A cream and two plains

8 MINUTES

In an elegy for his childhood home, a filmmaker constructs a lyrical collage of memory

In A Cream and Two Plains (2002), the Australian filmmaker Damian Gascoigne captures his mother Rosa’s perspective on her home of more than 30 years after she has decided to sell it. ‘Plying her with red wine and cigarettes’, Gascoigne elicits her stories of raising eight children in the house, as well as her perspective on her husband’s unexpected passing 12 years earlier. In this nostalgia-soaked treatment, Gascoigne melds this narration with scribbly animations, family videos, dreamlike black-and-white imagery, the tumultuous noise of childhood play, and a poignant piano and string score. This eclectic collage of sound and image emerges as an appropriately incomplete meditation on memory and the meanings and interwoven emotions that a family home holds.

HOME MEMORY AND NOSTALGIA PARENTING AND FAMILIES

Director: Damian Gascoigne

Producers: Danielle Susijn, Picasso Pictures

Explore more

Two children’s dresses lying flat, one blue the other white with floral patterns and colourful smocking.

PARENTING AND FAMILIES

The daughter I never had

I loved my three sons but still yearned for a girl. Why did this fill me with such shame?

by Emma Wilkins

A dog with a leash standing on a carved wooden bench in front of a field and bare trees under a cloudy sky.

Dog day blues

We were a new stepfamily, and only the puppy was missing. With Elsa, we lobbed a grenade into the mix

by Lily Dunn

Sketchbook pages with colourful abstract faces, featuring torn paper flaps over parts of the drawings, mixed media artwork.

Steven has a rare insight into faces – because he cannot recognise them

Directed by Steven Fraser

Illustration of two people standing in a forest, at the top of a waterfall, with a dog below; money is washing away down the waterfall into a pond, as well as a car and house pictured in the pond below.

MONEY AND ECONOMICS

Money

When an investment tanked and buried us in debt, we had to face the truth of how we’d gotten there

by Carol Berkower

Illustration of a night scene with musicians performing, a person on a chair, a bird flying and mountains in the background.

MEMORY AND NOSTALGIA

Synchronicity

Long ago, I gave a boy a greenfinch. That moment followed me in ways I’m still puzzling over

by Katia Ariel

Photo of a street with vintage cars, motel signs and a person leaning on a truck holding a broom under a blue sky.

FOCUS AND ATTENTION

How to alter the passage of time to feel fast or slow

Knowing the psychology behind why moments drag or whizz by can give you a degree of control over your experience of time

by Martin Wiener

Two people lying on a snowy road in winter clothing with a forested landscape in the background.

Frøydis faces an impossible problem – how to grieve a father she hated and loved

Directed by Frøydis Fossli Moe

Three people chatting at a rustic bar in a pub, with a brick interior and various decorations.

Our relationships, in five dimensions

Scientists offer a new way to compare and contrast social ties – like a ‘Big Five’ for relationships

by Matt Huston