ROHAN
SPONG
DIRECTOR
Rohan
Spong is an Australian born independent filmmaker passionate
about telling unfamiliar stories across a variety of film mediums and
genres. His work spans film, video, photography and animation. He has
made numerous music videos, contributed projections to theatre, exhibited
photographs and has made a handful of short films.
He is perhaps best known for his acclaimed feature documentaries.
Rohan studied film theory and practice at the University of Melbourne.
Whilst living in Los Angeles in 2008, Rohan began to assemble his first
feature length documentary T Is For Teacher (2009), about the
experiences of four transgendered school teachers in American schools.
The film went on to screen at a number of prestigious international
festivals, alongside Oscar contenders. It was named by two Australian
reviewers as amongst the best films to screen in Australian cinemas
in 2009.
All The Way Through Evening (2011) is a musical documentary
which considers the early era of HIV/AIDS in New York City. It premiered
in the East Village on World AIDS Day (Dec 1) 2011, was requested for
the NYC Downtown Film Festival (where it won the Jury Prize) and screened
at Dublin's GAZE Film Festival.
All The Way Through Evening had a series of worldwide World
AIDS Day (Dec 1) screenings in 2012 in order to raise money for different
local HIV/AIDS organisations. The film also had a limited theatrical
season in Australian cinemas.
The Songs They Sang (2011) tells the forgotten story of the
Vilna Ghetto theatre, where the imprisoned Lithuanian Jews created evocative
music in the face of death during the Holocaust. Rohan's film pieces
together the story with interviews from the surviving theatre patrons
and the families of those who wrote these startling works. The film
is part musical, intercutting recollections of the Holocaust with a
number of moving musical sequences.
