[Kirsty Sword Gusmao Film Collection: Reel 2]

Titled Walking to School.
This could possibly be an Eaglehawk Primary School Production.

This narrative film follows the eventful journey of a young school boy as he walks to school along a country road. On the way he is joined by school friends and we see their encounters with a variety of native Australian Wildlife. They see lace monitor tracks and follow them to where the monitor is scaling a tree. They also find a possum and an echidna. The film shows various closeups of the animals and the children’s faces as they squint and shield their eyes from the sun.

The children cross a wooden bridge where they meet an old man carrying a swag and a billy. The man gathers the children around him and reads a story to them called “The Bear”. The film then shows us the story as it is being told. It is a tale of a young girl who is very poor, very dirty and very sad. One day she finds a toy koala which brings her great joy. Excitedly she tries to show her Koala to other school children who are playing games in the school yard. They ridicule her and throw sticks at her. She runs away and falls on the grass where she drifts off to sleep. She dreams that she is rescued by a fairy Godmother who transforms her into a very clean girl in a beautiful dress! During this sequence we see good examples of Super 8 “special effects” as the fairy works her magic on the other children, transforming them into characters in fancy dress. We see these children playing circle games and closeups of their faces. Eventually the poor girl wakes up to find a kind school boy standing over her. He helps her to her feet, takes her hand and leads her to join his other friends. Together the group skip happily all the way to school along a country road.

This film shows good examples of children’s fashion, games and faces. We also see footage of houses and streets of the time.

Selected Highlights (timecodes from Access Overscan)
00:00:06:00 Title card ‘Walking to School’
00:00:30:00 Goanna climbing tree
00:02:23:00 Echidna
00:03:45:00 Kids story time reading from ‘The Bear’