Sunday, June 29, 2008

Tear Jerker

A lot of you may know (those that have followed the progress of this film) that a film like this takes an incredible amount of time and money to make. I thought I would use my first entry in the diary to thank all of you who have given your time, feedback, support and generosity to this amazing project. As most of you know, this has been a very long journey. In 2006 we were all devastated when my uncle Peter Norman, died of a heart attack. What most of you don’t know is that the film was almost complete back then. It’s taken a long time to get motivated again as I haven’t really had time to grieve properly for the loss of Pete.

Now that the film is about to be released I’m able to spend more time thinking of Peter and how much this film meant to him. I worked very closely with Peter for over 4 years on the film. He saw a cut of the film in 2006 that brought him to tears. He was really looking forward to spending time with me on the road promoting the film and meeting those of you who have shown us your tremendous support.

Peter’s death was a huge loss to our family but more importantly a huge loss to the World. He had so much more to give and for me personally it would have been amazing to celebrate his life on this film with him standing by my side.

Now that he’s gone, my only objective is to show Peter to the World. I want people that see this film to be finally educated in the fact that Peter wasn’t just the “WHITE GUY” in the historical photo of the black power protest. He was a silver medalist at an Olympic Games, he is record holder STILL 40 years down the track but more than that he is a true mate to everyone. For those that met Peter you know what I mean. We made friends with everyone. He had time for everyone.

I hope that by watching this film, you’ll be able to say “Tommie Smith, Peter Norman and John Carlos were part of history”.

Thanks again for all of your support. I know you’ll all love this film as much as I do. Be warned, its a tear jerker.!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This film is incredible. I want to thank Matt Norman for making such a powerful film and for standing up for people in my position who can't stand up for themselves. Best film out of Australia by far.