Kath Morton has two badges pinned to her loud, acid-wash jacket: one says "end mandatory detention", the other "free the refugees".
The 88-year-old Ballarat citizen of the year (recognised for her refugee advocacy as co-ordinator of the Rural Australians for Refugees Ballarat chapter) is one of eight senior citizens featured in a project called Rebel Elders as part of White Night on Saturday.
The series of cinematic vignettes depicting them in various states of triumph and inspiration will be projected on the walls of Rainbow Alley, just behind Swanston Street off Little Collins, come sundown on Saturday.
The brain child of artist Rose Turtle Ertler, the rebels have been meeting for the last three years to work on cross-generational creative projects, teaming up with young musicians to tell stories that break through stereotypes of older Australians. Filmmaker Andy Ferguson joined the project in the second year.
"Maybe it's because my mum's getting to that age, she's 82, but I just noticed the elderly a bit more and was thinking about how they're looked at in the community, how we put them in nursing homes and we don't respect them like lots of indigenous cultures do," says Ertler.
"It's [the project] about showing a strong, heroic and maybe risky side [to them]."
The eldest rebel is Tom Rush, who turned 95 on Friday. In the film he shuffles to old-timey music with a big grin on his face, decked out in a resplendent pink suit and hat with dogs nipping at his heels. The concept was all his. "To do that at my age, I reckon I'm a winner," he says.
Rush's gusto for life is a common theme among the group, all of whom hail from the Ballarat area.
There's 73-year-old great-grandmother Sue Morse, who volunteers at Sovereign Hill. In her performance she poses (almost) nude as a "dark angel" with spectacular wings constructed by Ferguson, her body covered in dozens of tattoos.
Nine of the tattoos are real. "I didn't start till after I turned 60," she says. "I went and got a tattoo and then I was hooked."
Morton, meanwhile, got to relive the time she climbed Mount Feathertop at the age of 49. "I thought, if I don't climb Feathertop before I'm 50 I will never do it," she says. In the film she is fresh-faced and radiant, as if she's just reached the peak and is looking down at the world.
The rebels say the project has brought them joy, confidence and, importantly, lasting friendships.
"We're a great group of oldies and we don't consider ourselves old, really," says Morse. "You're still young at heart."
Helen Gower, 78, says even though they've only known each other three years, performing together has made them "quite close".
Gower got to fulfil her childhood dream of becoming an opera singer. In the film she's decked out as the archetypal Wagnerian Brunnhilde: viking horns, breastplate, blonde plaits and armed with a champagne glass.
"I realised most of my friends could not do that," she says. "It's not bad, really, is it? To be able to, at 78, get up and do that."
Rebel Elders will screen at Rainbow Alley, Melbourne, 7pm-7am on Saturday and at Building New North, Federation University, Camp Street, Ballarat, 7pm-7am on March 4.
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