Keep The Table seeking funds for full-length Russian Spy documentary, revealing Albany’s 1885 invasion panic

The team behind a full-length feature documentary about the frenzy invoked by a potential Russian invasion of Albany in the late 19th century is seeking funding. Created by Keep The Table as part of the WA Reflections initiative, a five-minute iteration of Russian Spy was screened publicly for the first time on Tuesday at the Museum of the Great Southern. The film follows the true story of an 1885 telegram received by Albany from Britain during an era of heightened Russo-British tensions, warning to look out for Russian spies or suspicious ships stationed in and around Albany. This warning led to a decades-long panic from the residents of the then-British colony, who feared a prospective invasion from Russian forces — the apprehension so extreme it resulted in innocent tourists being run out of town, men of the area banding to form a civilian militia and the arrival of two British ships to defend the harbour. The 2023 documentary was initially funded as a joint project between Screenwest and the State Library of WA, but once filmmakers Jennifer Piper and Dasha Melnik started digging deeper, they realised the strict five-minute limit of the funding’s criteria was not nearly enough to tell the fascinating story. “The more we researched, the more interesting things we kept finding about this story,” Piper said. “As well as talking about these ideas of identity and community and otherness and connection that come from it, there are so many incredible stories and fascinating bits of this moment in time in Albany that we couldn’t fit in. “There’s a whole piece about the lighthouse keeper of Point King who was awoken in the middle of the night by the British naval officers banging on his door and him horrified, thinking it was the Russians coming to get him. “It all sounds a bit dramatic now in the 21st century having the gift of hindsight, but back then the only sources of information were the paper, word of mouth and speculation.” Cinematographer Melnik, who is Russian-Australian, said the treatment and suspicion given to any “Russian-seeming” tourists at the time reflect the current climate surrounding Russian expats. “We are now coming back to the same cycles, of fear and criticism,” she said. “Nowadays, people have this fear in their eyes and suspicion when you’re saying you’re from Russia and it’s like you immediately need to choose the side or say something like, ‘I’m not with them’. “It’s very, very easy to put us in the state of mind that somebody is going to destroy my world, but we have to remember that though the unknown is scary, we are all human.” Piper theorises that the telegram was a tactic used by Britain to keep its empire from falling apart, as no legitimate threat to Albany from Russia was ever evidenced. The full-length documentary will be compiled from footage filmed during the initial shoots, but further funding is required to take it through the expensive post-production process. Piper and Melnik invite contributions through their website Keep The Table. The short film Russian Spy can be seen on YouTube.