Ana Kokkinos Lisa French December 2013 Contemporary Australian Filmmakers plunge their characters into all kinds of darkness, where a sense of ultimate self may be found or, more disturbingly, lost. Audiences prepared to meet such daunting challenges would be right to think they are...
“Modern Love”: The 63rd Melbourne International Film Festival Eloise Ross September 2013 Festival Reports After the opening night choice of Los amantes pasajeros (I’m so Excited!), which enthusiastically promised the complexities of a Pedro Almodóvar script and direction but instead relied on bland character conven...
Generational Syncretisation and MIFF’s Diamond Jubilee: The 60th Melbourne International Film Festival Alice G. Burgin October 2011 Festival Reports Renewal, when generational change finally occurs, may well unleash an explosion of energy that will burst the log jam and permit the nation to resume its interrupted progress toward the vision of a tolerant, fa...
Don’t Rain on Ava Gardner Parade Adrian Danks June 2011 Melbourne on Film Dossier “I’m here to make a film about the end of the world... and this seems to be exactly the right place for it.” – Ava Gardner (allegedly) (1) Marguerite Duras’ 1979 short Aurélia Steiner: Melbourne, provides an i...
Marvellous Melbourne: Queen City of the South Stephen Gaunson June 2011 Melbourne on Film Dossier In the days of early film production “scenics” or “gazettes” were seminal in establishing urban film-going as “big business”. Most popular between 1903 and 1912, they coincided with the development of city film...
A City of Song and Satire: Melbourne Wedding Belle Deb Verhoeven June 2011 Melbourne on Film Dossier “Back to the city where we’re born and we die Melbourne as usual with clouds in the sky.” - from Melbourne Wedding Belle (1953) When then Premier Jeff Kennett gleefully announced that Melbourne’s municipal r...
Your House and Mine David Nichols June 2011 Melbourne on Film Dossier The 23-minute film, Your House and Mine (1954) sees Robin Boyd and Peter McIntyre – two leading Australian architects of their day, whose work, language and message are still enormously important – adapt their ...
The Cleaners Federico Passi June 2011 Melbourne on Film Dossier Malcolm Wallhead’s 15-minute voyeuristic essay on Melbourne city life, consumerism, and waste is plotted within the arc of a cinematic day. This structure – the musically edited rhythm of the images, the freque...
The Squares of the City: John Dunkley-Smith’s Flinders Street Jake Wilson June 2011 Melbourne on Film Dossier The time is 1980; the place, a crucial node on the grid of inner Melbourne, where Swanston Street, running north to south, crosses Flinders Street, running east to west. Four corners, four landmarks. Southwest...
Ghost Rider Ben Goldsmith June 2011 Melbourne on Film Dossier Despite being set in an unnamed Texan city, Ghost Rider (Mark Steven Johnson, 2007) was a landmark film for Melbourne. It was the first international production to be made at the Central City (now Docklands) St...
Expanded Cinema: Intermission: Who is Miss Roder? Penny Webb February 2009 Festival Reports 1–2 August 2008 45 Downstairs, Melbourne The nonsensical title of this series of audio-visual works presented over two evenings during the 2008 Melbourne International Film Festival by Melbourne’s Greys...
The 2008 Melbourne International Animation Festival Jim Knox February 2009 Festival Reports 16-22 June 2008 Melbourne specifically, and Australia more generally, has for many years suffered from the absence of any kind of dedicated forum for the survey of contemporary and international experime...