Reinventing Murray Bridge: Video series aims to shift public perceptions
Life-long locals, migrants and business leaders feature in an online documentary commissioned by the city’s council.
Life-long locals, new neighbours and major employers are among the familiar faces who appear in a new video series aimed at shifting perceptions of the Murray Bridge district.
Three-part video series Reinventing Murray Bridge was commissioned by the local council and published online last week.
In it, host Maryanne Demasi guides viewers through the transformation of Murray Bridge from a community beset by hardship to “an exceptional place to live, work, and explore”.
The work was originally intended as a half-hour documentary special for commercial television, but the council wound up posting it on YouTube after a distribution deal fell through.
The first episode focuses on the district’s history and changing character, with historian Ken Wells, former Mayor Brenton Lewis, comedian Kevin Kropinyeri, former Housing SA executive Wendy Gaborit and council CEO Heather Barclay.
Episode two is about people who have made Murray Bridge their home, including migrants Bao Luo and Mobolaji Akinbo and Murray Bridge News’ own Peri Strathearn.
In the final episode, Thomas Foods International’s Darren Thomas and Anthony Stewart, Zoos SA’s Elaine Bensted, Burke Urban’s Olivia Burke, Riverside Woodfired Pizza’s Tracey Finocchio and Twin Bridges Distillery’s Cameron Jones talk about the district’s potential for business and innovation.
Through it all are comments from Mayor Wayne Thorley about the place Murray Bridge has become, rather than the place it might have been 30 years ago.
“The region is changing quite dramatically, and it’s starting to accelerate and change,” he said.
“We’ve become more of a destination, not just a place you drive through.”
- Watch Reinventing Murray Bridge: Click on the videos above or search for episode one, episode two and episode three on the Rural City of Murray Bridge’s YouTube channel.
Disclosure: As stated above, the author and his family had an unpaid role in the video series.
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