Charmian Clift
Life Burns High

Born in 1920s Kiama, teenage Charmian escaped to Sydney and after the war scored a newspaper job in Melbourne where she met leading war correspondent George Johnston. Tired of Australian postwar conservatism, the couple left for Europe, finally settling on Hydra, where an artists’ colony formed which included Leonard Cohen. Returning to Sydney, Charmian found success writing a newspaper column, but George’s ill health and a new novel rumoured to be critical of his wife, fractured their creative partnership, and tragedy ensued. Interest in Charmian’s work has revived with the recent publication of her unfinished novel The End of Morning, which was put aside to help her husband write his Miles Franklin winner My Brother Jack. This absorbing documentary is the latest film to explore undermined female artists (see Mozart’s Sister).