War baby Helen Yeates was a latchkey kid from the working-class Brisbane suburb of Annerley, discovering an escape to paradise in a dark cinema. This memoir captures a significant social and cultural history of Brisbane, drawing on her love of film in a highly original, evocative way. She falls in love and marries in the late 1960s, on the cusp of a time of swinging sexual liberation and radical politics. Surviving a devastating car accident, an addiction to prescription drugs and a traumatic marriage, she becomes a passionate feminist and leftie, navigating her way through a confusing world of changing ideas and morals. This memoir reveals a colourful life across the decades, in relation to love, sex, amnesia, brain damage, loss, education, partying and politics, with films illuminating everything. As an Australian pioneer of secondary and tertiary film and media studies, she traces the highlights of a career nurturing young filmmakers and future educators. The book also reveals amusing encounters with international celebrities, a quick trip to Hollywood to hire a famous film director, and mis-steps with singer Bob Dylan and French actress, Isabelle Huppert.
