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<\/a><\/p>\nThe new documentary Tina Arena: Unravel Me celebrates the groundbreaking Australian performer\u2019s 50 year career and gives an insight into the person behind the music, awards and accolades including an Order of Australia, the French National Order of Merit and the National Portrait Gallery\u2019s commission by Georges Antoni titled Tina, 2025. <\/p>\n
Directed by Adrian Russell Wills and written and produced by Jessica Carrera, the documentary interweaves contemporary interviews with Arena and her friends, family, colleagues and peers, with home video, archival footage and high profile moments.<\/p>\n
From Pina to Tina Arena<\/p>\n
Filippina \u201cPina\u201d Arena, the proud daughter of Italian migrant parents, became \u201cTina Arena\u201d on Australian prime time show Young Talent Time. Her first appearance was in 1974 at seven-years-old. <\/p>\n
As the show\u2019s founder, the late Johnny Young, explained, \u201cI didn\u2019t think Filippina was a real show business name, Tina Arena really flowed\u201d. <\/p>\n
To be fair, it was something he\u2019d experienced himself, born Johnny Benjamin de Jong.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a pretty racist time, let\u2019s call a spade a spade,\u201d Arena says, looking back at the those early days. \u201cBeing Italian meant, to me growing up, being misunderstood. And remember, I wasn\u2019t just the girl next door, I was the ethnic girl next door. Yeah, it was brutal.\u201d<\/p>\n
Arena found national fame through Young Talent Time, joining the cast and performing weekly on the show for six years, earning the nickname \u201cTiny Tina\u201d. In the documentary she explains she loved the work but eventually became exhausted and eager to try new things. <\/p>\n
\u201c[Some] wanted to see me as that little girl who never grew up, and all I wanted to do was just transition [to adulthood],\u201d she says in the documentary. <\/p>\n
Leaving behind Tiny Tina<\/p>\n
It took a few years for Arena to build the right team to make her career-defining album Don\u2019t Ask, in 1994. With singles Chains, Sorrento Moon (I Remember), Heaven Help My Heart and Wasn\u2019t It Good, Don\u2019t Ask was eventually certified over 10x Platinum by ARIA.<\/p>\n
The album also broke the industry\u2019s narrow view of her. As Molly Meldrum explained, \u201cfinally radio didn\u2019t feel ashamed playing Tina Arena. They weren\u2019t saying \u2018Oh My God, she\u2019s a Young Talent Timer\u2019 \u2013 they were playing her because it\u2019s a good single\u201d.<\/p>\n
With Don\u2019t Ask, Arena became the first woman in ARIA history to win best album. Recalling the event, Arena says in the documentary:<\/p>\n
When I found out [\u2026] I was elated and crushed all in the same sentence. What do you mean, what about all those women before me? I started to realise that I was surrounded by way too much testosterone. <\/p>\n
The documentary shows archival footage of Janet Jackson presenting Arena with the award, but it has a telling typo in it: the album is misnamed Chains rather than Don\u2019t Ask. <\/p>\n
It was an easy mistake, perhaps, for a rushed production crew to make. But it\u2019s a shame the mistake is repeated in the documentary, without comment, 30 years on. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to imagine this kind of oversight in a documentary about AC\/DC, and it suggests that women\u2019s achievements still don\u2019t attract the same level of care as their male counterparts. <\/p>\n