The highly-anticipated screen adaption of Alison Lester’s classic Magic Beach will open in theatres across the country next week — marking the picture book’s 35th anniversary since its publication.
The much-loved Australian children’s book takes readers on a journey into the ocean through the eyes of children and their vivid imaginations.
Headed by Robert Connolly, who brought us Australian blockbusters include The Dry 1 and 2, Paper Planes, and Blueback, the movie is a blend of live action and various animation styles including traditional 2D, claymation and stop-motion, with half its animators being women.
They include Emma Kelly, Marieka Walsh, Lee Whitmore, Kathy Sarpi, and Susan Danta — all of them acclaimed industry artists.
This is an rare statistic, considering the historical gender imbalance in the field of animation. The state of diversity in animation hasn’t been very healthy when you look at the past decade.
A 2018 study by the USC Annenberg and Women in Animation found that just 31 per cent of animated films had female producers, while only three per cent of animated film directors were women.
At the time, women held under a fifth of all key roles in top animated films from 2014-2018, with women of colour holding just seven per cent of those roles.
This, despite several tertiary animation programs in Australia recording high numbers of female students enrolling in their courses.
Data from Animation Guild in the US found a signifiant rise in the number of women employed as artists, writers and technicians on animation projects — just over a quarter in 2019, up four per cent from 2015.
Animal Logic Chief Operating Officer Sharon Taylor told a Screen Australia study in 2019, “It’s clear from the figures that there’s no issue in attracting female students to VFX and animation courses. What we do find is that once they graduate, there’s a drop off in numbers within the industry.”
“Particularly here in Australia where we don’t have the scale of industry [that exists overseas]. So the limited roles we do have are filled by returning crew and it’s difficult for recent graduates to be considered for these roles.”
On Magic Beach, three of the four producers are women: Chloe Brugale, Liz Kearney and Kate Laurie. In fact, the entire crew were made up largely of women, including set decoration by Ruby Davis, editing by Maria Papoutsis (assisted by Christine Dax) production management by Celyren Leckie and Ruby Davis, and the Camera and Electrical Department team was fifty per cent women (Caitlin Wong and Ruby Davis who did additional data wrangling).
Alex Cardy was also the film’s cinematographer, proving that Australia pushes above its weight in this vastly male-dominated profession. The Melbourne-based cinematographer has won awards for her work across documentary, shorts, advertisements and digital projects.
In a recent interview on The Curb, Alison Lester, 72, opened up about the inspiration for her book, written more than three decades ago.
“When you’re talking about the beach like that, I was thinking unless I just go to the beach and I just want to lie down and read a book for a while, you immediately start to create something,” she said. “You’re either picking up shells to put in some form or building a mermaid or making a castle or digging a hole. And when you were little kids, that stuff just is being generated by them all the time.”
“They’re so inherently curious and playful about the world. And being out in the natural world is just such a bonus for little kids anyway. But the beach is just that extra level.”
Special preview screenings are showing this weekend in NSW and VIC. Here are the times and dates.
Corrections
This article, first published 8 January 2025, erroneously identified Nova McGregor as female. McGregor identifies as non-binary, not female. Riley Fyffe was also incorrectly identified as female. Fyffe is a male.