There is a heightened sense of expectation surrounding the line-up of the 2019 Melbourne Documentary Film Festival (MDFF). Having been one of the underdog capital city festivals for much of its existence, the event came of age in 2018 – it was named Best Documentary Film Festival by the respected Film Daily site; the Best Documentary Festival in the Southern hemisphere by Guide Doc; and, for the third year running, a Top 100 film festival as voted by the industry’s leading submission portal, Film Freeway.

Drawing upon a year during which documentarians were energised by global socio-political upheaval, the 2019 MDFF will be screening works sourced from 44 local and international festivals, including Sundance, Venice, Tribeca, Hot Docs and SXSW. The programme statistics are impressive, indicating founder and festival director Lyndon Stone takes his newfound global status seriously; on offer are 112 works, comprising 50 features and 62 short-form films, amongst them 6 World premieres and 59 Australian premieres.      

As in 2018, when the festival launched with Tony Zierra’s Kubrick-themed Filmworker, this year’s two-pronged Opening Night sessions will also examine mad geniuses and their impact on cinema. Veteran filmmaker Peter Medak recounts the summer of 1973 and the insanity-inducing experience of filming with Britain’s most eccentric and volatile comic in The Ghost of Peter Sellers (pictured, above). And the fiery, complex reputation of one of Europe’s most reviled directors is addressed in the first-person when Uwe Boll (pictured, right) fronts up for F*ck You All: The Uwe Boll Story.

Four Australian docs will have their global debut at MDFF - Fiona Cochrane’s Strange Tenants: Ska’d For Life, a profile of Australia’s most influential ska band; Aidan Prewitt’s Woodstock at 50: A Venue for the End of the World, a special anniversary screening of the award winning film with new and improved footage from the iconic music festival; Art of Incarceration, director Alex Siddons’ profile of The Torch, a not-for-profit arts initiative that supports creative endeavours for indigenous prisoners; and, Helen Gaynor’s The Candidate, a fly-on-the-wall insight into Green’s senate hopeful Alex Bhathal’s run for parliament.

The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival will draw on some legitimate star power in 2019. Amongst the celebrities in front of and behind the lens are Werner Herzog (subject of Herbert Golder’s Ballad of a Righteous Merchant); Alicia Vikander (pictured, right; narrating Jennifer Baichwal’s and Edward Burtynsky’s Anthropocene The Human Epoch); Oscar winning director Barbara Kopple (director of New Homeland); Bill-&-Ted star-turned-filmmaking agitant Alex Winter (director of Trust Machine: The Story of Blockchain); and, legendary musos Tommy Emmanuel (star of Jeremy Dylan’s The Endless Road) and Rolling Stones’ guitarist Ronnie Wood (in conversation with director Stuart Douglas for his short There’s a Hell of a Racket Coming From Your House, Mrs Wood).

Certain to be an emotion-charged highlight of the festival will be a screening of Forged from Fire, a chronicle of the building of The Blacksmith’s Tree. A monument to the victims of the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires that swept through rural Victoria, director Andrew Garton’s camera follows a local movement launched by traditional blacksmiths to build a tree of steel, a declaration of remembrance that garnered an international following. Proceeds from the screening, timed to coincide with the 10^th anniversary of the disaster, will go to the Victorian Volunteer Firefighters.

The MDFF’s reputation as one of the premiere outlets for the documentary short format strengthens further in 2019. The always-popular Music strand will feature Felix Bechtolsheimer’s Somewhere in Their Heads (pictured, right), a study of the creative process behind the recording of Curse Of Lono’s second album ‘As I Fell,’ and J.P. Olsen’s Big Paradise, a profile of cult combo, The Numbers Band; the LGTBIQ sidebar will play The Gender Line, T.J. Parsell’s biography of transgender rock star Cidny Bullens, and Nicky Larkin’s Becoming Cherrie, a peek inside the life of Belfast’s most famous drag queen; and, Indigenous narratives will be examined in films such as Running 62, Torres Strait Islander Zibeon Fielding self-directed account of his long-distance marathon charity efforts, and Goh Iromoto’s African odyssey, The Wonder. 

2018 MELBOURNE DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL runs July 19-30 at the Cinema Nova and Backlot Studios venues. For ticket sales and session details, visit the official website.

SCREEN-SPACE is a media partner of the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival. Editor Simon Foster will be hosting Q&A events throughout the festival as a guest of the organisers.

Over the weekend of Saturday February 7, 2009, a wall of fire swept through rural Victoria, leaving in its wake 4,500 km² of devastation; over 3,500 buildings were destroyed, countless wild and domesticated animals perished, and 173 people died. From the ashes of what would become known as ‘Black Saturday’, decimated communities began to reform through unifying actions that define the true spirit of Australians. One such endeavor was ‘The Blacksmith’s Tree’, a monument six years in the making, featuring leaves forged from the steel of metal craftsmen from the region. Soon, news of artist and project founder Amanda Gibson’s vision reached blacksmiths the world over; the result - a three tonne, 9.8-metre tall stainless steel and copper gum tree, its canopy comprised of over 3500 leaves forged in 20 different countries.

Director Andrew Garton boarded the project in 2011, assembling footage shot by local Warwick Page since 2009 as well as providing cameras to the welders and volunteers at the forefront of The Tree Project. In February 2019, Garton finished Forged From Fire, a remarkable account of the decade it took to build The Blacksmith’s Tree, and the resurgent spirit that the project inspired. “It's incredible how a tragic event can bring people together,” says the director, who spoke to SCREEN-SPACE ahead of the film’s screening at the 2019 Melbourne Documentary Film Festival. (Photo credit: Deepshika Rameshkumar)

SCREEN-SPACE: Describe your collaboration with Amanda Gibson (pictured, below). What did you see in her that drove her to make this project work?

GARTON: Amanda would call to let me know when there was action at the forge or the Tree Project Factory. I'd turn up with my camera and gradually disappear into the events of the day, or the many evenings for that matter. Amanda and her team trusted that I wouldn't interfere, that I would blend in. And everyone trusted Amanda's judgement and capacity for keeping us all together. We all knew that Amanda had the drive to make this happen, was devoted to it and everyone working on it. It was her capacity to understand the sensitivities out in the community and care she took to modulate every aspect of the Blacksmiths' Tree so that everyone felt involved and, well, together, that was rare and cinematic - Amanda is Forged from Fire's heroine!

SCREEN-SPACE: The eight-year production schedule must have provided hours of footage and interview content. How structured was your narrative and how much did it alter over the course of the shoot/post period?

GARTON: I created a loose structure, a mind map actually, based on a timeline of events, mostly to manage all the assets. Once I had all the interviews transcribed and extensive shot lists spread across index cards, I began work on a post-script. It was reading through all the interviews that a narrative of sorts emerged. But it was one thing referring to transcripts, it was another finding (that) the spoken word often didn't fit the nuanced flow I was looking for. But I had to lock off a script, both to ensure I had a narrative arch to refer back to and to not get lost in all the material we had shot. It was also important that the footage I'd received from other filmmakers honoured their vision but didn't detract from the emotive visual and aural flow of the work. 

SCREEN-SPACE: Your subject matter demands your emotional engagement, and presents daily displays of profound sadness. How does that impact you, the documentarian? Were you able to stay objective? Did you have moments when you needed to 'purge' emotion?

GARTON: I don't ever purge emotion, but there were times I'd put the camera down. If people were unable to talk to Amanda many would turn to me. There were times when all sorts of people would want to share their fire story with me. Being with the Blacksmiths' Tree, no matter what stage of the process it was in, their connection to it would create a safe space in which stories would be shared. I didn't film these interactions. There's a time when one documents and there's a time one connects without a camera. Of course when it comes to post you have to make tough decisions. I think you have to remain objective and balance one's emotions simultaneously. After all, as a filmmaker one's stories to be communicated well, to reach people, to connect with people and this is a huge responsibility.

SCREEN-SPACE: The Tree proved a cathartic, unifying work of art. Does your film have a similar affect when you watch it with people from the region?

GARTON: It doesn't matter where (we screen) the film, whether in the region or elsewhere, so many emotions emerge. Some years ago, an earlier shorter version of the film was screened at a human rights event in Barcelona. Everyone in the audience appeared touched by the film. Some mentioned how similar we are... It's incredible how a tragic event can bring people together, that their humanity can to be recognised by those who are watching the film. The film brings out all sorts of stories in people. It seems to create a safe space in which people both listen, share deeply moving stories and feel comfortable to do so. 

SCREEN-SPACE: What is your lasting, most impactful memory of the production's history?

GARTON: The most memorable moment was the first day of shooting that our incredible D.O.P. Mike Wilkins (pictured, right) and I did together, back in December 2013, when I interviewed most of the men and women involved in the creation of the Blacksmiths' Tree. In spite of the many who had been directly affected by Black Saturday they found solace, they found comfort and inspiration in each other, in being together, in creating something no one had ever done before, that they were part of this. To both listen to their stories and that they felt comfortable to share them with me, in front of a camera and everything else we had going, was a tremendous gift. These people, their testimonies, their trust, the quality of their character and the essence of the voice, these were what kept me going when the going got tough and it often did. I think we are better together than apart.

FORGED FROM FIRE will screen on July 22 at the Backlot Cinemas as part of the 2019 MELBOURNE DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL. Full session and ticketing information can be found at the official website.

When the minds behind Perth’s fearless international film soiree Revelation announced that their 2019 event would take us to another dimension…well, none of us doubted they could pull it off. The festival that has pushed the creative envelope since its formation in a Perth jazz club in 1997 as a 16mm showcase has never baulked at embracing cinema’s cutting edge.

Right now, that cutting edge new dimension is the world of the virtual, immersive movie reality and Revelation will be presenting one of the most extensive programs of the latest tech that Australian audiences have ever seen. From July 6 to 14, the specialised strand XR:WA will unveil sessions of Virtual Reality and augmented visual experiences, live team VR gameplay, workshops, talks, screenings and 360 degree films. Says respected Festival Director Richard Sowada, “It is a truly innovative program structured around ideas of possibility and opportunity”. (Pictured, below; a scene from the 360 degree film, Rone)

The 22^nd Revelation Perth International Film Festival will unspool in its entirety from July 4^th, with the Opening Night honours falling to Scandi director Thomas Vinterberg’s true-life submarine thriller, Kursk. In its wake will be a roster of 144 films, including 18 world and international premieres and 60 Australian premieres. “Film is often said to be in crisis, that people don’t go to the movies,” says Program Director Jack Sargeant, “but this isn’t our experience. Cinema remains a living medium; our audiences, and the local film communities, serve as a testament to the power of watching film.”

One of Australia’s premiere curators, Sargeant cites a typically eclectic mix as his personal 2019 favourites – Luke Lorentzen’s riveting Mexico City-set verite-doc Midnight Family; the gripping jungle-set child-soldier thriller Monos, from Brazilian Alejandro Landes; James Newitt’s remote survivalist/existential drama I Go Further Under; the racially-charged small-town coming-of-age drama Savage Youth, from filmmaker Michael Johnson; Memory The Origins of Alien, the latest deconstructionist essay on filmmaking by Alexandre O. Phillipe (The People vs George Lucas, 2010; 78/52, 2017); and, Letters to Paul Morrissey, an anthology love letter to the longtime Andy Warhol collaborator.

In addition to his opening night choice, Richard Sowada has favoured All the Gods in the Sky, mono-monikered French director Quarxx’s unsettling mash-up of drama, horror, fantasy and sci fi; documentarian Chris Martin’s thrilling profile of renowned war correspondent Marie Colvin, Under the Wire; the Indian/Swedish co-production Tumbbad (pictured, below), hailed a folk-horror masterpiece after its Best Film win at genre fest Sitges; and, Viktor Kossokovsky’s Aquarela, a rapturous ode to the might and magnificence of the globe’s most precious resource.

The Festival Director’s other favourite is Aaron Schimberg’s stirring, unique and deeply involving film-within-a-film narrative, Chained for Life. Direct from its official placement at the London Film Festival, Schimberg’s work stars Adam Pearson as the malformed star of a B-horror pic who falls for his stunning leading lady. Pearson, a sufferer of Type 1 Neurofibromatosis, came to prominence opposite Scarlett Johansson in Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin (2013); the actor, an outspoken advocate for disability awareness, will be present for the Revelations screening of the film, a vision that had Variety reviewer Dennis Harvey pondering, “What if the ‘freaks’ had made Tod Browning’s Freaks?”

Other works certain to draw audiences to the myriad of Rev-venues are Don Argott and Sheena M Joyce’s Framing John DeLorean, the docu-drama re-enactment of the wild times of the American automobile titan (featuring Alec Baldwin as the entrepreneur); the rousing, crowdpleasing expose Hail Satan?, director Penny Lane’s insider’s take on The Satanic Temple movement; and, Tim Travers Hawkins’ XY Chelsea, a forthright and revealing insight into whistleblower Chelsea Manning, both as a fighter for freedom of information and as she transitions into her new self.

