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Bundarra in film..
Even though Bundarra is a small village we have had brief moments of fame.
Many of the buildings in the main street (Bendemeer St/ Thunderbolt’s Way) were built in the late 1860’s to 1870’s.
Due to the fact that the main street of Bundarra remains much the same as it was in 1870, Bundarra was used as one of the sites in the filming of “The Chant of Jimmy Blacksmith.” Set in turn-of-the-century Northern NSW this is a powerf condemnation of the white establishment's treatment of Aboriginals and of racial injustice in general.
“Made on a budget of $1.28 million, The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith was the most expensive film ever made in Australia at that time. As well as support from the AFC and the Victorian Film Corporation, Hoyts Theatres also backed the film, making its first production investment.
The film was a commercial failure at home, but it won critical acclaim in Britain and America. The film was invited into the official Competition at Cannes in 1978. Shot on locations in NSW including Dubbo, Gulgong, Scone, Armidale, Kempsey, Dorrigo, Bundarra and Mudgee. Angela Punch McGregor won Best Actress, Ray Barrett won Best Supporting Actor and Bruce Smeaton won Best Original Score at the 1978 AFI Awards. “
'One of the most important of all Australian films and one of Schepisi's finest achievements'. – David Stratton
Bundarra on TV
Bundarra is to be featured in an ABC documentary to be screened in 2007 with filming is taking place within and without the town during this year (2006).
The Jones System of Teaching Reading.
Devised by George Jones during his appointment to Bundarra Public School, NSW, from the late 1880s to 1920, the method involved a newly formulated phonetic alphabet consisting of letters and signs.
The Jones System of Teaching Reading was a phonetic method of teaching children to read based on an association between hand movements (hand play), sounds, diacritical marking of the words that they were learning to read and the letter equivalent.
Interested by the considerable success of the method, the Education Department recommended and sponsored the approach over the next five years.
Jones produced a number of publications and a series of textbooks about The Jones System of Teaching Reading.
You can download all of the Jones Teaching Manuals at the Hawke Research Institute for Sustainable Societies website.
Mena Abdullah
Mena Abdullah was born at Bundarra in northern New South Wales. She was raised on a sheep property and gained her education at Sydney Girls' High School. For many years, she has been employed as an administrator at the CSIRO. Her short stories have been published in the Bulletin; in the Coast to Coast anthologies in the years 1956, 1958, 1960, 1962; and Two Ways Meet, edited by Louise Rorabacher (1963). Some of her better known stories are 'Grandfather Tiger', 'A Long Way', and 'Because of the Rusilla'
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