16 MIN | 2025 | DIRECTOR: MADELEINE PRESTON | PRODUCER: ANTHONY BAUTOVICH | AUSTRALIA | BYRON PREMIERE
“…the future is known, it's the past that's always changing…”
Based on a box of photographs left to Madeleine after her best friend Maggie died by suicide, ‘Darlinghurst Eats Its Young’ is a moving account of a group of friends, artists and musicians living in Darlinghurst (Sydney) in the early 80s.
When Madeleine is a teen, she meets Maggie who welcomes her into her Darlinghurst fold. Here Madeleine feels accepted as part of a group of people who didn’t care who she was. In their inner-city enclave of squats, Madeleine finds a new kind of family with Maggie at the helm. The 20-something Darlinghurst group comes of age through alt music, drugs, art and friendship…but some of them don’t make it.
Beautifully edited by Kathy Drayton (Girl in a Mirror: A Portrait of Carol Jerrems, The Weather Diaries), the soundtrack features electronic music from the time including Severed Heads, Scattered Order, Wet Taxis and Systematics.
Madeleine Preston’s ‘Darlinghurst Eats Its Young’ is a deeply personal narrative formed out of the artist’s own experience. Madeleine passed away on March 14th, 2022 after a short battle with cancer. She finished the script and recorded her narration just two weeks before her death.
Screens with THE EXTRAORDINARY MISS FLOWER
