WEbshot only: visit At the Movies, ABC TV online to see snippets of the documentary.
Review synopsis:
Whatever Happened To Brenda Hean?
Rated MA
Review by Margaret Pomeranz
The mysterious circumstances surrounding the disappearance of Tasmanian environmental activist Brenda Hean in 1972 is the subject of a new documentary WHATEVER HAPPENED TO BRENDA HEAN?, by lawyer turned filmmaker Scott Millwood.
Millwood posted a $100,000 reward for anyone with information leading to the discovery of the plane in which Hean and pilot Max Price left Tasmania for Canberra to lobby parliamentarians to save Lake Pedder. The lake was about to disappear under a new hydro-electric scheme.
Millwood chases many leads and follows up a number of theories. Was the plane sabotaged to get rid of the activist? Or was Max Price the target?
This totally engrossing film actually explores more than just the theories surrounding the disappearance. It delves into the psyche of our island state, and the undercurrent of violence that permeated the society at that time. Even today one of the signs on a farm that Millwood visits says “Trespassers will be shot not prosecuted”.
Millwood, for some unknown reason, insists on exposing the mechanics of his filmmaking, with shots of interview set-ups, microphone and light stands are lovingly captured, interviewees are shown when they obviously believe what they’re saying will not be included.
All this to little point and a great deal of distraction when what the film is exploring is so fascinating and sad. But as Richard Flanagan says at the end of the film, “In the end the myth is more powerful than whatever the truth is”, what they – Hean and Price – stood for, endures and becomes the great truth of their times.
THE ARTICLE BELOW appeared in The Mercury, September 9, 2007.
Source: The Mercury news.com
Darkness over lady of the lake
MICHAEL STEDMAN
September 09, 2007 12:00am
TRAGIC accident or sinister conspiracy? The disappearance of Brenda Hean and pilot Max Price has remained a mystery for 35 years.
On September 8, 1972, they embarked on an 11th-hour mission to Canberra to stop the damming of Lake Pedder in South-West Tasmania.
Shortly into the flight Mr Price’s World War II vintage Tiger Moth vanished without a trace.
The official reports painted the disappearance as a tragic accident.
But with bungled investigations, death threats and the absence of a full inquiry, friends and family of the missing remain convinced there was something darker at play.
Now, 35 years later, Tasmanian documentary maker Scott Millwood is offering $100,000 for information that solves the mystery.
“We have decided to do this because there is an opportunity now, while there is still enough people from that time alive who know what might have happened, to really uncover the truth,” Mr Millwood said.
“It is possible, of course, that the plane went down in the sea and that there is no conspiracy here at all.
“But with all the stories I have been told I don’t believe that at all. It only stinks because something is rotten at its core.”
Mr Millwood’s last film, Wildness, explored the life of wilderness photographers Peter Dombrovskis and Olegas Truchanas — also key players in the campaign to save Lake Pedder and its pink sand beach.
The bitter fight over the damming of the lake for power generation divided the community, just as the pulp mill does today, but at a time when dissent against the decision-makers was a largely new and unwelcome phenomenon.
In that climate Mrs Hean was an unlikely activist. She was part of the Hobart establishment with a house in Sandy Bay and a proud family name.
When her environmental conscience emerged well into her 50s, she threw herself into the Pedder cause.
She ran unsuccessfully in the 1971 state election for the United Tasmania Group, which is recognised as the world’s first Green political party.
Her ability to win the ear of the influential and the powerful became so great that she became hated by the pro-industrialists — to the extent they may have gone to murderous lengths to silence her.
As her nephew Michael Ditcham recalls, the wider family was shocked by her passion.
“At that stage anyone who behaved irrationally was someone to be embarrassed about, especially being a family member,” Mr Ditcham said.
“Secretly we thought `this is a good thing to be in’, but we were not going to be seen to be rabble-rousers as she was turning out to be.”
The trip to Canberra was well-publicised. An old-style barnstormer, Mr Price was employed to use his flying skills to skywrite “Save Lake Pedder” above Parliament House.
