Rats in the Ranks (1996)

Directed by

Robin Anderson, Bob Connolly

Genre

documentary film

Country

Australia

Runtime

1h 33m

Rated

M

Rating

7.8 of 10 from 4 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

This documentary follows the final weeks of a mayoral election in a local Australian council. It shows the private meetings and power struggles among Labor Party members as they decide on a candidate.

observationalfly-on-the-walltenserevealingdryly humorouspoliticalintimategritty

What happens

Rats in the Ranks is an Australian documentary film released in 1996. The film detailed the last weeks of the 1994 Leichhardt Council mayoral elections. Anthony Albanese, then-Assistant General Secretary of the NSW Labor Party, proposed to the Labor caucus at the Leichhardt Council that they should solve their factional dispute over who should run for Mayor by pulling a name out of a hat. The filmmakers, Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson (later known for Facing the Music and other projects, but already well known) were allowed access to the innermost meetings of participants including the serving mayor Larry Hand and his Labor Party opponents. Hand's exposure to a wider audience spawned the character Col Dunkley in the successful Australian TV series Grass Roots, and Rats in the Ranks is regarded as a classic in its portrayal of local politics in Australia. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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