From the footy field to the film festival: the AJAX story onscreen

Before there was AJAX, there was a heated rivalry between Melbourne’s Jewish communities north and south of the Yarra. In the 1940s, families who had settled in Carlton and Fitzroy bristled at those who had moved to St Kilda and Caulfield, and the tension was played out in an annual football match that drew crowds of up to 500.

It’s a chapter of Melbourne Jewish life now brought to the screen in Who Are We: The Story of the AJAX Football Club, a new documentary at the Jewish International Film Festival. Co-directed by Jeff Shenker and Sean Meltzer, the film traces the club from those early north v south games, through its formation in 1957, to its place as a community institution 70 years on.

Shenker says those early games were about more than competition. They doubled as fundraisers for the community and a highlight of its social calendar, until the idea of a unified club took hold. “A couple of guys got together and said, ‘Wow, wait a minute, we’re doing really well here. We’ve got some good footballers … Let’s draw them all together and have a Jewish football team.’”

Shenker, an experienced television producer and production manager, has been involved with AJAX since the late 1970s as a player, team manager and vice-president. About three years ago, he came on board as co-director when the club decided to turn its online heritage project, documenting former players, coaches and committee members, into a documentary.

The archive contains more than 100 interviews, some dating back seven years. Narrowing that material down to a feature-length film was a challenge. “Everybody did have something to say,” says Shenker. “It’s just that you can’t get 102 people into 75 minutes.”