78 AWW.COM.AU AUGUST 2017
PHOTOGRAPHY BY ANNABEL CLARK. GETTY IMAGES.S
ince she arrived in Sydney a couple
of days ago, veteran star of stage and
screen, and one of England’s most
revered actresses Vanessa Redgrave
has been talking around the clock,
using her high profile and her passion to
challenge us all to get a grip, get involved,
show a bit of humanity and welcome the
world’s refugees.
Vanessa is 80, somewhat frail (of
body, not mind) and wracked with
a barking cough, but that is certainly
not going to blunt her message. This
is a cause she’s “bloody well going to
work for until the last minute. And the
last minute may be very near,” she tells
The Weekly with a glint in her piercing
blue eyes and a brief hint of a smile.
That spark fires up regularly as we talk
for an intense and fascinating hour about
what seems to be the most vital and
passionate crusade of her life to date.
Vanessa has long been a left-wing activist,
regularly lampooned by her detractors as aVanessa Redgrave
Saving the
forgotten
children
In her 80th year, actress Vanessa Redgrave turns director
for the first time to expose the horrors of refugee camps.
She tells Juliet Rieden why we must help each other, the
importance of cuddles and the best moment in her life.
“champagne Trotskyist”, who delights in taking
on the establishment in support of the common
man and what she sees as the iniquities of the
world. Yet this time it feels intensely personal- there are little children’s lives at stake and
Vanessa’s maternal heart is breaking.
We’re sitting in a cramped hotel suite
in Darling Harbour with Vanessa’s
47-year-old son Carlo Nero (from her
second marriage to Italian actor Franco
Nero). Together, mother and son –
Vanessa as director and Carlo as
producer – have used “entirely” their
own money to make a powerful
documentary about the refugee crisis
and the need to take action – now!
The resulting film – Sea Sorrow,
named after a line in Shakespeare’s
The Tempest – is surprisingly intimate and
compelling. Far from being a preachy
polemic, it’s a wrenching elegy, which rattles
around your brain long after the credits roll.
“It’s partly a meditation and then partly a
rallying cry, too, for people if they care about
this and see their humanity at stake as well,
hoping they might want to do something, lift
a finger ... And yes, there’s an element of
urgency about it, too,” explains Carlo, who »
RIGHT: Vanessa Redgrave and her son,
Carlo Nero. She met his father, Franco
Nero, on the set of Camelot in 1966.