Film Festival; the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne; the Smithsonian, Washington; Royal Observatory Greenwich for the London 2012 Cultural Olympiad; Auckland Triennial; Adelaide Biennial; Brighton Festival and the Vienna Festival among many others.  Wallworth has been awarded an International Fellowship from Arts Council England, a New Media Arts Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts, the inaugural Australian Film, Television and Radio School Creative Fellowship in 2010 and the AIDC David and Joan Williams Documentary Fellowship in 2014.

KATH SHELPER - PRODUCER

Kath Shelper is the producer of many award-winning films most noticeably, Samson & Delilah, which won the prestigious Camera d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2009. Her new film with Warwick Thornton, The Darkside, is about Aboriginal ghost stories and screened at the 2014 Berlin International Film Festival.

Kath produced Beck Cole’s debut feature, Here I Am, and her short film, Plains Empty (Sundance 2005), plus many short films including Green Bush (dir: Warwick Thornton, Best Panorama Short Film, Berlin Film Fest), Confessions Of A Headhunter (dir: Sally Riley, Best Short, Australian Film Institute Awards), Above The Dust Level (dir: Carla Drago, Best Comedy, Melbourne Film Festival), and House Taken Over (dir: Liz Hughes, nominated, Australian Film Institute Awards). She also produced the TV series, Bit Of Black Business, which included short films Nana (dir: Warwick Thornton, Crystal Bear, Berlin Film Fest), and Hush (dir: Dena Curtis, Audience Prize, Creteil Women’s Film Fest).

Kath also produced two chapters of The Turning feature film project (directors Warwick Thornton and Mia Wasikowska), and well as producing Warwick’s contribution to the Guillermo Arriaga omnibus, Words with Gods.

Port Kembla Community Project Inc (PKCP) is a not-for-profit organisation that operates in the Port Kembla Community Centre set up to empower its local community with a variety of services that contribute to more sustainable living. Their ethos is to harness the skills, talents and diversity of its community by giving people the chance to be supported, to create and to participate fully in transformative living. Some of their services include non-interest loans for low-income earners, intergenerational unemployment reduction, and of course, the not-for-profit funeral service. This project is managed by Jenny Briscoe-Hough and a team of twelve dedicated staff, and an ongoing support network of Port Kembla volunteers. To find out more about the PKCP or to donate to their tireless cause, please visit their official website. 

“Our mission is to develop a contemporary funeral service using a social enterprise model. It will provide all aspects of a funeral service while supporting and empowering families and the community to participate as much as they choose in the process. Tender Funerals uses a people centred approach to provide a transparent, affordable, authentic service operating within a sustainable business model. We will focus on working with disadvantaged and Indigenous communities.

Our aim is to work with families, the community and palliative care to develop a model of continual care through each stage of the dying process including after death care. The project will seek to realign the care of our dead with the changing values of our culture. There is a desire within the community for a more sustainable, affordable and meaningful funeral practice, which builds communities of support and skill while facilitating an authentic experience. Tender Funerals will empower the community by developing an education program outlining rights and responsibilities in relation to death and dying in our culture.”

— PKCP, 2014

In Gratitude to a brave and loving man, Nigel Slater, 1955 - 2013.

Writer & Director - Lynette Wallworth

Producer - Kath Shelper

Director of Photography - Simon Morris

Sound Recordist - Mark Cornish

Editor - Karryn de Cinque

Sound Designer - Liam Egan

Music - Nick Cave & Warren Ellis

Featuring -

Jenny Briscoe-Hough, Sheryl Wiffen, Misty Gurtala, Adrianne Talbot-Thompson,

Tina Howard, Nigel Slater, Christine Okoniowski, Ann Martin, Andrew Allard, Nella Keenan,

Eileen Street, Andrew Stanger, Dan Deighton, Jason Whaley, Tisa Oliverio, Sharyn Lacey,

Denise Gracie, Coral Campbell, Lorraine Brown, Narelle Thomas, Kate Worth, Gordon Bradbery,

Zenith Virago, Michael Barbato, Steve Slater & Bailey (Dog). 

Post-Produced in New South Wales, Australia.

Scarlett Pictures acknowledges the support of Screen Australia’s Enterprise Program.

Financed in association with Screen NSW.

Supported by The Hive Fund.

We acknowledge the assistance of the Australia Council for the Arts.

Produced in association with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Produced with the assistance of the Adelaide Film Festival.

© 2013 Scarlett Pictures Pty Ltd, Lynette Wallworth and Adelaide Film Festival.