Pedder’s glittering quartzite beach was already being consumed by the advancing floodwaters of what would become the Hydro Electric Commission’s biggest asset but Mrs Hean still believed federal intervention could save it.
Three days before she was due to leave, Mrs Hean received an eerily prophetic threat: “Mrs Hean, how would you like to go for a swim?”
Mr Price also received a threatening phone call, warning him not to get involved, according to his son Maurice.
“He told me `oh some nut rang and said if you get your nose into this you are likely to be in trouble’, but he didn’t worry about things like that,” Maurice Price said.
Max Price was a charter pilot, not an environmentalist, but he enjoyed stirring up trouble and pushed ahead with the trip.
At 10.16am the Tiger Moth took off from Cambridge Aerodrome.
The plane was last seen flying up the East Coast near Eddystone Point but when it failed to land for scheduled refuelling on Flinders Island at 12.45pm, an air and sea search was mounted.
During the chaos of the search it was discovered the lock on a back door to the Tiger Moth’s hangar had been forced, raising the possibility of foul play.
Investigating police were dismissive, instead suggesting the break-in could have been staged to draw attention to the search.
“Numerous persons, including many of the Lake Pedder Action Committee members, were at the airport and any one of these persons would have had the opportunity to cause damage to this door,” the official police report stated.
The same report found no evidence the plane had been tampered with and discounted suggestions that timed explosives or contaminated fuel could have been used.
The Tiger Moth’s emergency beacon was later found ” behind drums in the hangar but the scene was never revisited by police.
That attitude fuelled enduring suspicions that orders were made from the top to leave the case alone.
Premier Eric Reece and HEC head Sir Alan Knight refused to entertain theories of conspiracy but allowed them to fester by dismissing calls for a royal commission or public inquiry.
After 35 years with no answers, a multitude of theories about the plane’s final resting place has filled the void.
Like the police report, the official crash investigation was inconclusive and appeared plagued by a bungled search effort.
Aerial searchers reported possible wreckage, including what appeared to be a wing and life jackets sea off Swan Island, in Bass Strait. A police launch deployed more than 24 hours later found nothing.
Mathinna pensioner Cyril Cox reported hearing a plane “droning wrong” and disappearing into forest near the Blue Tier but was told by the Department of Civil Aviation there was “no more money for the search”.
Clearly troubled that his report was never investigated, Mr Cox made another statement to police 15 years later, this time supported by three other witnesses, including his sister-in-law, who recalled hearing a “terrible noise” in the gullies behind their house.
She mysteriously retracted her statement after receiving an anonymous phone call telling her to leave the matter alone.
Many people have combed the rugged forest around Mathinna since but no wreckage has been found.
More intriguing is the belief the wreckage was hidden to avoid evidence of sabotage leaking out.
“A friend in the Hobart Walking Club had an anonymous phone call from someone stating if he wanted to find the plane it was in a certain position on the beach north of the Eddystone Lighthouse,” Mr Ditcham said.
The caller said a hole had been dug with heavy machinery and the plane dumped, covered with large logs and sand spread over the top.
Though the families of the missing believe sabotage was involved, it is answers, not justice, they seek.
“Justice would be nice, but I would just like to know exactly what happened,” Mr Price said.
“Mr Ditcham said the people who were afraid of what his aunt was doing had ultimately failed because a generation of environmentalists had been inspired by her legacy.
“What she was starting was something that will go on forever now and will only get stronger the more governments try to push people around,” he said.
Mr Millwood hopes that in solving the mystery, the dark underbelly of the Tasmanian environment debate will be exposed.
“I think there is a sense of violence about environmental conflicts in Tasmania — it was there during Lake Pedder, there in the battle for the Franklin River and again against the pulp mill,” Mr Millwood said.
“That is why it is really important to get to the bottom of what happened to Brenda Hean and Max Price because until we break the cycle we are destined to repeat it.”
If you have any information on the disappearance of Brenda Hean, call 1800 233 059.
