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Tender cover image

Tender 2013 (DVD 2015)

Highly Recommended

Distributed by Documentary Educational Resources, 101 Morse Street, Watertown, MA 02472; 617-926-0491
Produced by Kath Shelper; Scarlett Pictures with the assistance of Adelaide Film Festival, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Australia Council for the Arts & Screen NSW
Directed by Lynette Wallworth
DVD, color, 73 min.



General Adult
Anthropology, Community Health Services, Death, Grief, Sustainable Living

Date Entered: 06/07/2016

Reviewed by Alyson Gamble, Science Librarian, Jane Bancroft Cook Library, New College of Florida and USF Sarasota-Manatee

When a tightly knit community in Port Kembla, New South Wales, finds itself unable to afford commercialized burial services and feels emotionally distanced from its departed, members band together to care for their own dead. Together, the group founds Community Undertakings, a not­for­profit venture dedicated to providing affordable, personal burial services.

The first person to benefit from the group’s efforts is the community center’s caretaker, Nigel Slater, who is dying from cancer during the film. Through the stories of Nigel and others in Illawarra, including Coomaditchie Aboriginals, viewers learn the cost of losing control over burial practices is more than financial. “What we’re doing is actually not that strange,” says Ann, volunteer and Wollongong Councillor, citing accounts of home­based wakes and family burials. “That whole sort of community thing is lost out of death now.”

Community Undertakings exists as part of a wider, intermingled social system, where people meet for folk dances, tend a community garden, and devote themselves to strengthening and sustaining their collective. One of the community members, Kate, Best Mum in the Illawarra, painted her own coffin and envisions her family adding their artistic contributions as part of a healing experience. After Nigel passes, his brother and friends join in preparing his body for burial, and the brother tells fellow mourners how important the process was for him. These two communal experiences of grief are clearly shown by director Lynette Wallworth as healing and bonding experiences for the group. Offering a non­profit, environmentally sustainable, affordable funeral service is one way the community members can continue to serve each other.

This sensitive, often funny, documentary is highly recommended for individuals interested in sustainable burial, community relations, and the bereavement process. A box of tissues is suggested as accompaniment, as many of the stories are emotionally charged.

    Awards
  • Winner, Best Television Documentary, AACTA Awards 2015
  • Grand Jury Prize, Oceania International Documentary Film Festival