From the MIFF website:
“A gripping profile of Australian academic, agitator and surveillance expert Des Ball – the man who counselled the US against nuclear escalation in the 1970s.
Hailed by former US president Jimmy Carter as “the man who saved the world”, Ball was an ‘insurgent intellectual’ who emerged as a key figure in the turbulent political landscape of the Cold War. The Australian scholar and security expert’s theories on the fallacy of nuclear action and his advice to the US Department of Defense played significant roles in the de-escalation of global conflict during the 1970s, while his investigation of controversial US military base Pine Gap during the 80s enraged ASIO – which kept a security file on him. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Ball offered guidance on signals intelligence in Burma and Thailand, and his work in East Timor gave the public a taste of secrets the government would prefer to remain hidden.
Employing a wealth of archival footage, veteran documentarian John Hughes (Senses of Cinema, MIFF 2022) captures the heated atmosphere of late-20th-century geopolitics through a distinctly Australian lens, bearing witness to events such as US ambassador Ed Clarke’s ‘peppercorn’ speech at North West Cape, Gough Whitlam’s infamous dismissal from office and the civil unrest that rocked the nation during the Vietnam War. Twilight Time is a rich – and tremendously timely – look at Australia’s complicated involvement in global strategy, defence policy and mass surveillance.”
It was a thrill and a creatively rich challenge to be asked to score Twilight Time, after first having scored John’s earlier films Indonesia Calling (2009) and Love and Fury (2013). The score evolved significantly as work progressed, and features a variety of genres, most notably jazz, with a nod to early espionage scores and those early 70s soundtracks which featured vintage analogue synths. A genre bending score!
Twilight Time has been selected for the 2024 Melbourne International Film Festival
Year:
2024
Director:
John Hughes
Producer:
Philippa Campey, John Hughes
Editor:
Uri Mizrahi
Prod Company:
Early Works