Also featured in 2019 is a vast selection of short films from across the globe (in addition to Australia, America and The U.K., Revelations welcomed works from Belgium, Canada, France, Mexico, Uruguay and Japan, to name just a few); a retrospective celebrating science fiction films with screenings of classics The Quiet Earth, Things To Come, The Andromeda Strain and Alien; family friendly free sessions of animated short films under the banner International Family Animation Explosion; the popular Industrial Revelations strand, featuring festival guests exploring key aspects of the industry at dedicated panels and workshops; the music video sidebar Blind Date, spotlighting works created by local filmmakers; and, Screenwest’s annual showcase of emerging W.A. filmmaking talent in Get Your Shorts On!

REVELATIONS PERTH INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL runs July 4^th-17^th. Full program and ticketing information can be found at official website.

2019 MELBOURNE DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL: The act of running is inherently about striving for a goal; one sets out with a determination to compete, earn a place, achieve a PB. For some, that is a life lesson that needs reinforcing. Judge Craig Mitchell of the Los Angeles Criminal Court runs, and he does so with a group of recovering addicts from the Midnight Mission facility, a bastion of hope located on Skid Row in downtown LA. The journey that the Judge and his runners undertook to run a marathon in Italy while fighting their own demons is the soaring narrative of Skid Row Marathon, from the husband and wife production team of Gabriele and Mark Hayes. “The film is about second chances, about reconnecting with your own dignity,” says Gabriele, who spoke to SCREEN-SPACE with her partner and co-director ahead of the film’s Australian premiere at the 2019 MDFF…

SCREEN-SPACE: Judge Mitchell is the spiritual core of the film; the recovering addicts and homeless are the many hearts. When did the balancing act that is your narrative structure start to take shape?

GABRIELE: After we had shot about 300 hours of footage over three years we started stringing out the material in big segments. We had several rough cuts focusing on our main five characters - Judge Mitchell, David Askew, Ben Shirley, Rafael Cabrera and Rebecca Hayes. We used a big board with index cards to shape the story, which really helped to see where critical scenes were missing. We realized that is wasn’t clear who Judge Mitchell is; his backstory and his family were missing. But Judge Mitchell’s wife, Juliet, made it clear at the beginning that she didn’t want to be part of the documentary. It took us over three years to convince her that she needed to be a part of it. The interview with Juliet and the graduation of Judge Mitchell’s son Jordan were the last things we filmed.

SCREEN-SPACE: Did you envision, and budget for, a production that would take you to Ghana and Italy? Over the course of the shoot, did the unpredictability of a factual film project ever take a toll?

MARK: Our project is about homeless people running marathons. We were often reminded how similar running a marathon is to making a documentary. The first few miles are easy.  It’s around mile fifteen that you have to start digging deep and making sure things don’t fall apart. And just like a marathon, it’s important to go the distance and to finish. (Pictured, above; Mark and Gabriele Hayes)

GABRIELE: We thought it would take about a year, maximum two years, and that the only trip we would need to take was Ghana and we’d end with the LA Marathon in 2014. However, we returned from Ghana (and) Rebecca joined the running club and we felt her story was very compelling. We followed her to Seattle where she had been a heroin addict living in an alley with her three year old son. We realized that Rome had to be the coming together of all the stories. It was a once in a lifetime experience. Rome was the most expensive part of the production but it was all worth it. Then the editing process took over nine months to finish, and good editors are very expensive. We were running out of money and often came close to giving up. Then we thought of all the runners, like Rebecca for example. She was working, going to school, had a five year-old and trained for marathons. We thought if she can do it, so can we. In December 2016 we had a private screening for friends (and) a well-known editing consultant came up to us and said that he liked our film but we needed to make some changes. $50,000 later, we have the film that you will see at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival.

SCREEN-SPACE: What revelations about the nature of addiction impacted you during the shoot?

GABRIELE: We learnt a lot about addiction during the four years of filming. Initially, we had several runners we would follow but they relapsed and disappeared. It really affected me personally because they seemed on such a good path of getting better and then all of a sudden they relapsed. It happened especially with people who couldn’t handle the stress of getting a job or getting back into school. It was too much for them. It was also very sad to see Mody relapse after he opened his luggage store. We were very proud of him that he was sober for over a year. We asked him why he would do that and he responded, “I am lonely.” Our hearts sunk and we understood. People relapse if they don’t have a very good support system. 

SCREEN-SPACE: Was earning the trust of the Skid Row community, having them allow your cameras into their lives, one of the production's main challenges?

GABRIELE: At the beginning it was very hard to gain the trust of the runners. We read about Judge Mitchell and his running club in March 2013, just before the LA Marathon. The next day we contacted the Judge and pitched the documentary. At the time the running club was still small, maybe 5-8 people. He was on board right away but warned us that the runners may not be interested in being filmed. He suggested that we run with them first. So, we ran with the club for six weeks before we started shooting. We started out filming just the training runs and then slowly asked Rafael, Ben, and David for interviews. We felt their stories were the strongest. Rafael was the most open one and we could follow him around; Ben didn’t trust us at all and it took a long time for him to let us film him. For example, he wouldn’t tell us when he was moving out of the Midnight Mission. What we learnt was that when Mark and I would just film our subjects, in that ‘fly on the wall’ style, they would open up and be themselves. Also, it was very dangerous to film on Skid Row. People threw bottles at us, had knives and ran after us to destroy our cameras. We constantly had to be aware that something could happen. (Pictured, above; Judge Craig Mitchell) 

SCREEN-SPACE: If there is a call-to-action that you hope resonates with audiences, what would that be?  

GABRIELE: So many times we ignore people that are in the streets or abandoned because we are so focused on ourselves. Look around yourself and see if someone is in need.  It doesn’t take much, like Judge Mitchell said, maybe just a phone call on behalf of someone. We hope that after seeing the film the audience will be inspired to take action to get involved in their own community. (Pictured, above; Midnight Mission runner Rebecca Hayes) 

MARK: It became clear that the Judge was a very special individual. Here was a guy whose day job is to send people off to prison for long sentences but in his spare times helps many of the same types of people to get their lives together through running. While making this film, we learned that when it comes to some of the biggest problems facing us as a society, it is better to do something, even if it’s small, and be part of a solution rather than just doing nothing.

SKID ROW MARATHON screens on July 27 at Cinema Nova as part of the 2019 MELBOURNE DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL. Full ticketing and session details can be found at the event's official website.

More than three decades after collaborating with the great cinematic visionaries of the day, the film music of Tangerine Dream has taken on a unique and vivid lustre. With a new generation of film lovers bringing a fresh perspective to ‘80s movies, the now iconic work of the German synth pioneers is being more fully appreciated. Not a moment too soon for David Michael Brown, author of the soon-to-be-published ‘Wavelength: The Film Music of Tangerine Dream’. One of Australia’s most respected film journalists, Brown will present a seven-part screening series of the band’s most celebrated works – Thief (1981), Risky Business (1983), Next of Kin (1982), Near Dark (1987), Miracle Mile (1988), Dead Kids (1981) and Legend (1985). “They created a distinct style that everyone copied,” Brown told SCREEN-SPACE, ahead of the retrospective, which unfurls from July 5 at Palace Cinema’s Park Mall Central multiplex…

SCREEN-SPACE: What is unique about the contribution that Tangerine Dream made, and continues to make, to cinema?

BROWN (pictured, below): Despite starting life as a psychedelic prog rock band in the late Sixties and creating a name for themselves expanding audience’s musical minds in the Seventies introducing sequencers and synthesizers to their ambient soundscapes, it was the band’s film soundtracks of the Eighties that many know them for. Their scores became the soundtrack to the decade that taste forgot but genre cinema embraced. For films like Mark L. Lester’s Firestarter (1984), Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark and Ridley Scott’s Legend; the German electronic music pioneers composed soundtracks that were instantly recognisable as their own.

John Carpenter often cites Tangerine Dream’s score for William Friedkin’s Sorcerer (1977) as a major influence on his seminal soundtrack work. And now their sound is returning. With electronic music de rigueur again in genre television and cinema thanks to the work of Le Matos, Cliff Martinez, M83 and Survive. All have claimed Tangerine Dream were an influence. The Netflix show Stranger Things and the Black Mirror choose-you-own adventure episode Bandersnatch, in particular, have championed the band bringing their music to a modern audience.

SCREEN-SPACE: What do the seven films represent to fans of Tangerine Dreams’s film music?

BROWN: All the films screening are highpoints in the band’s film career. When speaking to the various filmmakers the band worked with in the Eighties, Thief, along with Sorcerer, were often cited as the reason they wanted to work with Tangerine Dream. Risky Business saw the band’s music, in particular the track “Love On A Real Train”, hit the mainstream while Dead Kids is one of those low-budget, obscure little gems that Tangerine Dream’s enigmatic front man Edgar Froese seemed to delight in working on. The vampire western Near Dark and Steve De Jarnatt’s apocalyptic rom-bomb Miracle Mile, both featuring Paul Haslinger (composer on the Underworld series) in the line-up, are just brilliant films that demand to be seen on the big screen.

Ridley Scott’s Legend has a fascinating backstory. Gerry Goldsmith had originally provided the score to the Alien (1979) director’s epic fantasy film but after a less than spectacular debut in London, Universal president Sid Sheinberg “suggested” that Scott re-edit the film – bringing Tim Curry’s delightfully demonic Darkness to the beginning of the film for impatient American audiences, and replacing the classic orchestral score with a sonic contribution that would appeal to a younger audience. Step in Tangerine Dream, along with Roxy Music main man Bryan Ferry and Yes prog rocker Jon Anderson who provided two songs.

The creepy Ozploitation classic Next Of Kin, one of Quentin Tarantino’s favourite Aussie flicks, does not feature a Tangerine Dream score as such but it it is adorned with a ominous atmospheric soundtrack by Klaus Schulze, ex-drummer of a very early incarnation of the band.

SCREEN-SPACE: The films in the line-up are all distinctive visual works from idiosyncratic directors; how influential do you understand Tangerine Dream were in the collaborative creative process?

BROWN: Many of the directors travelled to Berlin to work with the band but every soundtrack has a very different story.  For example Paul Brickman, the director of Risky Business, told me that he first sent the band a rough cut of the film to work on and the resulting score totally missed the point. Something was lost in translation. So he, along with producer Jon Avnet and sound editor Curt Sobel, spent 10 days in the German city visiting their studio in Spandau. The filmmakers then worked with the band members at the time, Edgar Froese, Christopher Franke and Johannes Schmoelling, collaborating and experimenting together on what became one of their most popular works. In other instances, like Firestarter and Sorcerer, the band provided non-scene specific music, which the filmmakers then decided where to place. (Pictured, above; Tangerine Dream frontman Edgar Froese, left, with Ridley Scott during the scoring of Legend) 

SCREEN-SPACE: Is there any news on whether the Michael Mann film The Keep, featuring a rarely heard Tangerine Dream score, will ever resurface?

BROWN: The perennial The Keep question (laughs). The last time Michael Mann’s 1983 creepy Nazi horror film surfaced for public consumption was back in the days of laser disc. Since then the film, and the band’s soundtrack have been bogged down in legal disputes. In terms of the film, Mann, who was not a fan of the source novel, is also not happy with the theatrical release of his adaptation and rarely ever talks about his experiences. His first two hour cut was butchered by Paramount after disastrous test screenings but it seems unlikely he will revisit the project. Many now blame soundtrack rights for the film’s disappearance off the shelves and the fact that the soundtrack has not been available, apart from a couple of very limited official releases and a plethora of bootlegs, certainly lends credence to this. The bottom line… don’t hold your breath. (Pictured, above; Michael Mann with Christopher Franke, Edgar Froese and Johannes Schmoellinge on the set of The Keep. © Monique Froese, 1982)

DAVID MICHAEL BROWN is currently writing WAVELENGTH: THE FILM MUSIC OF TANGERINE DREAM for Bear Manor Press.

The FILM CLUB – TANGERINE DREAM Series will screen from July 5 to September 27. Session and ticketing details available via the venue website.

If you have left decision-making about your yearly documentary indulgence until the eve of the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, the 12-day program may seem daunting, even insurmountable. You might be drawn to the star power (look closely and you’ll find the likes of Alicia Vikander, Willem Dafoe, Francis Ford Coppola.…Jim Belushi); or, the stunning locations (on July 20 alone, you can bound from South Australia to Chile to West Africa to The Bahamas to N.Y.C.); or, the cool music (seat-groove to Tommy Emmanuel, The Sonics, Teddy Pendergrass or KISS, amongst many others).

SCREEN-SPACE Editor Simon Foster, who will be fronting a full first-weekend of panels and QAs, has deep-dived into the 2019 line-up and surfaced with five films that ought not fly under anyone’s radar, just due to the sheer number of great factual films on offer. (All films screen at Cinema Nova, 380 Lygon St., Carlton)  

RIGHT TO HARM (Dirs: Annie Speicher, Matt Wechsler; 88 mins, U.S.A.)
FROM THE PROGRAM: Exposes the devastating public health impact that factory farming has on many of America’s most disadvantaged citizens. Known formally as Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations - or CAFOs - these facilities produce millions of gallons of untreated waste that destroys the quality of life for nearby neighbors. Fed up with the lack of regulation, these citizens turned activists band together from across the country to demand justice.
SCREEN-SPACE says: The ‘Capitalism Killing The Heart of America’ doco is now its own sub-genre/artform, so vast and heartless is the insidious grip of Big Business. Gasland Parts 1 (2010) & 2 (2013); If a Tree Falls (2011); Food Inc (2008) – just a few of the thoroughly researched, acutely executed investigative works that expose the corporate bloody-mindedness and political profiteering choking The American Dream. This year, that film is Right to Harm, which reveals the horrendous industrial farming practices of ‘Big Ag’ and the elected bureaucrats who back industry over voters. 
WHEN: July 28 at 4.15pm.

