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Jub Clerc
Born
Western Australia
Occupation(s)Actor, playwright, film director, and screenwriter
Years activec. 2000 – present
Notable workSweet As
Children1

Jub Clerc, also known as Suzanne Jub Clerc, is a Indigenous Australian actor, playwright, film director, and screenwriter. She has worked in film and television since the early 2000s and has also worked in theatre. She is best known for her 2022 debut feature Sweet As.

Early life and education

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Suzanne Jub Clerc[1] is a Nyulnyul and Yawuru woman.[2] Her mother was actress Sylvia Clarke. Clarke grew up around Beagle Bay, Broome,[3] in the Kimberley region in Western Australia, while Clerc grew up around Port Hedland, in the Pilbara. So although her ancestors were from the Nyul Nyul/Yawuru peoples of the Kimberleys, her family married into the Pilbara families four or five generations ago.[4]

At the age of 14, Clerc was encouraged by her teachers to go on a photography trip for teenagers around the Pilbara. She did not realise it at the time, but the group were considered at-risk adolescents, after her grades had dropped due to an absent mother and somewhat troubled home life. She later said that this trip changed her life, enabling her to see other possibilities outside her home town, a mining town.[5] Straight after this trip, she was flown to Broome, where her mother was rehearsing for the stage musical production of Bran Nue Dae, and stayed at the upmarket Cable Beach Club. Clerc sang backstage and toured with her mother for four years.[4][5]

When she was 18 she was accepted into the Aboriginal Theatre Training program that emerged from Bran Nue Dae.[4] She graduated from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts in 1997,[1][6] after undertaking a three-year course in acting.[7]

Career

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Clerc has said that she likes to write comedy, or dramedy, even about serious themes.[5] She started writing because she wanted to write roles that represented people like her, as there were not many roles for Indigenous people that were written or directed by Indigenous people.[4]

Theatre

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In 2010 Clerc was cast as a soprano in Pecan Summer, the first opera written by an Indigenous Australian (Deborah Cheetham Fraillon) and involving an Indigenous cast, and will be an associate director for the 10th anniversary production.[8][9]

She wrote The Fever and the Fret, which debuted at Yirra Yaakin in Perth, winning the 2017 Kate Challis Award.[6] A production directed by Ursula Yovich was presented by the Ensemble Theatre in Sydney in November 2018.[10]

Film and television

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Jub's directorial debut in film was Storytime, a short thriller film released in 2007.[1] It screened at Flickerfest International Short Film Festival in Sydney, the St Kilda Film Festival in Melbourne, and at the ImagineNATIVE Film and Media Arts Festival in Canada.[11] The story was based on the Nyul Nyul/Yawuru stories she had heard in childhood of the spirit of a woman that lived in the mangroves and stole children, the Gooynbooyn woman.[3]

Jub worked with producer Liz Kearney co-ordinating the Deadly Yarns initiative[12] between ABC Television, ScreenWest, and the Film and Television Institute of Western Australia.[1] She wrote and directed a documentary short film, Music Men, in the Deadly Yarns 4 series in 2009.[13] At that time, she was a member of the 2 Deadly Casting & Artist Agency in Broome.[14]

She has worked in a range of roles in television and film, including casting director, extras casting coordinator, dramaturge, and associate producer. Among others, she worked on Bran Nue Dae, and Jandamarra's War, Mad Bastards, Satellite Boy, The Circuit, Jasper Jones, and series 1 of Mystery Road.[6] She also acted in Mad Bastards, Satellite Boy, Jasper Jones, and Mystery Road.[12] As part of Screenwest's Feature Navigator program, Jub was assigned to work with director Rachel Perkins on all six episodes of Mystery Road.[3]

Her feature directing debut was the short film Abbreviation, a segment of The Turning (2013).[3][12] She also directed the short film Min Min Light, and episodes of the television series The Heights (2019; her first TV directing credit[8]), Turn Up the Volume, and Total Control (series 3)[6]

In July 2020, Clerc hosted the inaugural "Deadly Yarns" webinar for Australians in Film, interviewing Aaron Pedersen.[15]

In September 2020, Clerc was selected as one of eight participants in a new writing and directing initiative organised by WA Indigenous production companies Pink Pepper and Ramu Productions, along with and New Zealand company Brown Sugar Apple Grunt, called the RED project. The project consisted of development workshops enabling each participant to write and direct a 10-minute short film, which would be part of a single anthology 80-minute feature film (working title RED) consisting of stories from a female Aboriginal perspective. The other participants were Kodie Bedford, Debbie Carmody, Kelli Cross, Karla Hart, Chantelle Murray, Ngaire Pigram, and Mitch Torres.[16][17]

She directed the half-hour music documentary Struggling Songlines, produced by brothers and band members of The Struggling Kings from One Arm Point, Luke and Dan Riches, which premiered on NITV as part of Karla Grant Presents on 17 January 2022.[18]

