3 Oct 2018

She Shears: New Zealand shearing women documentary set for release

From Nine To Noon, 10:12 am on 3 October 2018

A lesser-known slice of rural life is documented in a new film She Shears.

In it, five blade-wielding, wool-handling women are featured: Jills Angus Burney, Emily Welch, Hazel Wood, Catherine Mullooly and Pagan Karauria. All five women are world record-holders.

The film gets its nationwide release on next week October after an acclaimed world premiere at the NZ International Film Festival.

Director Jack Nicol and Jills Angus Burney join Nine to Noon's Kathryn Ryan to discuss the film. A townie himself, Nicol says he was always fascinated with the shearing industry. 

“Like Jills says, I got sheep shit on the brain, I got interested in the world.

"I came across these shearing history books. In every book, there’s a chapter abut female sheep shearers and I got interested about those people because it just sounded fascinating. No one had really done a movie about sheep shearing before.”

Angus Burney started shearing full time in the 1970s. He says the work day started and finished at 5.

“You trained yourself. I started doing nine-hour days as a wool handler when I was at high school so it wasn’t unusual for me to know that I had to stay focused at 5am."

And to stay focused, she literally counted sheep.

“Every 15 minutes, it’s so many sheep and so many sheep per second … when I did 500 it was one minute a sheep, when I did 600 it was 52 seconds a sheep.”

This is Nicol’s first film and, he says, it was far from a text-book choice.

“When you’re learning to make movies they say your first film should be an easy production - only a couple of characters and one location, never work with kids, animals or water.

“I messed up and chose to do five women everywhere in New Zealand essentially. It was a lot of travel which was an absolute pleasure because the country is so beautiful and so easy to photograph.

“It was a real privilege to go into these communities and learn about life in New Zealand that has been the same for 100 years.”

Women in New Zealand have long been involved in shearing and wool handling, Angus Burney says.

“There’s Turnbull Library footage of women working in the sheds back in the 1890s, particularly from the Hawke’s Bay, so in New Zealand women have always been part of a shearing team or a shearing gang.

“There is a big difference in Australia where there were very few women until the 1980s. Women weren’t allowed to be cooks or even helpers, let alone wool handlers or shearers back in the old days in Australia.”

Angus Burney no longer makes her living in the sheds, she says. A bad back led her to a career in law.

“I buggered my back shearing merinos in Australia and I got advice that it probably was going to be a problem if I stayed shearing so I went to uni in Waikato and did a social science degree and then I continued on with encouragement from my mentors to a law degree.

But she keeps her hand in.

“I’ve been working as a lawyer for the last 18 years but I still shear I shear on the weekend ... I’ve just been in Australia six weeks working in a shearing team on merinos.”

She Shears will be released in cinemas nationwide from Thursday 11 October.