Deng Adut: NSW Australian Of The Year

Best news ever.

Deng Adut has been named the NSW Australian of the Year.

The 33 year old refugee and criminal lawyer shed tears as he received this top honour from Premier Mike Baird at ceremony in Sydney on Monday night. He said he was beyond surprised.

"Shocked," he said. "I never dreamed of anything. Even (being) a fisherman."

Adut was forced to fight as a child soldier at the age of six in Sudan before he was smuggled out and made it to Australia.

From illiterate refugee to criminal lawyer, Adut is studying for a second master's degree while running AC Law Group, which he set up to fight for members of the Sudanese community from his home in Blacktown in Sydney's west.

His story is well known, largely thanks to a TV advertising campaign for Western Sydney University, which depicts his remarkable story:

Adut said Australia was not his adopted country, but his home.

Is this not the most inspiring story? That TV ad moves me EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Josie's Juice wrote about it HERE.

'Jonah From Tonga': ABC TV new show 2014

Look who is back...

JUST announced... Jonah Takalua is back on our TVs in 2014.

The 'Summer Heights High' fave is back in his own show, it was just announced tonight at the ABC 2014 program launch.

Titled 'Jonah From Tonga', the cheeky bugger with Polynesian heritage - who loves drawing penises and muttering "Puck you, Miss/Sir" to his long-suffering teachers - will be back taunting and generally being a big turd at school.

Are you happy Chris Lilley's Jonah character is being reprised? Following all the industry whispers, did you expect this character to come back with his own series?

To follow the official Jonah Facebook page, click here. 

UPDATED: more info on the show from ABC TV:

The just-received press release says:

"Jonah’s back and ready to puck with viewers in 2014

After months of speculation, ABC TV has tonight confirmed that Jonah Takalua is set to return to screens in his very own show in 2014. The announcement came after a week where viewers were presented with a series of trailers, on ABC’s iview platform, each featuring former Chris Lilley characters all hinting at their potential return to the small screen.

The last time we saw the 14-year old school boy he was expelled from the concrete playgrounds of Summer Heights High with his father, Rocky Takalua, sending him back to his homeland of Tonga to live with his uncle and their family to help get Jonah’s life back on track. 

The new series, produced by  Princess Pictures and Chris Lilley in conjunction with ABC TV, sees Jonah in the midst of island life and experiencing the familiar frustrations of a bored teenage delinquent. But whether he’s in Tonga or Sydney, school life is still not cool for Jonah and his Poly-posse, who continue to spread his trademark swearing, telling of tall tales and signature ‘Dicktation’ tagging all over school grounds."

The six-part series, will also air on BBC3 in the UK, and will air on ABC1 in early 2014.

Here is a mini best of the very cheeky, rude-as Jonah:

And here is the teaser clip:

'Bully': the movie - Australian screen dates, trailer, clips, and Sydney Film Festival screening

The movie 'Bully' is incredibly moving for myriad reasons.


I was lucky enough to be one of the first reviewers in Australia to see the much-talked about American film at a private screening. It promises to be equally massive in Australia when it is released here on August  23, 2012. It can't not be: the film's message is exceptionally powerful.


Right from the beginning, 'Bully' proved to be a thought-provoking, tear-jerking documentary, and it raised plenty of issues. This film was never going to be just about bullying. It's about school responsibility, parent accountability, gay bullying, and so much more.


The couple who anchor the movie are David and Tina Long, whose son hanged himself after excessive bullying at school. To say the opening scenes are devastating is an understatement. The movie is not graphic [its rating changed in the US, from rated R for language, to rated PG-13] but it doesn't need to be. 


Here is the official Australian trailer for 'Bully':





Here is some of the opening scene:





Another focus in the film is young adult gay bullying; I am very pleased this was addressed as I firmly believe this is where the hatred towards the homosexual community starts: at school.





This one makes for uncomfortable viewing; Alex's mum asks how he feels when he is bullied:





This clip - where a teacher attempts to mediate - upset me greatly. My mouth was agape:





And this scene - a key one in the movie - shows what happens to Alex when he is bullied on the bus. What happens afterwards goes on to shape Alex's experience of school:





For an earlier write up on the film, including a very moving clip where Ellen speaks to David and Tina Long - go here: http://josiesjuice.blogspot.com.au/2012/04/bully-movie-including-ellen-clip.html


And if you want to catch an early release screening of the moving, you can see it tonight as part of the Sydney Film Festival [SFF], at 8.45pm at Event Cinemas George Street, Sydney. Be quick.


For more flicks during the SFF, click here:
http://sff.org.au/public/schedule/


For more on the movie, go here: http://thebullyproject.com/#