I remember sitting in the Mercury at the Adelaide Film Festival and watching Unspoken and getting to see a rare talent emerge on screen in the form of Kat Dominis. Her lead performance left me moved, shaken, and stunned by the depth of emotions she presented on screen. As the credits rolled, I saw she was the co-writer of this award-winning short film, a credit she shares with Mariana Rudan and director Damian Walshe-Howling. Unspoken is a story about family, it's a story about division, and it's a story built on intergenerational trauma.

Kat plays Marina, a Croatian born young woman living with her family in 1979. She's in a secret relationship with a white Aussie man, with the two keeping the relationship hidden from her parents. Marina's brothers also live under the same house, with the two brothers falling into the political unrest that unfurls on the streets of Sydney in the form of protests and demonstrations. Acting as a thematic layer to Unspoken is the true story of the Croatian Six; six Croatian-Australian men who were sentenced to 15 years jail in 1981 for a conspiracy to bomb several sites in Sydney.

Much of the evidence that was used in the trial of the Croatian Six was fabricated, with the men being set up as part of a sting operation by the Yugoslav foreign intelligence service. The weight of this event sits in the background of Unspoken, with tensions emerging throughout the film between family members, between Croatian-Australians and white Australians, and between girlfriend and boyfriend.

Underpinning this tension is that stunning central performance from Kat Dominis who commands the screen with a guiding, lived-in understanding of the weight of her characters lives and the societal and political upheaval they're undergoing. As Marina, Kat presents the conflicted nature of wanting to fit in to a new culture while also trying to navigate the familial heritage of her homelands culture. In this regard, Unspoken becomes a universal story that many migrant families can relate to, especially from the frequently xenophobic landscape of Australian culture and society.

These notions, and a lot more, are explored in this expansive interview with Kat Dominis, recorded ahead of Unspoken's screening at the St Kilda Film Festival on 7 June. Unspoken has screened nationally around Australia, and took home the Grand Prix at the Clermont-Ferrand Short Film Festival earlier this year, a rare achievement for an Australian film. Less prestigious, but notable still, is that Unspoken featured in my personal Best Australian Films of 2024 list. It marks the grand arrival of actor-turned-director Damian Walshe-Howling, of producer and co-writer Mariana Rudan, and of course, Kat Dominis as actor, co-writer, and producer. It's a stunning filmic achievement.

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