Tina Arena: Unravel Me
How do you separate a Melbourne-born Oz music treasure and cosmopolitan star from a resilient woman? Follow the threads of her story, in her own words.
Tina Arena has been in the music business for 50 years; after 25 albums, she’s had enough eras to make other pop stars envious. Born in suburban Melbourne to Sicilian parents, Filippina Arena became Australia’s darling in 1976, aged eight, on Channel Ten’s prime-time variety show Young Talent Time. Her breakout 1990 pop single ‘I Need Your Body’ raunchily repudiated “Tiny Tina”, and she went on to score a soaring run of 90s hits … but self-doubt, misogyny and tall-poppy syndrome drove her to reinvent herself repeatedly in the UK and France: taking to the stage; seeking adventurous collaborations; and singing in Italian, French and Spanish.
Behind Tina the power balladeer and queer icon is the woman her family still calls Pina. This world-premiering documentary from Adrian Russell Wills (Kindred, MIFF 2023) unravels her vulnerable yet tenacious private self in candid, dryly funny conversation. Also appearing in new and archival interviews are Tina’s two sisters; her mentor Johnny Young; and collaborators and admirers including Céline Dion, Marc Anthony, Ronan Keating, Jessica Mauboy, and Jessica and Lisa Origliasso of The Veronicas. In bringing herself undone, Tina movingly shows how music has made and mended her.
Featured subject Tina Arena and writer/producer Jessica Carerra are guests of the festival and will be in attendance at the Wednesday 12 August metropolitan session of the film.
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