The Search for the Palace Letters
Portraits of Historian Dr Jennifer Hocking, an Australian historian, and biographer. She is the inaugural Distinguished Whitlam Fellow with the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University, Emeritus Professor at Monash University and former Director of the National Centre for Australian Studies at Monash University.
These portraits and stills were made in May 2023 when Jenny gained access to the actual documents at the National Archives, though the first stills work I did on the documentary was in 2020 at the High Court.
It is a brilliant film and great to see what footage got into it and what didn’t. I cannot believe I was a witness to The Palace Letters actually being opened by Jenny after her 4 year struggle with The Australian Government and the National Archives.
Also great to have the first image here below as the signature image for the documentary. Something I am very proud.
“The Search for the Palace Letters”, now on ABC iview. #Palaceletters #JennyHocking #whitlam #Thedismissal
From the website https://www.palaceletters.com
DOCUMENTARY FILM
Based on the best-selling book "The Palace Letters" by Jenny Hocking, Scribe 2020.
THE SEARCH OF THE PALACE LETTERS follows historian Professor Jenny Hocking as she fights a David and Goliath battle against the Australian Government and the British Royal Family in a landmark legal action. At stake was whether letters between former Australian Governor-General Sir John Kerr and HM Queen Elizabeth, written at the time of the constitutional crisis of 1975, were deemed private correspondence and therefore remain closed, or official documents that should be accessible to the Australian people. The case itself ran for more than four years but Jenny Hocking's struggle to open the secret archives on the Queen's role in the unprecedented dismissal of the Whitlam Government developed over more than a decade.
This feature-length documentary follows the personal struggle and immense legal battle faced by Hocking as she went all the way to the High Court of Australia, the highest court in the land, in her bid to uncover the last piece of the extraordinary jigsaw that is the 1975 dismissal.
Written and directed by Daryl Dellora. Produced by Sue Maslin.
