Connies

The scouts

A migrant's first day as a tram conductor in '87 Melbourne *should* be a earnest coming-of-age trudge, but Brickle leans into the absurdist chaos until the job itself becomes surreal—it's the rare film that finds the subversive angle hiding inside a premise everyone thinks they already understand.

Shot with the documentary-inflected clarity of late-80s Australian cinema, Connies sits comfortably in a lineage of antipodean social realism, though Brickle's editing rhythm and tonal control suggest a filmmaker already aware of—and gently pushing against—that very tradition.

The specificity is in the sound design and the timing of the cuts between Brickle's protagonist and the chaos of the tram itself—one decision to keep the camera *with* the conductor rather than pulling back to show the full picture transforms what could've been observational into something genuinely disorienting and alive.

Reviews

We follow Roy, a recent migrant to Australia, on his first day as a connie. Bolstered by the wisdom of the classic Australian proverb, "Nah, you'll be right," from his colleague, Roy encounters hordes of sniggering school children, passengers who refuse to clear the doorway, and people listening to music through headphones on full volume.