On 16 July 2024, there was a Celebration of Freda's Life and Work at the Freda Freiberg Film and Screen Studies Library at Monash University, Caulfield.

Freda's daughter, Lily Tell, and colleagues, Annette Blonski, Barbara Creed, John Gregory and David Hanan spoke. Jennifer Sabine took this photo of Annette and Lily.

Freda was a special person, with a keen sense of history and her role in communicating her knowledge of the pivotal times through which she lived. Freda was the daughter of Mina and Leo Fink, who were instrumental in helping the Buchenwald Boys, a group of young Jewish concentration camp survivors, immigrate to and settle in Australia in 1948-49.

Freda was a wonderful dynamic woman who enriched so many lives with her intense intellectual curiosity and insights. She was fiesty, generous and fun. I enjoyed discussing so many ideas with her particularly during the last few years, when we shared lunches, strolled in the Botanical Gardens or were on a cultural outing. I remember fondly her describing in detail her campaigning as a uni student in 1951 to ensure Communism was not outlawed in Australia. She will be missed.

Freda Freiberg was central to so many circles of vibrant film culture in Australia, so active in her involvements & engagements – writing (she was a superb, clear writer, who proudly eschewed all jargon and loudly abhorred the mere “word games” of much contemporary highbrow theory), teaching, consulting, networking (in the best sense), bringing people together ...

Freda was introduced to me back in 1973 by our mutual friend Barb. She and Freda were friends and colleagues, teaching at what was then called Coburg Teacher’s College. The College was built in the shadow of Pentridge prison, one of the toughest prisons in the country and it was an old prison, surrounded by massive towering bluestone walls. This was not the chic, hip, housing estate that it now is with its boutique cinemas and excellent cafes.  I digress.

Both Barb and Freda were trained teachers, both passionately feminist and both devoted to promoting the study of what was a new discipline: the study of cinema, not just the odd film review but a wholehearted embrace of the cinema worthy of the same sort of theoretical and critical examination as any other art form be it music, literature, the fine arts, all of which Freda was devoted to but added to which the cinema was another in the long list of her interests. I gather from Barb that Freda was at first a reluctant convert to teaching cinema, being devoted to literature as a student and then as a high school teacher, but for the rest of her life, it became the predominant area of research, intensive study and active engagement. What was life after all, without going to the cinema, sitting in the dark, and watching a movie?

Freda Freiberg was blessed and we were blessed to have her in our lives.

Saturday a week ago she played scrabble with Alex and Tash and won. The next day she made 3 kilos of gefilte fish with the assistance of her long- term helper, Suada. Monday, she made chicken soup and gave some of the chicken to Lily. On Monday and Tuesday nights she participated in and very much enjoyed two Passover Seders. On Thursday Ellie and Oren noticed she was unwell.  In the evening, she was diagnosed with pneumonia, and early Friday morning had a heart attack.  She died peacefully a few hours later, surrounded by family. She was 90.   

Freda Fink was born on 18^th September 1933, the first child of two Jewish immigrants from Bialystok Poland. Both were keen to get out of Europe, but they could not have known how bad things would get there.  The home housed an extended crowded family, including loving parents and three doting uncles from the Fink side of her family, followed later by two doting uncles from the Waks side.   Freda aways claimed that her hyperactivity was due to over-stimulation in her early childhood.