Art Smitten: Reviews - 2017

The Family is Rosie Jones and Anna Grieve’s ominously titled documentary about a bizarre Australian cult that was finally discovered by police in the late 1980s. Consisting mostly of corrupt doctors and forcibly adopted children, its leader, Anne Hamilton-Byrne, proclaimed herself to be the female reincarnation of Jesus Christ. She had prophesised a coming apocalypse and was desperately trying to build a master race of bleach-blonde stolen children that could survive it. Anne’s sect had the numbers, the resources and the influence to secretly spirit away 28 children from teenage pregnancies to her remote property in Eilden, Victoria. Anne could tell any member of “The Family” who to marry, who to divorce, where to work, where to live, and when to drop everything and relocate to avoid detection. She told them they would be punished for eternity if they dared disobey her. Her “children” never questioned this, since being starved, beaten and bullied with the promise of eternal