She is most noted for her 2022 debut feature film Sweet As, a coming-of-age film partly drawn from her own experiences.[12] It is the first Western Australian feature film directed by an Indigenous Australian person.[4] It was selected for several prestigious film festivals and won several Australian and international awards.[6][19][20]

Since before 2018 and as of 2020 she was working with Truant Pictures to develop her 2007 short film Storytime into a supernatural thriller feature film, with the working title The Gooynbooyn[12] (from "the Gooynbooyn woman", who stole children from the mangroves). She has been working with co-writer Steve Rodgers and producer Liz Kearney on the script.[3]

Her latest project, the SBS/NITV comedy series Warm Props, wrapped in July 2024[21]

Recognition and awards

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Personal life

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Clerc's family totem is the Jinda-Bidirbiddir (Willie wagtail).[4] She is related to actors Mark Coles Smith and Ngaire Pigram, who were cast in Sweet As.[4]

She has a child.[4]

References

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  1. ^ a b c d "Jub Clerc". AustLit. Retrieved 27 August 2024.
  2. ^ Rhiannon Clarke, "Jub Clerc’s debut feature Sweet As snapped up by Australian movie powerhouse firm". National Indigenous Times, August 29, 2022.
  3. ^ a b c d e Groves, Don (29 August 2018). "Jub Clerc revisits a scary childhood experience in supernatural thriller". IF Magazine. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  4. ^ a b c d e f g h Clerc, Jub (20 February 2023). "The power of the camera: Jub Clerc, director of Sweet As". ACMI (Interview). Interviewed by Haskard, Amanda. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  5. ^ a b c Clerc, Jub (31 May 2023). "Jub Clerc interview: How the Sweet As was inspired by a true story from her life". The Sydney Morning Herald (Interview). Interviewed by Bunbury, Stephanie. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  6. ^ a b c d e f "Jub Clerc". Australian International Documentary Conference. 27 January 2021. Retrieved 27 August 2024.
  7. ^ "It's Sweet As – Jub Clerc's debut feature green lit for production". Screen Australia. 22 August 2024. Retrieved 29 August 2024.
  8. ^ a b "Jub Clerc". Troyeur. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  9. ^ "'Stolen Generation' singer debuts landmark Aboriginal opera". The Independent. 23 July 2010. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  10. ^ "The Fever and the Fret". AusStage. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  11. ^ "Storytime". AustLit. Retrieved 27 August 2024.
  12. ^ a b c d e Keast, Jackie (15 September 2020). "Jub Clerc to celebrate teenagehood in debut feature 'Sweet As'". IF Magazine. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  13. ^ "Deadly Yarns 4". Ronin Films. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  14. ^ "Screenwest Indigenous screen strategy, 2010–2015" (PDF). 2009. p. 14.
  15. ^ Groves, Don (24 July 2020). "Aaron Pedersen flags more 'Mystery Road' adventures". IF Magazine. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  16. ^ "Eight Powerful, Female Indigenous Writer/Directors Selected as Part of RED". Screenwest. 29 September 2020. Retrieved 29 August 2024.
  17. ^ "Eight female Indigenous writer-directors selected for anthology feature 'RED'". IF Magazine. 30 September 2020. Retrieved 29 August 2024.
  18. ^ "'Struggling Songlines' music documentary premieres tonight on NITV". Screenwest. 17 January 2022. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  19. ^ a b George, Sandy (22 August 2022). "'Neptune Frost', 'Sweet As' win new Melbourne film festival awards". Screen Daily.
  20. ^ a b Zilko, Christian (18 September 2022). "'The Fabelmans' Wins TIFF 2022 People's Choice Award"". IndieWire.
  21. ^ "Production on First Nations comedy series Warm Props wraps in Broome, Western Australia". Screenwest. 10 July 2024. Retrieved 28 August 2024.
  22. ^ "Winners & Nominees". AACTA. Retrieved 29 August 2024.
  23. ^ "2014 Awards". AFCA - Australian Film Critics Association. 29 April 2015. Retrieved 29 August 2024.
  24. ^ "Sweet As". Asia Pacific Screen Awards. 13 October 2022. Retrieved 29 August 2024.
  25. ^ Keast, Jackie (12 October 2022). "'Sweet As', 'Delikado' nominated for Asia Pacific Screen Awards". IF Magazine. Retrieved 29 August 2024.
  26. ^ "Berlin prizes for 'Sweet As', 'The Survival of Kindness', 'Marungka tjalatjunu'". IF Magazine. 27 February 2023. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
  27. ^ Gbogbo, Mawunyo (28 March 2023). "The Birrarangga Film Festival has been Sweet As with final film screening on Tuesday night". ABC News. Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 31 March 2023.
  28. ^ "AWARDS". HOME. 4 July 2023. Retrieved 29 August 2024.
  29. ^ "Winners & Nominees". AACTA. Retrieved 29 August 2024.
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