TWILIGHT TIME: Desmond Ball, The man who saved the world

TWILIGHT TIME: Desmond Ball - the man who saved the world

Writer Director John Hughes - Producers Philippa Campey, John Hughes
Developed and Produced with the assistance of VicScreen

Desmond Ball: 'Insurgent intellectual'
Desmond Ball (1947-2016) was hailed by Jimmy Carter as “the man whosaved the world” as he established the fallacy of the doctrine of ‘limited’nuclear war. His study of Pine Gap - in the heart of Australia’s central desert –infuriated Australia’s defence establishment. Des Ball’s curiosity andcommitments offer a window on nuclear war fighting, mass surveillance,global strategy and defence. Des’ work on Australian signals intelligence in Timor-Leste informed Australian citizens on issues governments preferremain secret. He trekked deep into the sensitive borderlands of Burma andThailand advising persecuted minorities on signals intelligence. Des Ball madea difference; his insights are everyday more urgent

Des Ball was an Australian defence analyst. He grew up in the small town of Timboon in country Victoria and made his way as a scholarship student through the Australian National University (ANU) where he led the ANU’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (1984-1991). Des gazed at signals intelligence facilities around the world and worked out what they did and why. He challenged the orthodoxy of his field with clear-sighted ethical commitments to an independent Australia.

DIRECTOR STATEMENT
And then there is AUKUS, formally announced at the White House in September 2021

The film had been under way for a number of years when suddenly Scott Morrison, as Prime Minister, announced the AUKUS pact on September 16, 2021, followed remarkably quickly with the ALP’s endorsement and formal commitment at San Diego on 15 March 2023. Paul Keating remarked that this was the worst international decision made by a Labor government since Billy Hughes tried to introduce conscription in 1916. Keating’s commentary on AUKUS accords closely with that of Hugh White (‘The AUKUS Delusion’), Susannah Patten (Lowy Institute), Rex Patrick and many other experts in this field who have argued that the nuclear-powered submarine deal seems far more favourable to what American hawks believe to be in their strategic interests and with very little strategic value to Australia. There is a pattern here. TWILIGHT TIME addresses its audiences as a kind of essay film. As such it offers an idiosyncratic voice drawing on found sources and a multitude of archival materials. The films, photographs and texts fashioned into this assembly catalogue social activism and scholarship questioning Australian defence and foreign policy that has too often unquestioningly assumed Australia’s interest necessarily coincides with the ambitions of the American empire. 

Source of Copy - Twilight time Press Kit. 

TRAILER