Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe

The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe examines the deeply personal, intimate effects the trauma of abuse has had on our four women’s bodies, hearts and minds. By raising awareness about the issues of human rights abuses and domestic violence, these four brave women can offer other survivors a pathway towards their own healing, through a process of speaking out and sharing their own stories. The film documents the process of the making of a very unusual theatre production, The Baulkham Hills African Ladies Troupe, in which the four women – none of them professional actors – play themselves. The possibility of making a theatre production, let alone such a successful one, with an untrained cast starts out as an improbable proposition in the film. But under the nurturing guidance of director Ros Horin, the four women collaborate to let their life stories be transformed into an extraordinary and joyously uplifting theatrical experience. The camera’s fly on the wall stance reveals the offstage rehearsals, workshops and first discussions throughout the creative process of making the play that date back to 2011.