Kelly film here
The Chronicle
23 September 2002
source: wangaratta.yourguide.com.au

THE Rural City of Wangaratta and Beechworth will feature highly in the filming of a Ned Kelly documentary which will reach Australian and international audiences. Besieged - The Kelly Legacy is being produced by Film Projects, an Australian company whose directors are Gregory Miller and Georgia Wallace-Crabbe.

It is an Australian/Irish co-production for television release in Australia and world-wide. Being made with assistance from the Regional Victorian Development Fund, it is being funded through organisations including the Australian Film Commission and the Irish Film Board.

"The documentary is in pre-production,” Mr Miller said. "We will be filming in October and November in Victoria. "We are filming at the locations where things happened. "A large part of it will be shot in Wangaratta (encompassing Glenrowan) and Beechworth. "The whole area is deeply steeped in history.”

Mr Miller said, while the last two years had seen massive media attention to the Kelly story, not many documentaries had been made. "There is a lot of new information, much of which has come in the last 10 years, and it really hasn't been used.”

Mr Miller described Besieged - The Kelly Legacy as a documentary which would present the facts as accurately as possible. It begins in Ireland, from where Ned Kelly's parents came, taking a look at his Irish descent and then tells the Kelly story from childhood to death.

"We'll certainly have historians talking and be talking to people connected to the history. "We're interested in how this has impacted across three to four generations of people, how it's affected people living in the area and their families.

"Up until very recently most of the descendants, both on the police and the Kelly sides, have been very reluctant to talk.” Mr Miller described the Ned Kelly story as "a tragedy for everyone concerned” but also as "an iconic story” which epitomised some of the things Australians admired such as the underdog rising up and bravery.

Besieged - The Kelly Legacy will be filmed as two television documentaries, with Irish and Australian versions of one hour maximum, and a longer version will be created for cinema release. It will feature recreation scenes, some of which may involve Beechworth theatre group members.

Mr Miller, who recently visited the North East, said he was impressed by both the restoration of Beechworth and the Rural City of Wangaratta's planned strategy for Glenrowan. "I think it is a very well-planned strategy, preserving and raising the level of preservation,” Mr Miller said.