ADOPTION PENDING (Dir: Liam Fouracre; 10 mins, Australia)
FROM THE PROGRAM: Adoption Pending is the story of George, a 2 year old staffy cross husky, who is surrendered to an adoption home. George struggles to adapt to the new environment, showing signs of stress and separation anxiety. and must pass a behavioural test with other dogs to determine whether he needs training and treatment. What follows is an emotionally compelling experience into a dog's journey toward a new start to life.
SCREEN-SPACE says: A ‘flea on the wall’ glimpse at the anxiety experienced by a fit, fun young fella just desperate to be loved (Ed: this sounds very relatable). Fouracre captures the heartbreak, daily disappointment and – spoiler alert! – pure exhilaration of life as a dog on the fringe. Impossible to not be affected by this simple, sweet dog’s tale; might even crack a tear of joy from cat-lovers.
WHEN: July 21 from 11.00am.

UNCAGED: A STAND-IN STORY (Dirs: Blake Johnston, Kelso Steinhof; 11 mins, U.S.A.)
FROM THE PROGRAM: Marco Kyris worked as Nic Cage’s stand-in for a decade on 20 films on everything from Cage’s break out role in Leaving Las Vegas to the blockbuster franchise National Treasure. In Uncaged: A Stand-in Story, Marco talks about his early life as an actor, his journey into the entourage of Nic Cage, and what it was like working in the shadow for one of Hollywood’s Legends of Cinema.
SCREEN-SPACE says: Affords the serious film buff some all-too-rare insight into a Hollywood fringe player’s journey on the inside. An engaging and likably self-effacing presence, Kyris puts on a brave face recounting the career he never quite had and positively beams when recounting his two decades as Cage’s stand-in. One hopes Blake Johnston’s and Kelso Steinhof’s respectful portrait of ambition unresolved finally makes a star out the man; he’s earned it.    
WHEN: July 19 from 11.00pm.

SILENT FORESTS (Dir: Mariah Wilson; 108 ins, U.S.A./Cameroon/D.R.C.)
FROM THE PROGRAM: An intimate, character-driven portrait of conservationists and activists who are struggling to stop forest elephant poaching in Africa's Congo Basin region. As passionate and tenacious as these conservationists are, they are up against huge institutional challenges like corruption and lack of funding that threaten to derail all their attempts to fight for the future of the forest elephant.
SCREEN-SPACE says: Casts an understated yet heroic glow over the people fighting elephant poaching at the forefront - one of Cameroon’s first female eco-guards, a grassroots wildlife law enforcement group, a Congolese biologist studying elephant behavior, a reformed elephant poacher, and a team of anti-poaching sniffer dogs led by a Czech conservationist. Tempers one’s feelings of anger and injustice with a sense of hope that the people of the region are up for the fight.
WHEN: July 21 at 4.15pm.

ACCIDENTAL CLIMBER (Dir: Steven Oritt; 67 mins, U.S.A)
FROM THE PROGRAM: Jim Geiger, a retired forest ranger and amateur mountaineer, attempts to become the oldest American and first great grandfather to summit Mt. Everest, aged 68. His transformation from a weekend hiker to attempting one of the most extreme and physically demanding feats known to man is driven by a desire to prove that age is just a number. What ensued, however, forever changed Jim's life.
SCREEN-SPACE says: In telling Geiger’s remarkable story, Oritt affords Chomolungma the awe and respect that has been missing from recent developments regarding the mountain’s exploitation. Geiger’s focussed and driven everyman has his priorities sharply refocussed when challenged by Everest, which is exactly how the story of one man’s story set against such magnificent nature should play out. Once in Nepal, covers similar ground to Jennifer Peedom’s 2015 film Sherpa (the Australian director can be glimpsed in one scene).
WHEN: July 27 from 11.00am.

THE 2019 MELBOURNE DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL runs July 19-30. Full session and ticketing information can be found at the event's official website.

The Sydney Underground Film Festival enters its teenage phase; the 13^th annual festival of warped, wicked celluloid is set to unnerve and entertain from September 12-15. The tone is set from Session 1, with ageing enfant terrible Harmony Korinne’s raucous celebration of self-medication The Beach Bum, starring Matthew McConnaughey-hey-hey, set to open the festivities, complete with skank-scented smoke machines (yeah, that’s right). There is a myriad of alternative content on offer - 23 narrative features, 12 documentaries and 45 short films, as well as strands dedicated Virtual Reality, Nigerian cinema and splendidly splattery no-budget effects wizardry.

But if you need your mind quickly blown, just where should you focus your secret, sordid cravings for the offbeat and unusual? SCREEN-SPACE zeroed in on five features from the 2019 SUFF line-up that may satiate those urges, for a while at least…

BRAID (Dir. Mitzi Peirone | 82mins | USA)
Program Prose: A candy-coloured, hallucinogen-fueled lunacy binge, (debut director Mitzi perone) makes one hell of a first impression, applying
a dizzying sense of dream logic and an uncompromisingly feminist edge to a Gothic, almost fairy tale-like psychological horror.
Critical Condition: “What sort of mind would concoct something this peculiar and undeniably personal, and fill it with gaslighting, torment, torture, disfigurement, murder, slapstick, and scenes of adults playing dress-up like kids? I came away feeling that I'd seen, if not a major film, then a film by major talents.” – Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com
Screen-Space thinking…: Buzz is this is a stylistic companion piece to Anna Biller’s The Love Witch, with narrative echoes of The Killing of Sister George and Daughters of Darkness. Tick, tick and tick…

Mope Trailer from LUCAS HEYNE on Vimeo.

MOPE (Dir. Lucas Heyne | 105mins | USA)
Program Prose: In the world of pornography,
the term ‘mope’ refers to a low-level, wannabe porn actor who perhaps isn’t quite well endowed or attractive enough to achieve the success granted to “bigger”-name porn stars…Heyne crawls right under the skin of this grimy landscape, crafting a melancholy portrait of two misguided souls seeking love and acceptance, just like the rest of us.
Critical Condition: “Mope is a ballsy movie.” – Kyle Brunet, Boston Hassle
Screen-Space thinking…: Full disclosure – pornography and the machinations that produces it hold an ugly allure; it is why I am drawn over and over to not only Boogie Nights, but also sad, sickly tales like Auto Focus, Lovelace, Inserts and Wonderland. Critics are citing the very human connection that Heyne draws from his characters, which is something new for this sub-genre…. 

GREENER GRASS (Dir. Jocelyn DeBoer & Dawn Luebbe | 95mins | USA)
Program Prose: Eschewing all decorum and boundaries, Greener Grass mercilessly shreds all the institutions western society holds dear… this deranged lovechild of John Waters and Tim & Eric grows more inappropriate, unhinged, and surreal by the frame.
Critical Condition: “It’s basically the best ‘Saturday Night Live’ movie that Saturday Night Live never made, and if Lorne Michaels were half the talent scout we believe, he’d hire both DeBoer and Luebbe on the spot.” – Peter Debruge, Variety
Screen-Space thinking…: Skewering the faux morality and middle-class nightmare that is American suburbia is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, but when the filmmakers go for broke and the satire is razor-sharp, film classics are born (Blue Velvet; American Beauty; The Graduate). Fingers-crossed…

THE WOLF HOUSE (Dir. Joaquín Cociña, Cristóbal León| 75mins | Chile)
Program Prose: Inspired by the infamous Colonia Dignidad, a German commune that doubled as a clandestine torture camp under Augusto Pinochet, The Wolf House distils the horrors of history into a hellish folktale… a dark, compelling, enigmatic puzzle box of a film that will continue to burrow deep into your subconscious long after the credits roll.
Critical Condition: “Sometimes reminiscent of an Eraserhead-style Lynchian nightmare turned into sculpture, paintings and stop-motion, beasts become human, a body forms out of a head like something out of science fiction, and inside every constrained girl is an eager bird desperate to fly free.” – Sarah Ward, Screen Daily
Screen-Space thinking…: The burning passion for ground-breaking animated storytelling that defines the brilliant career of Jan Svankmajer is a clear influence. Good enough for us…

USE ME (Dir. Julian Shaw | 91mins | Australia)
Program Prose: Australian filmmaker Julian Shaw (as himself) travels to the United States to direct a documentary featuring ‘mental humiliatrix’ Ceara Lynch (as herself)… what was meant to
 be entertainment becomes a matter of life and death.
Critical Condition: “A sort of post-truth thriller which feels deeply era appropriate and cleverly engages with its subject matter.” – Anthony O’Connor, FilmInk.
Screen-Space thinking…: Shaw has demonstrated with his past docos (Darling! The Pieter-Dirk Uys Story, 2007; Cup of Dreams, 2011) that he’s a deft hand at first-person factual filmmaking. He inserts himself into the narrative he constructs about his real-life subject, which is creatively fraught with risk, yet finds unexpected insight and honesty. He makes really interesting films…

The 2019 Sydney Underground Film Festival will be held at The Factory Theatre, Marrickville from September 12-15. Session and ticket information is at the event's official website.

The free-spirited, soulful essence of the Byron Bay Film Festival (BBFF) is one of the regional event’s key assets. Those elements are there for all to see in the rich 10-day line-up for the 13^th celebration of cinema on the far-north coast of New South Wales, which launches October 18. However, that deeply thoughtful approach to festival programming only exists to serve a mission statement as serious and committed as any on the circuit.

One of the Asia Pacific’s most respected film curators, Festival Director J’aimee Skippon-Volke adheres to an ethos that ensures the event, ‘fuses artistry, entertainment and innovation, enhancing our worldview and collective social dialogue through the power and storytelling of film.’ That means a feature film roster in 2019 that includes three World premieres, four International premieres and 11 Australian first-runs, set to screen at nine diverse venues.

“I think with any film festival it comes back to programming. The films selected set the tone and the message of the event,” revealed Skippon-Volke (pictured, right), who forges the festival’s path with partner Osvaldo C. Alfaro. “Being able to support the filmmakers who are changing the world one screen at a time, and sharing stories that need to be seen, is part of what drives our team to put their energy behind BBFF.”

Opening Night will add star wattage to the already celeb-heavy Byron surrounds with the New South Wales Premiere of Paul Ireland’s contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. Australian acting great Hugo Weaving heads a strong local cast (Daniel Henshall, Christie Whelan, Harrison Gilbertson) in the drama, which transports one of The Bard’s most challenging works to Melbourne’s criminal community. The prolific Weaving is on double-duty at the festival, with Ben Lawrence’s acclaimed drama Hearts and Bones also set to screen.      

In programming the opener, Skippon-Volke acknowledged the ambitious project ideally suited the festival mindset. “We support Australian filmmakers and Measure for Measure has everything - established stars and new faces on the rise, glossy cinematography, topical interest, and a resolution that is a satisfying balance of joy and pain,” she says, “Shakespeare would recognise the dichotomies and applaud.” Other Australian titles in the line-up include Mirrah Foulkes’ Judy and Punch, Abe Forsyth’s Little Monsters and John Sheedy’s H is For Happiness.

Fifteen narrative features will comprise the main program, including such internationally acclaimed works as Celine Sciamma’s Cannes triumph Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Franco Lolli’s Critic’s Week premiere Litigante and Australian director Josephine Mackerras’ Alice, the SXSW Grand Jury Prize winner.

Making their Australian debuts will be new films from Ecuador (Jamaicanoproblem’s A Son of Man), Ukraine (Roxy Toporowych’s Julia Blue), North America (Josh Melrod’s Major Arcana), and Brazil (Hique Montanari’s Yonlu). Closing out the 2019 festival will be the Australian premiere of Tom Waller’s The Cave, the Thai film industry’s account of the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue of a trapped junior football team.

Such commitment to global cinema means the Festival Director spends a large part of her year overseas, sourcing content while representing the festival and the region. “From the very beginning we've worked hard too to build our international reputation,” she says, “By having that focus we've been able to accelerate BBFF's ability to shine a spotlight on our region as a creative and innovative hub. We give our filmmaking community, [which] has been home to Australia's largest regional film sector for decades, an opportunity to be part of an international stage and meet their peers from around the world.”

The festival has always been a showcase for both the long- and short-form documentary format. In 2019, an impressive schedule of factual films will include two World Premieres – Louis Josek’s study of teen lives in transition, Out Deh: The Youth of Jamaica; and, Catherine Marciniak’s Planet Fungi, an ode to the magic of mushrooms from North East India. The centerpiece documentary event will undoubtedly be INXS: Live Baby Live, a 4K ultra high-definition re-master of the iconic Australian band’s legendary 1991 concert at Wembley Stadium. 

These remarkable works will screen alongside the Australian debuts of Andreas Geipel and Christian Gibson’s coastal odyssey, Pacifico; Tenzin Phuntsog and Joy Dietrich’s study in passive protestation, Rituals of Resistance; David Hambridge’s heartbreaking Kifaru, a profile of the final years of the last male northern white rhino; and, Juan Pablo Miquirray’s An Island in The Continent (pictured, above), a dreamlike love-letter to California’s Baja Peninsula.

No sidebar speaks to the festival’s progressive nature more than the ‘Extended/Cross Realities’, or XR, Program, the Virtual Reality showcase now in its fifth year. Says Skippon-Volke, “Osvaldo and I have had a longstanding interest in Virtual Reality and we've built it into the heart of the festival through activation of content, workshops, conferences and in recent years a diversity focused talent accelerator. I believe strongly that the screen mediums of tomorrow will evolve from immersive media and that modern VR provides an amazing opportunity to play and experiment as visual storytellers.”

In 2019, donning the BBFF XR headset will transport you to The Amazon (Awavena, the latest grand vision from Australian Lynette Wallworth); offer a glimpse inside the creative mind of a children’s book author (Pete Short's Lucid); examine the majesty of religion’s birthplace (The Holy City, co-directed by Timur Musabay and Nimrod Shanit); and, courtesy of Weta Workshop, become a hero in a cool, retro-themed outer-space adventure (Greg Broadmore's Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders; pictured, right). “VR holds a power to literally allow someone to see through new perspectives and take them to new storytelling realms,” says Skippon-Volke. “We'll always be a film festival but this technology really does fuse artistry, entertainment and innovation.”

The 2019 BYRON BAY FILM FESTIVAL will run October 18-27. Full session and venue information is available at the event's official website.

David Marmor’s directorial debut, 1BR, will play well with Australia’s capital city audiences, for whom rental-house hunting is its own nightmarish reality. For Marmor's protagonist Sarah, the gated apartment community she’s found in sunny LA seems too good to be true; in true spine-tingling psychological-horror style, so it proves to be. Working from his lean, taut script and with a fearless leading lady in Nicole Brydon Bloom, Marmor (pictured, below) has crafted an intensely gripping examination of modern urban living. Ahead of the Australian Premiere of 1BR at Fangoria x Monster Fest 2019, Marmor spoke with SCREEN-SPACE about the film that RogerEbert.com praised as “unique horror.” 

SCREEN-SPACE: Your understated directing style serves the simmering tension and unfolding puzzle of the film superbly. Films such as Polanski's The Tenant and Rosemary's Baby came to mind for me, as well as Brian Yuzna's Society. Who are the filmmakers and what are the films that inform your directing?

DAVID MARMOR: You hit the nail on the head with Polanski. I'm not sure it'd be possible to make a movie like this without being influenced by his apartment trilogy. I also found inspiration in Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, which I think is a masterful example of subjective storytelling, planting us firmly in Nina's troubled mind from start to finish. Michael Haneke and Stanley Kubrick always influence me, and for 1BR I drew especially from Caché and A Clockwork Orange. Other influences are harder to pin down, as I think I've subconsciously absorbed lessons from so many filmmakers I grew up on. Odd as it may seem, there's probably a little Spielberg in there, too. (Pictured, right; Nicole Brydon Bloom, as Sarah, in 1BR)

SCREEN-SPACE: There's a strong thematic subtext that explores the sacrifice we have to make to conform; one of my favourite lines is, "The sooner you give up, the sooner you'll be free." Is your film a call-to-arms, to cling to your individuality and personal voice? Did you come at the story with a socio-political agenda?

DAVID MARMOR: I really don't have any political agenda. I know there's at least one reviewer out there who was convinced the movie is an Alex Jones-style paranoid fantasy, and someone else once came up to me and said conspiratorially that he understood my real meaning - that it was all an indictment of socialism. I'm actually happy that different audiences are finding different meanings in the movie, but my intent in creating the community was in fact to give it very positive underlying values--and then twist them into something terrible. That was the most frightening idea to me, and it's also the way these things often seem to evolve in real life. I don't think anybody starts out intending to create a repressive religion or a violent death cult (at least I hope not!), but when your goal is to save all of humanity, there are no limits to the means you can justify to yourself. If there's any deeper meaning underlying the story, for me it's more metaphorical than political. I think many people struggle with the tension between being true to ourselves and what we owe our family, our friends, and our society. Those obligations, as important as they are, can make us feel trapped in our lives. On some level, I think of this story as a kind of extreme exploration of that internal tension. (Pictured, above; Marmor, right, directing Bloom during principal photography)

SCREEN-SPACE: The dark psychology that goes into breaking Sarah's spirit is agonisingly specific. Is the methodology you employ based upon research or just plucked from the dark recesses of your own mind?

DAVID MARMOR: Sadly, the world has much darker recesses than my mind, and I found I didn't need to make much up. The methods in the movie are almost entirely based in reality. Many of the physical methods come directly from techniques the U.S. government has used in the Iraq War and other recent conflicts, as well as practices employed by the British government during the Troubles. I also drew heavily from my research into cults, many of which seem to share a common set of psychological tools for isolating people and keeping them dependent.

David Marmor's 1BR will screen as part of Fangoria x Monster Fest 2019 (Melbourne - Oct 13/16; other states Oct 31-Nov 3). Full session and venue details available at the official website. 

When a window of opportunity presented itself, Mike Green needed to act fast. With one feature script on the backburner and fatherhood looming, the writer/director had to craft a bare-bones production that played to his strengths as a storyteller. The result is Outback, a grueling survival thriller starring Taylor Wiese and Lauren Lofberg as American tourists who do everything wrong when stranded in our unforgiving backyard. And Green made it work within the window – Outback was outlined in two months, scripted in four weeks and filmed over ten days. “We had a great bunch of people so it was fun, though,” the director told SCREEN-SPACE, on the eve of his film’s World Premiere at Fangoria x Monster Fest 2019 | Melbourne….

SCREEN-SPACE: The vast and beautiful 'villain' of the film, the Australian outback, is such a unique landscape to film. What was the visual aesthetic you and your cinematographer Tim Nagle needed to capture to convey just how merciless our country can be?

MIKE GREEN: We started off handheld, doco-like to give the audience a false sense of security. As we got deeper into the Outback and the drama and stakes rise we tried not to embellish the camera work because the Aussie landscape already has a built in pre-awareness for good reason. It is vast, hot and hostile. (Pictured, below; Outback stars Taylor Wiese, left, and Lauren Lofberg)

SCREEN-SPACE: Audiences understand the menace of the outback, from Wake in Fright and Picnic at Hanging Rock, to Mad Max and The Proposition, and many others. Was there a cinematic template you used in crafting the look and mood of the film? 

MIKE GREEN: My original idea was Open Water in the outback. Touching the Void was another film I looked at closely. For the use of sound, music, it’s a two-handed, the psychological breakdown of the characters. The look was going to be dictated by the landscape. We knew the red soil would play a huge part in the film. Also the blue skies. We were very selective with the use of colour in the film. Wardrobe, props, hero vehicle, locations; we worked to a restricted colour palette. Production designer/costumer Courtney Covey, DP Tim Nagle and I had in-depth conversations and planning around this. Justin Tran our colourist did an amazing job bringing together our footage. He’s got back-to-back features lined up now. 

SCREEN-SPACE: What was the key human element, the emotional arc of the story that your leads Taylor and Lauren had to remain focused upon?

MIKE GREEN: Thematically the story is about not taking tomorrow for granted. It’s how I try to live my life and it hits close to home for me. At it’s heart, Outback is a tragic love story. Originally when I cast Lauren I had her do some self-tapes. She had a relationship she was working through at the time. With her blessing, I built some of the narrative from her personal situation, which proved an effective way in and a strong anchor upon which to build the story. (Pictured, above; Green, far right, with Wiese and crew on location)

SCREEN-SPACE: Even with the MIFF success of your short Mother and time spent watching Cate Blanchett and Robert Redford as DA on Truth, was the first day of your feature film directing debut a surreal experience? Or did you know the time was right?

MIKE GREEN: I was producing, 1st AD, locations manager, directing, writing; I wore many department hats and had a three month old baby at home. I was [both] tired and focused. There wasn’t time to think beyond the task at hand.

SCREEN-SPACE: How much research was done on the physical horrors of dehydration and exposure to high-temperatures? Is there license taken, or is this as close as your audience should ever come to this kind of physical hardship?

MIKE GREEN: We did a lot of research into dehydration and the breaking down of humans in tough situations. People find themselves in sticky situations very easily and surprisingly quickly. How often do you hear people go missing or getting stuck in the Blue Mountains? And that’s in our backyard. Once dehydration takes place, your decision-making skills leave you very quickly. Silly decisions seem to make sense at the time. After people watch Outback, a lot of them tell me their close calls and horror stories getting lost or stranded in sketchy places. Lucy Woolfman our HMU & SFX Designer went to extraordinary lengths to research the effects of dehydration and the physical and textural subtitles to our bodies. (Pictured, above; Lauren Lofberg, on location) 

The World Premiere of Mike Green’s OUTBACK will screen on Saturday October 12 at Cinema Nova as part of 2019 Fangoria x Monster Fest | Melbourne, then on Saturday November 2 at Event Cinemas George Street as part of 2019 Fangoria x Monster Fest | Sydney. Ticket and session details can be found at the official website.

FANGORIA x MONSTER FEST 2019: As Chairperson of the New South Wales chapter of Women in Film & Television (WIFT), Megan Riakos is one of the most determined advocates for gender equality in Australian cinema. She has fought that fight in the male-dominated ivory towers of the government, corporate and film sector for some time now, but she knows the most effective way to counter long-held prejudice is to get the work of women filmmakers to the fore. To that end, with producing partner Leonie Marsh, she has curated the anthology work Dark Whispers Vol. 1, a collection of vivid and complex horror shorts directed by women from the last decade of Australian film.  

Ahead of the film's NSW premiere at Fangoria x Monster Fest 2019, Riakos very kindly compiled the thoughts of her team of extraordinarily talented filmmakers for SCREEN-SPACE, posing to them (and herself) the question, "What inspired your contribution to the Dark Whispers project..."

(Pictured above, from left to right; top - Megan Riakos, Briony Kidd, Jub Clerc, Lucy Gouldthorpe; middle - Leonie Marsh, Isabel Peppard, Kaitlin Tinker, Madeleine Purdy; bottom - Angie Black, Janine Hewitt, Katrina Irawati Graham, Marion Pilowsky.)

MEGAN RIAKOS (Co-producer; Dir: THE BOOK OF DARK WHISPERS, the wrap-around narrative that binds the anthology; stars Andrea Demetriades)  “Dark Whispers was curated from a callout for completed films and we received impressive submissions from almost every state and territory in a myriad of sub-genres. There are great hidden depths of talent out there and I feel very privileged to be the caretaker of these films and to have the opportunity to work with these amazing filmmakers for the project.”

BRIONY KIDD (Dir: WATCH ME; stars Tosh Greenslade, Astrid Wells Cooper, Jazz Yap)
“Watch Me was written by Claire d'Este, from a concept she says was inspired by ‘The Nothing’ in The Neverending Story. Claire and I are friends and I think she knew it was an idea that would appeal to me. I love how it's quite simple but there's a lot to think about. The protagonist is quite unlikeable on the surface, and yet she is somewhat sympathetic because of what we see her going through. I enjoy characters who are not easy to pigeonhole.” (Pictured, right; Astrid Wells Cooper in Watch Me)

JUB CLERC (Dir: STORYTIME; stars Jhi Clarke, Sylvia Clarke, Jimmy Edgar)
“I was inspired to tell the story of a mythological being from my cultural heritage to pay homage to all the campfire stories my family would share on hunting trips. I shot Storytime in 2005, so to have life breathed back into it in this format with all these wonderful female directors is such a treat.  Having the opportunity to terrify a whole new audience is so rewarding.”

LUCY GOULDTHORPE (Dir: GRILLZ; stars Tosh Greenslade, Melanie Irons)
"Grillz was partly inspired by a raft of dreadful online dating experiences. I felt so vulnerable going on dates with people who weren't what they seemed from their online personas. So we flipped that and our main character Milla preys on the vulnerability of her online hook ups. I also wanted to make something short, sweet and black and white in my hometown of Hobart. Something fun and cheeky with a strong woman vampire who was dealing with stuff that ordinary women have to deal with - weeding through online matches and making a trip to the dentist." (Pictured, right; Melanie Irons in Grillz)

LEONIE MARSH (Prod: DARK WHISPERS VOL. 1)
“Being a part of the producing team of Dark Whispers has been a great joy; to work with so many wonderful women; to create new opportunity for these stories and these filmmakers' careers, and to highlight the wealth of talent we have here in Australia to the rest of the world.”

ISABEL PEPPARD (Dir: GLOOMY VALENTINE)
"My film was inspired by the song ‘Gloomy Sunday’, also known as the Suicide Song. It was written by a Hungarian composer in the 1930s and interpreted by Billy Holiday who's version was banned by the BBC till 2002 after a spate of deaths were associated with it. I went through a period of infatuation with this song and the combination of music and lyrics inspired a series of poetic visuals. These ended up being the inspiration for Gloomy Valentine."

KAITLIN TINKER (Dir: THE MAN WHO CAUGHT A MERMAID; stars Roy Barker, Bilby Conway, Verity Higgins)
"[I wanted to examine] the male gaze, the projection of anima and the hidden, darker side of Australian suburbia. What lies beyond those garage doors? What secret, inner worlds are we operating in? I lost the opportunity to make a feature film because a male executive decided he could re-write my feminist, prize-winning horror pitch better than I. It was crushing. I'd relish the opportunity to develop a feature with a supportive production house, and to write/direct for live theatre.” (Pictured, right; Bilby Conway in The Man Who Caught a Mermaid)

MADELEINE PURDY (Dir: LITTLE SHAREHOUSE OF HORRORS; stars Georgia Wilde, Colan Leach, Travis Jeffery)
“Fear is always relevant, but the things we fear in horror films, not so much. I wanted to speak the same language as this genre I love so much, but using the (often banal) fears that spike my adrenalin on any given day as the subject. I freak out about the natural world quite a lot. The main character in Little Sharehouse of Horrors, Maeve, is similar to myself. We exist in a little world where people talk agricultural conspiracies, and freak ourselves out about the consequences of putting in our body what we do. In short, my own anxieties inspired the short.”

Birthday Girl_trailer from Black Eye Films on Vimeo.

ANGIE BLACK (Dir: BIRTHDAY GIRL; stars Sarah Bollenberg, Michaela Teschendorff-Harden)
“The writer, Michael Harden and I had been working on a horror feature script that was drawing on aspects of Japanese horror. We wanted to investigate the fragile psychological state after loss and both of us being parents thought that the loss of the child is about as dark as you could go. Birthday Girl is about a mother who isn’t ready to let go and is tormented at the thought of not remembering.”

JANINE HEWITT (Dir: THE INTRUDER; stars Asher Keddie, Bree Desborough)
“The idea for The Intruder came from a ghost story that was emailed to me by a colleague. It posed the question - what would you do if your friend turned up wanting to talk to you but you received a phone call during your conversation letting you know that same friend had died? The email gave me goose bumps and I knew it could be developed into a great short horror film.” (Pictured, right; Asher Keddie in The Intruder)

KATRINA IRAWATA GRAHAM (Dir: WHITE SONG; stars Derty Eka Putria, Alana Golingi, Luke Wright)
“The Kuntil Anak ghost is Indonesia's most famous ghost. She is the ghost of a woman who has died in childbirth, often from a pregnancy that has resulted from male violence. She haunts pregnant women, children and men. As a child growing up in Jakarta, I was terrified of her! Later, as a young mother and abuse survivor myself, I switched from identifying as the possible victim to identifying with the ghost. I understood her desire for revenge, but also saw that there could still be the redemptive power of love even in the cold heart of a ghost. So I wrote White Song - an Indonesian ghost story told from the ghost's perspective.”

MARION PILOWSKY (Dir: THE RIDE; stars Anthony LaPaglia, Ed Speelers, Emer Kenny)
“Unbeknownst to me, my father had written a short story called 'The Lift’ under a pseudonym in 1961. Some 50 years later, he gave it to me to read and I loved it. I felt very connected to the material and I asked him how I could talk to the writer. That’s when all was revealed! I updated the setting, found a fantastic producer and pushed the button, thinking I would be paying for it myself. Then, the BBC came on board three days before we shot, which was amazing. During the pre-production madness, Anthony LaPaglia (who I knew from Adelaide) read the script and said that if I hadn’t cast the role of the 'Driver' he wanted it. The Ride was my first adaptation and first short film as a director so I was very fortunate for such great support.”

DARK WHISPERS VOL 1 will screen on Sunday November 3 at 6.15pm at Event Cinemas George Street, Sydney as part of Fangoria x Monster Fest 2019. Following the screening, the directors will be present for a QA session hosted by SBS Movies Managing Editor, Fiona Williams. Full ticket and session details can be found at the venue's official website.

FANGORIA X MONSTER FEST 2019: The well-trodden road to overnight bigscreen success began for Airlie Dodds in 2010 with the short film, Purple Flowers. Nearly two decades later, after 10 more short films, a healthy live theatre resume and a stint on the iconic TV series Neighbours, her lead performance as the blood-splattered heroine Kayla in Tony D’Aquino’s The Furies is generating career-defining buzz. Only her third feature film role, the tough 20-day shoot in the wilds outside of Canberra required a physical commitment she was not entirely ready for. The acclaim coming her way, that, she’s ready for…

“I do a lot of short films and TV, so I turn up, do a little bit and go home,” said Dodds, addressing the Monster Fest crowd in Melbourne at a Q&A appearance hosted by SCREEN-SPACE’s Simon Foster. “So, by the second week of the shoot, I was like ‘Tony, I’m so tired!’ And he said, ‘Yeah, me too.’ But we were fine. It was exhilarating, even euphoric running through this bush location.”

Dodds came to the audition process with a strong sense of her character, a young woman thrust into a brutal bushland game of survival when pitted against five merciless monsters. “It was pretty much all on the page, nothing really changed,” she says, recalling that moment when she had to stand before her somewhat offbeat writer/director and weigh up her career choice. “When I did the audition, it was the big scene at the end just after a key character had died. I looked down, towards Tony, and he was watching the monitor wearing purple socks and an avocado T-shirt and I’m thinking, ‘Well, this is my life’ (laughs).”

Making his feature film directorial debut, Tony D’Aquino presents as a pure gentleman, softly spoken and unassuming. Yet he has delivered a horror opus that harkens back to the most gruesome examples of the slasher genre; no surprise his favourite film is The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. For Dodds, that dichotomy of character helped her build trust with her director. “He’s very gentle and quite meek,” she recalls fondly. “You might think that in a performative sense he would be pushing for intensity, but his gentleness can ground you at times, which felt very nurturing.” (Pictured, left; D'Aquino, left, with DOP Garry Richards)

The complex psychology of Kayla was key to the actress going after the role. She had played lauded support parts in Damian Power’s acclaimed thriller Killing Ground and Heath Davis’ comedy/drama Book Week, and was ready to graduate to a multi-dimensional lead role. “The main thing about Kayla within this type of genre film is that it helps her emerge, really weaves out her inner strength,” says Dodds, who responded to the convincing character arc in D’Aquino’s script. “When you meet her, you’re not inclined to think her very strong, and she doesn’t really know herself until the circumstances force her to. It was less about the idea of the character and more about her immediate actions that ultimately define her.”

High on the actress’ list of positives was that Kayla has to interact with several female characters to survive. Actresses Linda Ngo, Taylor Ferguson, Ebony Vagulans, Danielle Horvat, Jessica Baker, Harriet Davies and Kaitlyn Boyé are granted as much complexity, if not screen time, as Dodds’ Kayla. For the actress, it was central to the story’s appeal. “There are so many stories about men being cunning and violent and manipulative and crazy, so one of the great things about this film is that it shows those complex elements being explored with women characters,” she opines. “The characters [who survive], do so because of their light, feminine value; they use compassion to get ahead. It is still a tactic, a survival tactic, but it is genuine. They all represent aspects of femininity, the resourcefulness or the vindictiveness, and I like that they are as complex as any male character.” (Pictured, above; from left, Linda Ngo, Dodds and Ebony Vagulans)

THE FURIES director Tony D’Aquino will be present for a Q&A following the Fangoria x Monster Fest session on October 31 at Event Cinemas George Street, Sydney. Check the official website for further information.

Emilio Estevez remains one of the biggest movie stars of his generation, adored by Gen-Xers for The Outsiders, Repo Man, The Breakfast Club, Stakeout, St Elmo’s Fire and Young Guns and by their kids for the Mighty Ducks franchise. Twenty years ago, he cashed in his stardom to forge a career making a rare kind of modern film – the heartfelt, humanistic drama, once common amongst Hollywood’s output but now too indie-minded for corporate L.A. Bobby (2006), The Way (2010) and his latest, a crowd-pleasing study in civil disobedience called The Public, are the works of…well, an outsider. He has never been to Australia, much to his regret (“Every time I get invited, it's work-related and they want to get you in and out quickly”) but he was happy to phone in to talk at length with SCREEN-SPACE about his latest film, it’s depiction of America’s homeless population and the changing role that public librarians play in maintaining his homeland’s fragile democracy…

SCREEN-SPACE: You excel at directing the socially conscious film, like Bobby, The Way and now The Public. Cinema is still a very important forum, an important art form, for you, isn’t it?

ESTEVEZ: It is. It has the ability to change minds and hearts and educate, as well as entertain. What other venue can you sit in the dark for two hours and ask to have your attention be held? Great leaders and speakers can barely do that. I think that film is an art form that is under siege right now, especially independent film. It's trying to find its way again, and I believe it will. I just think that there's so many different delivery systems now that filmmakers are having to adapt to and [they] may not like how they're having to adapt to it. We all come from a generation where seeing your movie on the big screen was the ultimate prize for a filmmaker and that may not be the case anymore, right? I'm not big on sitting in front of a small screen and watching much these days. I love the theatre experience. I love going to the movies and sitting in the dark with a bunch of strangers. There's nothing like it.

SCREEN-SPACE: You grew up alongside artists and storytellers and activists that the rest of us look to; your father, of course, and the likes of Mr. Coppola and Mr. Hughes. Who have been the storytellers that inspire you today?

ESTEVEZ: I love the films of Paul Thomas Anderson. I think he's a terrific storyteller. He always puts characters and people first, and the bulk of my work in the last 20 years has been all about that. Character-driven, actor-driven. I respond to filmmakers who haven't lost that sense of humanity, haven't lost their sense of storytelling. So I'm drawn to actors' directors. Scorsese is still somebody who I think makes extraordinary films and movies that I want to see. (Pictured above; Estevez as librarian Stuart Goodson in The Public)

SCREEN-SPACE: The Way came out at the height of an America that was full of Obama-inspired hope and optimism. In 2019, things such as understanding and empathy aren't…on-trend, let's say, under the current administration. Has selling a film like The Public been tougher this time around?

ESTEVEZ: Yeah. It's a film that's decidedly uncynical, that speaks to a gentler pace, to compassion. And it has come out in a very noisy world, a confusing time, [that] we've not seen in this country in over 150 years. So to make a movie that is about hope and compassion was, yeah, I think it's a tough sell. Unfortunately. Sadly.

SCREEN-SPACE: What did you have to get right about your depiction of civil disobedience?

ESTEVEZ: I grew up under a roof with somebody who is very, very active. My father's been arrested 68 times. And all for acts of civil disobedience - anti-nuclear rallies, immigration rallies, issues regarding homelessness and the environment. While I was exposed to it, I didn't fully understand what he was doing, spiritually, until I started working on The Public. And then it all started to make sense to me as to why he was doing what he was doing and why he couldn't say no. Why he couldn't be complicit in the policies that were cruel. I understood it on a much deeper, more spiritual level after getting involved in the film. Which is why that act of civil disobedience at the end of the film, is such an unexpected moment. And as we've screened the film here in the States so many times ... I went on a 35-city tour of the film. The audience never sees the end coming. Ever. They anticipate that it's going to end up in a bloodbath, but, in fact, it ends with an act of love. (Pictured, above; Alec Baldwin as Det Ramstead in The Public)

SCREEN-SPACE: And what needed to be most honest about the way homeless life was portrayed?

ESTEVEZ: It was important not to stereotype them, to give them a depth and a character and make sure that they were humanized. In my research, there was a self-effacing nature to many of the homeless that I talked to, who said, "This is where I am in my life, and I have hope that it will turn around, and here's how I arrived here, and I'm not proud of it." They were very honest and truthful in sharing their personal stories.

SCREEN-SPACE: You draw extraordinary performances from Michael K. Williams (pictured, above; with Estevez), Alec Baldwin and my favourite actress, Jena Malone. Your entire ensemble is remarkably natural…

ESTEVEZ: Thank you. What's interesting is a lot of these actors were not friends of mine before starting the film, so they weren't in my Rolodex. And often times, we would meet on the day, on the set. And that's very ... it's a little unsettling. You're hoping that your conversations on the phone have landed, that you see eye-to-eye on the character, and you're not going to be spending a whole lot of time rewriting the scenes on the day, because that eats up your time. So for us, we were very fortunate that all of the pieces of the puzzle fit together beautifully, because we shot the film in 22 days.

SCREEN-SPACE: How do the added duties of the indie filmmaker sit with you - finding financing, traveling with the film, having to talk to people like me in Sydney?

ESTEVEZ: I think that these days, there is so much noise and so much competition for people's attention. And with a film that didn't have a hundred-million-dollar budget or a big studio behind it needed as much advocacy as possible. And by going out and screening the film, not only to librarians but to homeless advocacy groups, at film festivals, and stopping in those regions, as we travelled around and across the country, where people from Hollywood don't normally stop, and bringing the movie to the people. And that was in the spirit of the film, but also necessary. (Pictured, above; Jena Malone as Myra in The Public)

THE PUBLIC premieres on DVD/Blu-ray and digital platforms in Australia this week via Rialto Distribution; check local schedules for release details in other territories.

Takeaways from the year in cinema include the forced retirement of some once-glorious franchise friends (Terminator Dark Fate; X-Men Dark Phoenix; Rambo Last Blood); the resounding indifference to remakes/reboots/rehashes (Charlie’s Angels; Pet Semetary; Hellboy; Shaft); and, the struggle faced by marketers when selling specialised content (despite pre-release hype and critical buzz, Midsommar sputtered to US$43million globally). Australia produced a legitimate homegrown hit with Ride Like a Girl (US$8.5million), but otherwise found the marketplace tough (Storm Boy, US$4million; Danger Close, US$2million; The Nightingale, a paltry US$0.5million, despite critical acclaim).

But there was much to feel optimistic about. Despite what the HFPA would have you believe, women directors have made some of the year’s best films (40% of my Top 30 are female helmed); Oscars 2019 recognised diversity (in their own baby-step way) when handing out the Golden Guy, even if Best Picture winner, Green Book, carried with it some ugly baggage; and, quite hilariously, the young, white male web-overlords freaked the f*** out when the CATS trailer dropped (apparently, if you’re going to prance around in tights and makeup, you better be in a Marvel movie). Anyway, here are our favourites of 2019 (with their Rotten Tomatoes % included, to show how much we really run with the pack on this stuff)…

10. KNIVES OUT (Dir: Rian Johnson; 130 mins; USA; 97%) Starved of ol’ fashioned star-driven ensemble romps, audiences and critics alike reacted to Rian Johnson’s ripping murder/mystery yarn as if a genre had been borne. Knives Out isn’t new cinema (seek out Sidney Lumet’s Deathtrap, from 1982, for starters), but it pulsed with a crisp freshness and giddy sense of fun the likes of which rarely survive studio suits interference.

9. HOMECOMING: A FILM BY BEYONCE (Dir: Beyoncé Knowles-Carter; 137 mins; USA; 98%) The vivacity and vision that Beyoncé displayed in staging her Coachella 2018 set is captured with a potency that leaves the viewer breathless in Homecoming. Her music, her motives, her motherhood – the icon stamps this moment in her country’s history as her own in a behind-the-scenes concert film that ranks amongst the best ever.

8. WORKING WOMAN (ISHA OVEDET) (Dir: Michal Aviad; 93 mins; Israel; 97%) “The piercing humanistic precision that Michal Aviad honed with her decades as one of the world’s finest documentarians serves her well..” Read the SCREEN-SPACE review here.

7. COLOR OUT OF SPACE (Dir: Richard Stanley; 110 mins; USA; 87%) The combination of talents is irresistible to the cult cinema crowd – be he brilliant or barmy, director Richard Stanley; author of the alien invasion source story, H.P Lovecraft; and the mad maestro himself, Nicholas Cage. The finished product is a B-movie fever-dream; a twisted, terrifying, exhilarating nightmare of family angst and parasitic world domination.

6. BOOKSMART (Dir: Olivia Wilde; 101 mins; USA; 97%) A coming-of-age teen comedy with heavy doses of blue humour shouldn’t feel so fresh, be so funny, or pack an emotional punch like Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut managed. With Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever (pictured, top; far left) inhabiting their co-lead roles and a thematic through-line in acceptance tugging at the heartstrings, Booksmart is so much more than the Superbad-for-girls the trailer promised.

5. WILD ROSE (Dir: Tom Harper; 101 mins; UK; 93%) The balance between dreams, talent and the roots that give them meaning have rarely been so acutely portrayed as in Tom Harper’s Wild Rose. As Rose-Lynn Harlan, the Glaswegian ex-con with a voice that fills the room and raises the roof, Jessie Buckley is a revelation; by the time she belts out ‘No Place Like Home’, her tears and triumphs bring emotions that only great rags-to-riches-to-rags stories deliver.  

4. ALICE (Dir: Josephine Macerras; 103 mins; UK | France | Australia; 100%) In this story of a French woman cocooned by the façade of a dishonest marriage and her rise to independence, Josephine Macerras has crafted a moving, funny, immediate #MeToo superheroine. As Alice, Emilie Piponnier (pictured, right, and top right) is the Australian director’s perfect foil; her emergence on-screen as a self-reliant, sexually energised woman in charge of her own destiny is the character arc of the year.

3. AD ASTRA (Dir: James Gray; 124 mins; USA; 84%) ‘Mr Serious Filmmaker’ James Gray tackling a science-fiction story (essentially Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, with added daddy issues) had us all intrigued; most critics liked it, audiences not so much (tapped out at US$130million globally). A dark reflection on legacy, masculinity and the pain of truthful self-discovery meant Gray was in his high-minded element, but he didn’t skimp on genre prerequisites (the year’s best VFX) and a subversive ‘movie star’ presence in Brad Pitt’s nuanced performance.

2. PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (PORTRAIT DE LA JEUNE FILLE EN FEU) (Dir: Céline Sciamma; 121 mins; France; 97%) How does the artist capture a subject who refuses to be observed, who refutes closeness of any kind? Writer/director Céline Sciamma painstakingly unravels the constraints of 18^th decorum and privilege to capture a physical and spiritual connection between two women, alone on an isolated Brittany island. Embodying the soaring, doomed romantic liaison are actresses Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel, whose performances connect as only the greatest of screen lovers can.

1. ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (Dir: Quentin Tarantino; 161 mins; USA; 85%) “[Tarantino’s] heart is in this film, for the first time afforded as much input as his fan-boy passion and film culture knowledge…” Read the SCREEN-SPACE review here.

The next 20 (in no particular order; with their Rotten Tomatoes %, where possible) are also great, so please seek them out…:
REPOSSESSION (Dirs: Ming Siu Goh, Scott C. Hillyard; 96 mins; Singapore; N/A)
LITTLE WOMEN (Dir: Greta Gerwig; 134 mins; USA; 96%)
KNIVES AND SKINS (Dir: Jennifer Reeder; 112 mins; USA; 72%)
ROMANTIC COMEDY (Dir: Elizabeth Sankey; 78 mins; UK; 100%)
THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON (Dirs: Tyler Nilson, Michael Schwartz; 97 mins; USA; 95%)
ATLANTICS (Dir: Mati Diop; 106 mins; France | Senegal | Belgium; 95%)
THE GOLD-LADEN SHEEP AND THE SACRED MOUNTAIN (SONA DHWANDI BHED TE SUCHHA PAHAD (Dir: Ridham Janve; 97 mins; India; N/A)
UNDER THE SILVER LAKE (Dir: David Robert Mitchell; 139 mins; USA; 58%)
READY OR NOT (Dir: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett; 95 mins; USA; 88%)
KLAUS (Dirs: Sergio Pablos, Carlos Martínez López; 96 mins; Spain | UK; 92%
THE BEACH BUM (Dir: Harmony Korine; 95 mins; USA; 55%)
HUSTLERS (Dir: Lorene Scafaria; 107 mins; USA; 88%)
CAPTAIN MARVEL (Dir: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck; 123 mins; USA; 78%)
PARASITE (GISAENGCHUNG) (Dir: Boon Jong Ho; 132 mins; Korea; 99%)
TOY STORY 4 (Dir: Josh Cooley; 90 mins; USA; 97%)
THE REPORT (Dir: Scott Z. Burns; 119 mins; USA; 82%)
APOLLO 11 (Dir: Todd Douglas Miller; 93 mins; USA; 99%)
THE FURIES (Dir: Tony D’Aquino; 82 mins; Australia; 60%)
JOJO RABBIT (Dir: Taika Waititi; 108 mins; New Zealand | Czech Republic; 79%)
MOSLEY (Dir: Kirby Atkins; 96 mins; New Zealand | China; N/A) 

THE WORST FILMS OF 2019:
Todd Phillip’s Joker was a puerile, garish, tone-deaf shout-out to angry white males who responded en masse, as was the plan.
Disney plundered its vaults and manufactured a series of awful live-action/CGI abominations that reeked of cash-grab cynicism and stockholder pandering - the hideous Mary Poppins Returns and unnecessarily mean-spirited Dumbo; The Lion King was ok, but ‘not as bad as we expected’ is faint praise.
A lot of critics played the ‘its big, dumb, fun card’ in cutting slack to the idiotic brand-extension film, Fast & Furious Present: Hobbs & Shaw, while the more mature filmgoer had to contend with their own dire movie moments, in grotesque melodrama (Isabelle Huppert in Greta) and boomer privilege fantasy (director Rachel Ward’s insufferable Palm Beach).
The Worst Film of 2019, and by some measure, is Sony’s risible attempt to rekindle the MIB franchise, MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL. Directed by the utterly disinterested F. Gary Gray, this mish-mash of poor effects and grab-bag plotting hoped to exploit the chemistry generated by Thor Ragnarok co-stars Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth, but the film leaves Thompson clutching at thin air character-wise and Hemsworth…well, he’s no Will Smith. Handing this horror-show over to Kumail Nanjiani’s comic-relief CGI alien to salvage at the midway mark is testament to the vacuum of creativity on show.  

The pure love for the magic of cinema with which the Screenwave International Film Festival (SWIFF) has always been curated is more evident than ever in 2020. Launching January 9 in Coffs Harbour and Bellingen on the New South Wales’ mid north coast, the 5^th annual SWIFF will present 72 feature films from 20 countries over 15 days in a program that solidifies the regional community’s film celebration as one of Australia’s most important cultural events.

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve been in love with films,” says Festival Co-director Kate Howat who, with partner and fellow co-director Dave Horsley (pictured, below; left, with Howat) handling logistics, spends the best part of her year sourcing acclaimed local and international works. “This is a festival by film lovers for film lovers. Even if you don’t know it yet, I guarantee there’s something here just for you.”

Adds Horsley, “In an ever-shifting cinemascape, [with] lots of interesting conversations going on between streaming services and cinemas, one thing is clear - films are playing a bigger role in our lives.” He cites the year-to-year growth of attendance numbers as evidence of just how crucial film festival culture is to the diverse demographics of the region. “To see the festival turn such a significant corner – with over 70% of all weekend sessions sold out last year – gives the greenlight for the boldest and biggest SWIFF line-up yet.”

That bold approach can be seen in the films chosen to top and tail this year’s roster. Opening Night honours have gone to Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit, a sweet natured if occasionally caustic coming-of-age tale set in Nazi Germany, featuring Der Führer (played with typical satirical verve by the director) as the buffoonish imaginary friend of an impressionable, nationalistic Aryan boy (Roman Griffin Davis).

Closing out the festival will be one of the few big screen sessions afforded Justin Kurzel’s hotly-anticipated, critically-lauded True History of the Kelly Gang, starring George McKay, Essie Davis, Nicholas Hoult, Charlie Hunnam and Russell Crowe. Festivalgoers will join the growing legion of fans of Thomasin McKenzie, with the New Zealand actress playing key roles in both films.

The World Premiere of Ryan Jasper’s debut feature doc Monks of The Sacred Valley emerges as the centerpiece film in SWIFF’s Australian film strand, which features twelve of the year’s most acclaimed domestic efforts. Set to unspool are Josephine Macerras’ festival-circuit hit, Alice; Jennifer Kent’s brutal revenge thriller, The Nightingale; the human-trafficking saga Bouyancy, with director Rodd Rathjen attending to discuss the making of his Berlinale award winner; and, Maya Newell’s In My Blood it Runs (pictured, right), an intimate study of 10 year-old indigenous boy Dujuan’s struggle to reconcile his heritage and contemporary culture.

Earning its stripes as a global film event, SWIFF will screen new works from such revered auteurs as Terrence Malick (A Hidden Life); Francois Ozon (By The Grace of God); Olivier Assayas (Non-Fiction, with Juliette Binoche); Pedro Almodovar (Pain and Glory, with Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz); and, Ken Loach (Sorry We Missed You). Anticipating huge demand amongst local cinephiles, three sessions have been locked in for Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, the moment’s most talked-about arthouse hit and winner of the Cannes’ Best Screenplay and Queer Palm honours in 2019. Says Howat, “[It’s] a burning testament to love and friendship with an ecstatic ending for the ages.”

There is a darker hue to the SWIFF 2020 line-up with some of the year’s most challenging works playing in strands designed for the more fearless filmgoer. The weird and wonderful films in the ‘Wild Side’ line-up include Nicholas Cage and Joely Richardson in renegade director Richard Stanley’s adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s parasitic alien invasion head trip, Colour Out of Space and wild and crazy director Gaspar Noe’s reverse-cut re-edit of his shocking masterwork, now titled Irreversible: Inversion Integrale. The strand ‘Let’s Talk About Sects’ will feature director Ari Aster’s cut of Midsommar, with a whopping 22-minutes of flowers, folk music and full-daylight gore reinstated into the wildly-divisive original version. Also slated is Australian Pia Borg’s short Demonic, a look back at the Satanic Panic hysteria of the 1980s, set to play in a double-feature session with co-directors Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage’s cult-commune drama, Them That Follow, starring Australian actress Alice Englert; pictured, above).

Two very different takes on ‘Classic Cinema’ will highlight the Retrospective sessions at SWIFF 2020. The brilliance of Italian film maestro Frederico Fellini will be celebrated with screenings of his classics 8½ (1983) and La Dolce Vita (1960), while arguably the greatest silly comedy of all time, Airplane! (aka Flying High!) from the twisted minds of the Zucker/Abrahams team, will be celebrated with a one-off 40^th anniversary screening.

The 2020 Screenwave International Film Festival runs January 9-24 at the Jetty Memorial Theatre, Coffs Harbour, and the Bellingen Memorial Hall, Bellingen. Full program details, session times and ticketing information can be found on the official website.

‘Marjoe Gortner’ is not a name often mentioned when the Hollywood A-list of the swingin’ ‘70s and ‘80s is recalled, but at the time, the Californian native was very much part of the scene. Having soared to notoriety/fame in the wake of the Oscar-winning documentary Marjoe (1972), the gripping expose of the boy-preacher whose name is an amalgam of ‘Mary’ and ‘Joseph’, the charismatic showman turned to acting. His golden mane and pearly whites were seen in Earthquake (1974), Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976), Food of The Gods (1976) and Viva Knievel! (1977); in 1978, he made his worst film, the now infamous Star Wars rip-off, Starcrash, and his best, When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? The enigmatic star then spent three decades guest-starring in episodic television and riding the home video boom years with bit parts in B-movies with names like Mausoleum (1983), Jungle Warriors (1984), Hellhole (1985) and American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt (1989).

John Harrison has been intrigued by the larger-than-life presence of the child-evangelist-turned-movie star for all of those decades. The Melbourne-based author, whose encyclopaedic knowledge of and passion for the pulp extrtemiries of society has made him one of the most respected figures in Australia’s counter-culture community, examines the actor’s early life and filmography in his recently-published book, WILDCAT! The Films of Marjoe Gortner. “His story is a unique one,” Harrison (pictured, below) told SCREEN-SPACE, “so he will endure.”

SCREEN-SPACE:  Why does Marjoe Gortner hold such a fascination for you?

JOHN: I guess my fascination with Marjoe Gortner began from the first time I saw him, when I snuck off into the city as a kid to see a double-bill of Squirm (1976) and Food of the Gods (1976). Marjoe’s leading role in the later really appealed to me, as did his striking looks and rather exotic name. There just seemed to be a unique air that surrounded him on screen, and whenever I saw his name show up on a movie poster or as a guest star in the opening credits of a TV show, I always made it a point to watch it, even if it was something I wouldn’t normally have much interest in.

However, it wasn’t until I accidently caught a late-night TV screening of When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? (1979) in the late-80s that I really began to investigate Marjoe’s career further. That film had such an impact on me, I was working part-time at a video store in St. Kilda at the time, and when I went in to work the next day and discovered we had the Roadshow VHS of When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? on the shelf, I pretty much played it on the shop’s TV constantly, and took it home at least once a week to watch and study it properly. When the video store eventually closed its doors, the owner said I could take any five VHS tapes from the shelves, so of course Red Ryder was the first tape I went for, and still have it in the collection today.

Marjoe was still just an actor in my head at this point. It was in the early-90s that I first became aware of his past as a child preacher and evangelist, which naturally only made him more interesting to study, since acting and preaching both involve performance and playing a character and convincing people you are something or someone that you really aren’t.

SCREEN-SPACE:  Was he an actor? An opportunist? A businessman, supremely skilled at selling himself? How does he fit in the landscape of 70s/80s Hollywood?

JOHN: I think the most accurate answer would be that he was a combination of these things. He was certainly an opportunist, using his notoriety as a child preacher and the success of the 1972 documentary about him as a springboard to Hollywood. But it certainly wasn’t just a chance thing, he had been taking acting and singing lessons well before the documentary hit. He was also definitely a businessman, and a pretty good one. After seeing none of the untold sums of money that he brought in during his child preaching days (most of which was taken by his father after he spilt), Marjoe made sure people never took financial advantage of him ever again.  Bobbie Bresse, the actress he starred opposite in Mausoleum (1983), once relayed in an issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland that Marjoe told her to always get the money up front, and said every week a long black limo would pull up onto the set and two guys would step out and deliver a big black bag, filled with what she assumed was money, directly to Marjoe’s trailer! (Pictured, above; Gortner as 'Jody' in Earthquake)

As for how he fits into the overall landscape of the Hollywood of his era, I would say that he has definitely earned his place in pop culture. His early years were well documented on film, in print and on record albums, and a lot of the films and television shows he worked on have become cult classics of a kind. He was definitely of his time, and the fact that he completely turned his back on performing in the late-90s and now refuses to talk about or even acknowledge his past as either a preacher or an actor, only adds to his mystique.

SCREEN-SPACE:  For those new to the Greatness of Gortner, which film should be the entry point?

JOHN: I would have to go with When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder (1979; pictured, right, Gortner with co-stars Hal Linden and Lee Grant). It is easily his best onscreen performance and it’s such a galvanizing film. Marjoe is truly terrifying in it, and he is surrounded by a great ensemble cast that really breathe life and tension into the characters and story, which was adapted by Mark Medoff from his stage play.

Of course, the Oscar-winning documentary Marjoe (1972) is also essential viewing for anyone wanting to understand the Marjoe mythos, and if you want to see him in something that is just plain 70s genre fun you can’t go past watching him fend off giant chickens with a pitchfork in Food of the Gods (1976).

SCREEN-SPACE:  If there is a perception of Marjoe that you hope people take from your book, what would it be?

JOHN: While my book naturally covers Marjoe’s childhood and days as a child preacher, I wasn’t interested in writing some tell-all about his private life. Wildcat! is an examination of his filmography, so I hope it will give readers an appreciation of his work and just how prolific and diverse he was during his time in Hollywood. I hope people will use it in the same way that I used books like The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film and Incredibly Strange Films in the 80s, as a roadmap to seek out some films or TV shows they may not have been aware of, or completely forgotten about. And to discover a new appreciation for them, and in turn, Marjoe.

WILDCAT! The Films of Marjoe Gortner is available via its publisher, BearManor Media, Amazon, and wherever all good books are sold.

The new film from Australian filmmaker Benedict Andrews explores a time in modern American history when those elected to enforce the will of the people instead turned on society’s progressive left. It was 1969, and the symbolic target of the conservative law enforcers was actress Jean Seberg, an expat American adored by those of her adopted homeland, France, but targeted by The F.B.I. for her views on racial injustice. Starring a remarkable Kristen Stewart, SEBERG captures an America at the dawn of a new, darker time and the young woman who bore the brunt of that shift in values. 

Fittingly, SCREEN-SPACE spoke to Andrews as the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump kicked off. “Over the course of production, history felt like it was accelerating at such a terrifying pace and things in the movie seemed to become more and more relevant,” said the director, from his home in Iceland, “It reflected a deliberate manipulation and lying and you see that in an institutional way.”

SCREEN-SPACE: At the Deauville Film Festival press conference, your leading lady defined Jean Seberg as impulsive, idealistic, naive, but well intentioned. Was Seberg the right sort of superstar at the wrong point in American history?

ANDREWS: Oh, that's an interesting question. The movie is certainly quite transparent about impulsive aspects of her behaviour that might have led her into the mixing up of her romantic life and her political life. But I don't believe that that was what caused the FBI to destroy her. The character ‘Hakim Jamal’ (played by Anthony Mackie) says that she got caught in the crossfire of white America's war on black America. You had a very conservative, reactionary, racist FBI mandate in the COINTELPRO program to basically destroy any chance of black power and change in America, and she allowed herself to be involved in that. Her husband, Romain Gary, said that she had a case of sympathy at first sight and I think she genuinely couldn't stand the injustice in America and unequal playing field in terms of race. So I believe everything that she was doing there was actually extremely well intentioned and from a really strong, clear place. And I think she believed in truth and she believed in having a voice. (pictured, above; Kirsten Stewart as Jean Seberg)

SCREEN-SPACE: Her activism had a public face, via her celebrity, but also a very private, personal aspect…

ANDREWS: I think she genuinely couldn't stand the injustice in America and unequal playing field in terms of race. And, yes, a lot of her activism was relatively private if you compare to her to a much more outspoken, perhaps even grandstanding figure like Jane Fonda. The activism is very much of her time too. It's what became derided by Tom Wolfe [who] invented this derogatory term of ‘radical chic’ for the big Hollywood people being involved in politics. But I think that was very much a move of the Conservative Right’s to undercut [activism], certainly in Jean's case. He wrote that about a buddy of Leonard Bernstein's case and I think there were just attacks on an engaged left within the cultural industry. (Pictured, above; Jean Seberg)

SCREEN-SPACE: Your film comes along at a time when US politics and its very dark undercurrent is being exposed. Does that put a spotlight on this film's view on American politics? Does it give it a pertinent relevance that you may not have otherwise counted on?

ANDREWS: I always kind of knew that 1969 was going to speak to 2019. Jean says, "America, this country's at war with itself." On one hand, the unresolved questions of racial injustice in America, but more especially the question of what we see in the movie, in an embryonic DNA form, the culture that we now live in. You see all the seeds of a culture of mass surveillance. In a very personal way, our narrative shows what happens when privacy is violated and weaponized and turned against somebody for their beliefs. And we see the horrific cost of that in the emotional toll on Jean and the political cost of that in terms of the relationships that are undermined and destroyed. That's something that in a terrifying way is speaking to our times.

SCREEN-SPACE: I get the feeling that there's a lot of people in Washington at the moment who are a lot like FBI agent Jack (played by Jack O’Connell) – patriots torn between allegiance and morality.

ANDREWS: That's what I think is really interesting. There's an echo of an Edward Snowden in there and I was quite aware that the story was ultimately, in a way, going to be about truth. In these early stages of the impeachment hearings, we’re seeing these career bureaucrats stepping up and saying, "Actually I have to speak the truth, even if I'm going to risk something in that. I don't believe in what's going on." And Jack goes from [being] a soldier who believes in the war, to realizing that the institution he's in is fighting a dirty war that he can't believe in any anymore.

SCREEN-SPACE: I'm hopeful that if any good is going to come out of the current political climate, it will be a return to what I think is the last great era of American filmmaking, the 1970s, and cinema's strength at interpreting the times; films like The Parallax View, The Conversation, All the President’s Men. Hopefully Seberg is at the forefront of a new introspection in our cinema.

ANDREWS: I hope so. They were very important movies for me in this. I mean you've touched upon nearly all of them. Medium Cool was also really important for me, which is a little looser, freer film, in a way. I love the tensions of those cooler thrillers. Klute was really important, too, because it has a woman at the centre of it and that strange relationship with her and Donald Sutherland that reminded me of the Jean/Jack relationship. Those films are so important because they come at a time of absolute crisis in the political identity of the country. We used the similar lenses, the Panavision C-series lenses in order to reference them and we have a couple of nods to The Conversation. One of my favourite shots in the movie is where the camera drifts through the van, Jack's there and the two black girls come up and do their makeup. That's a really deliberate homage to a scene where Gene Hackman's looking out and you see the two women come and do their makeup. It's just a beautiful metaphor for the screen of cinema, but also it shows us the drug of surveillance that Jack has there, which you don't want the audience to think about this while they're watching It's exactly the same drug they have watching on a screen. (Pictured, above; Stewart and Andrews, on-set)

SCREEN-SPACE: We should have a chat about your leading lady. I love the line describing Jean that says she's bigger in France than she is here and that talks very much to Kristen. What was the methodology you and she employed in crafting the Seberg character?

ANDREWS: Yeah, she was the perfect fit. There is no version of this movie without her in it. I think that the movies happen when they're meant to happen. This was a story that people have been trying to get made at different points in time and the script had a couple of other lives before I came on board. I really believe that things come to life when the film gods want them to; the political relevance of the movie is one of those reasons, but the other really is Kristen. It's kind of a miracle to have this young American actress who has an understanding of what it means to work in mainstream Hollywood and to work in French cinema. I think she and Jean Seberg, and maybe Jane Fonda, are the only people to achieve that. For both of them to be style icons, for both of them to have this forward looking yet classical fashion sense and both of them have such a singular idiosyncratic and androgynous look was also just incredible. They were both thrust into the public eye at a very tender age, Jean with the competition for the Saint Joan film of Preminger and Kristen obviously following on from the Fincher movie (Panic Room) with the Twilight films and both of them, perhaps Jean more so, had a tough time with the domestic press, were both treated a bit unfairly. (Pictured, above; l-r, Anthony Mackie, Zazie Beetz, Stewart, Andrews, Jack O'Connell and Margaret Qualley)

SCREEN-SPACE: Her unconventionality suits a film that is an unconventional biopic.

ANDREWS: I'm bored shitless of one-way biopics. And I was never interested in an actress who would only do an impersonation. I knew very quickly from Kristen and just also having an impulse about the type of actress that she was that that wasn't really the case. We were going to be able to find Jean together from the inside out. And I'm just so incredibly impressed and proud of how she puts herself on the line and how in this performance she transforms in a way that she hasn't in other movies. She has a huge emotional range in it. We watched a lot of Jean's films together. She had a voice coach, but we decided to only make the smallest alteration to her voice. She was just really prepared to put herself on the line and to really go there. And I felt we just had a really good trust and then this special thing happened that you hope for in a director, actor relationship, where it starts to become a dance.

SEBERG is in selected Australian cinemas from January 30 through ICON Films.

CANNES: Flying the flag for the Australian genre sector at the 2020 Canneseries Short Form Competition will be the highly-anticipated web-series, Deadhouse Dark, created by Australia’s own horror mastermind Enzo Tedeschi. The series is one of ten international entrants in the competitive strand and will face off against productions from Canada, Finland, Sweden, Argentina, Norway, Poland, The USA and France.

Running concurrently with the annual television mega-market MIP-TV, Canneseries takes place from March 27 to April 1. In 2019, the Australian series Over and Out took top honours and was quickly shepherded into long-form development. This year, the judging panel consists of actors Jamie Bamber (Band of Brothers; NCIS; Battlestar Galactica) and Erin Moriarity (True Detective; The Boys) and French director Timothée Hochet (Relationship; Studio Bagel; Calls).

An anthology of six interconnected horror short films, Deadhouse Dark is anchored by a narrative concerning a woman who receives a mystery box via the ‘dark web’; within the box are items that gradually unveil dark and troubling truths. Slated for an online release in late 2020, the project features actors Nicholas Hope, Zoe Carides, Lauren Orrell, Jenny Wu and Barbara Bingham and directors Rachele Wiggins, Rosie Lourde, Megan Riakos, Denai Gracie and Joshua Long. Tedeschi himself steps into the helmer’s chair for the first episode, an online dating-themed chiller called ‘A Tangled Web We Weave’.

"It's an honour to be premiering this project in such a hallowed space,” says Tedeschi (pictured, above), whose status as one of our leading genre producers is unrivalled in the wake of his features, The Tunnel (2011), A Night of Horror Vol. 1 (2015), Skinford (2017) and Event Zero (2017). “It's the perfect way to kick-off getting the series out to audiences. We're also proud to be representing as the only Aussies in the mix of ten series selected from around the globe. I'm hoping we can find the right partners to be able to move into a longer show format as soon as possible."

One of the sectors’ most vibrantly creative young producers, Rachele Wiggins further enhances her industry standing with her debut behind the camera, directing the segment ‘Mystery Box’. “To be recognised internationally at such a prestigious festival is a huge boon for the Australian genre filmmaking community,” says Wiggins, who co-produced Deadhouse Dark with Tedeschi. “I’m incredibly proud of the wonderful mix of diverse creative voices who made [it] possible, most of whom are emerging talents within the industry. A World Premiere at Canneseries will be an opportunity to showcase that talent and get people to see more of what Australia has to offer.” (Pictured, right; clockwise from top left - Rachele Wiggins, Megan Riakos, Rosie Lourde, Joshua Long, Enzo Tedeschi and  Denai Gracie). 

‘That talent’ includes Rosie Lourde, who directs Naomi Sequeira in the unsettling ‘Dashcam_013_20191031.mp4’, a car-crash drama told completely from the perspective of a dashboard camera (pictured, below); Megan Riakos, writer and director of ‘No Pain No Gain’, the story of a competitive runner desperate to win at any costs; Denai Gracie, whose ’The Staircase’ follows a group of adventurers as they face what lurks in the supernatural darkness; and, Joshua Long, director of ‘My Empire Of Dirt’ about a ‘death midwife’ tasked with helping a woman ease into a peaceful death despite being haunted by her past.  

Principal funding was sourced from Screen Australia, with support granted from Screen Queensland and Silent Assassin Films. Especially developed for an online audience, Deadhouse Dark reflects the changing nature of industry investment, with government funds for the sector increasingly slated for non-theatrical projects. The project provides further evidence of Screen Australia's ongoing re-definition of the production sector, as detailed by Screen Australia's CEO Graeme Mason's recent comments regarding funding and sector development at the Berlin Film Festival. 

Established in 2018, the Canneseries Festival was formed with the aim of becoming the voice of the new, popular and ultra-creative short-form visual storytelling, by spotlighting new, promising and innovative formats.  The award of Best Short Form Series will be handed out during the festival's Closing Ceremony, which will be broadcast on French broadcast giant, Canal +.

Sometimes the most meaningful journeys come from the humblest beginnings. Twenty years ago, a young animator named Kirby Atkins, drawing upon both his own upbringing and new life as a parent, began crafting a story about a species of domesticated creatures called Thoriphants, bound by human chains but always clinging to their rich heritage and powerful tribal bonds. The result is Mosley, a thrilling and very moving celebration of family and destiny that was brought to life as a $US20million New Zealand/Chinese co-production “They are absolutely phenomenal,” says Atkins of his Chinese artists. “I had five studios in China that were doing animation for me remotely.”

SCREEN-SPACE chatted at length with Atkins (pictured, above) only a few hours before the 2019 Asia Pacific Screen Awards, for which Mosley had earned a Best Animated Film nomination.  

SCREEN-SPACE: What did you base the design and functionality of the Thoriphants upon? What research went into their movements?

ATKINS: I wanted Thoriphants to feel like something that you hadn't seen before, but also to feel familiar as soon as you saw them. Most of their body is very elephant-like and there's this certain nobility that is attached to elephants and elephant bodies. Then there are certain aspects [that are] like donkeys, this sort of melancholy quality. It was about not making something that was going to be bizarre, but something that felt like you could just see grazing in a field somewhere. Yet the whole hook to them is that they can speak, and that their faces are expressive. That's what makes ‘the orphan’ different, at least in the movie, than a horse or an ox or anything like that.

SCREEN-SPACE: I believe that Thoriphants want to be like humans, but they want to be the best part of humans. They're striving to be upright and to have hands, but also to represent what's best about us.

ATKINS: A good thing about fairy tales and fables is that people read their own story into them, and there are no wrong answers to that. The concept of standing upright, if you were to take the angle of social injustice, recalls the experience of being black in America. Where you feel like you're treated like shit in one part of the world, but you were kings in another part of the world. It's about discovering what you are meant to be, and using the concept of evolution or devolution as a means to say, "How tragic would it be that you couldn't evolve as far as your heart was meant to go." That existential longing of wanting to recapture the thing that you were intended to be, and not the thing that you turned out to be. You can apply that to any working stiff out in the world who feels like he was meant for greater things. That allegory can be very personal or you can talk about societies like the Maori in New Zealand or the native American experience. People reclaiming dignity based upon a heritage, haunted by the fact that life was not meant to be this.

SCREEN-SPACE: That first act, the first half hour, is quite dialogue heavy. There's an establishing of character and personality in all the creatures. I sensed then that this movie was, yes, beautiful family entertainment, but also it was going to be deep. It was going to be more from that point on…

ATKINS: I know anime does this all the time, but generally Western animation is pretty much fart jokes; cartoons that you put on to keep the kids busy while you do something else. This is the animated film that I always wanted to see, but it didn't feel like anybody was going to make. Animation can do other things besides comedy, right? And what I've always wanted to see is an animated film that had weight to it. That had teeth to it. It's sort of like the family films that they use to make. I remember when I was a kid watching The NeverEnding Story, there was a scene where the horse drowns in the quicksand, and I was devastated when I saw that and it marked me; for some people it was Bambi that marked them, or Watership Down. [It reinforced] the fact that animation can do drama, can deal with character. Animation is about stylizing an entire narrative in a way that that shouldn’t just be fart jokes, pies in the face, pop songs and pop culture references. Let's just tell a straight story with animation. Let's let the tense parts be tense. The last fight in Mosley, I wanted it to feel like a fight, that somebody could get hurt, not a fight in a cartoon movie. There's something about cartoon and cartoon physics that allows you to think, "None of this is real, nobody's going to get hurt." And I wanted you to forget that you were watching animation.

SCREEN-SPACE: You set the emotional stakes very high from the start. The auction scene is a heartbreaker…

ATKINS: Exactly. You're going to care about this movie in the first two minutes, or this isn't going to be worth your time. I want the audience sucked in and engaged, and rooting for these characters to make it as soon as I can. And so that opening sequence was all about that. Obviously comedy follows pretty quickly. But that first sequence I wanted to knock the breath out of you. So you're going, "Okay, this movie's not playing around. This is going to be a real story. This isn't just packing peanuts (laughs)."

SCREEN-SPACE: A voice-cast like Rhys Darby, Lucy Lawless, John Rhys-Davies and Temuera Morrison is remarkable…

ATKINS: I'll tell you, it was a blast! Sonically, think about what you have. John Rhys-Davies, Mr. Classically trained, I- Claudius, Lord of the Rings, an Old Vic kind of actor, right? And then you have Rhys, Mr. Improvisation, think on the spot, come up with some gag right there. You put them together, you’re going to have peanut butter and chocolate; a whole new flavour comes out. There’s very little that goes off the script, but there are about three or four moments where they added a line or something. And it just wasn't Rhys, but John did some of this too, and it was pure gold. And everybody was in the room together. I worked on Warner Brothers’ The Ant Bully and we had Julia Roberts and Nick Cage, right? They were never in the room together. And usually good actors can make it sound sort of natural, right? But I knew that if I got Rhys Darby and John Rhys-Davies in a room together, bouncing off of each other, I knew nothing but good was going to come out of that. I don't know if you remember these lines, but there's like, "You distract, I'll ambush,” then “Your whole life has been a distraction." And John made up that line. (Picture above, from left; Atkins, editor Kathy Toon, and actors John Rhys-Davies and Rhys Darby) 

SCREEN-SPACE: Mosley is every bit as good as most of the things that Disney Pixar puts out; better than the last few, quite frankly. One opinion suggests maybe this kind of film wouldn't be made without the path laid by Disney Pixar. Then there's the shadow that Disney Pixar casts and how tough it can be to break away from that legacy…

ATKINS: Yeah, I'll tell you, the industry is fickle in this regard. Another Disney film will come out and you’ll hear, "Oh God, why does everything have to be like Disney?" And there’s me saying, "Well, this isn't like Disney. We'll make something." And they're like, "Well, why isn't it more like Disney?" Sometimes you can't win, right? (laughs) People who work in animation want animation to do more. The invisible powers in the larger studios that fund animation stories [determine that they] must be attached to a pre-existing franchise or some sort of merchandising. Generally, studios create such narrow categories for animation. But my editor, Kathy Toon, came from Pixar, moving to New Zealand to make Mosley. My animation director Manuel Aparicio came from Walt Disney, from working on Moana. So all of these guys came for the express purpose of going, "This is the sort of movie we all wish the industry would make. We can tell stories that are full of heart and whimsy and humor, but they're not just the same old thing. We can tackle big themes. We can have some teeth to it. It can be a little scary." It can be more cinematic in that regard.

MOSLEY will be released April 8 in Australia and New Zealand on DVD and digital platforms; other territories to follow. 

Vanity Fair overnight revealed exclusive first-look images from Denis Villeneuve’s forthcoming adaptation of Frank Herbert’s iconic 1965 science-fiction novel, Dune. The director’s first film since Blade Runner 2049 will unfold in two parts, the first of which is scheduled to premiere December 18. “I would not agree to make this adaptation of the book with one single movie,” Villeneuve told VF writer Anthony Breznican. “The world is too complex. It’s a world that takes its power in details.” (All photo credits: Chiabella James)

(Above: Timothée Chalamet, as Paul Atreides, and Rebecca Ferguson, as Lady Jessica Atreides)

The French-Canadian director, who co-wrote the script with Jon Spaihts (Prometheus; Doctor Strange; Passengers) and Oscar-winner Eric Roth (Forrest Gump; Munich; A Star is Born), shot the film in several countries to capture the landscapes imagined in Herbert's series of books. Exteriors were lensed in Jordan, Norway, Slovakia and the U.A.E., while mammoth studio sets were constructed on the Origo Film Studio lot in Budapest, Hungary.

(Above: Villeneuve, left, on-set with star Javier Bardem, as Stilgar)

Protagonist Paul Atreides is played by Oscar nominee Timothée Chalamet, who recalls the sandstone valley locations in remote southern Jordan which served as the otherwordly landscape of the planet Arrakis. “There are these Goliath landscapes, which you may imagine existing on planets in our universe, but not on Earth," the actor told Vanity Fair. "I remember going out of my room at 2 a.m., and it being probably 100 degrees. The shooting temperature was sometimes 120 degrees. They put a cap on it out there; if it gets too hot, you can’t keep working.”

(Above: The House Atreides, Left to Right: Timothée Chalamet, Stephen Mckinley Henderson, Oscar Isaac, Rebecca Ferguson, Josh Brolin and Jason Momoa)

Cast announcements ignited the internet, with the rabid fanbase weighing in on every production development. Alongside Chalamet will be Oscar Isaac as his father, Duke Leto Atreides, and Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica, Paul’s mother and member of the mystical Bene Gesserit sect. Other cast members include Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho, Zendaya as Chani, Javier Bardem as Stilgar, Charlotte Rampling as Gaius Helen Mohiam, