Resonance: Healing

This short film by Stephen Cummins deals with homophobia and misogyny. It begins with a gay bashing, then explores the resonance of violence within the relationship of the people involved, between the 'victim' and the 'rescuer'. The film culminates in two dance sequences.

After an evening spent sketching out ideas for a new film Cummins was severely bashed on his way home by a group of men screaming 'faggot' and other slurs at him. The initial film idea transformed into Resonance (1991), which begins with an act of violence and then, as we see in this excerpt, uses dance and performance to show a process of healing from this event.

The film follows both victim and attacker from the initial scene, and we see the effect of the violence on their lives and relationships.

After winning Best Short Film at the Sydney Film Festival, Resonance went on to appear at over one hundred international festivals, including the Sundance, New York and Toronto Film Festivals and subsequently received a theatrical release in over ten countries, accompanying a range of feature films. It was one of the most successful Australian short films of the 1990s.

Summary by Simon Hunt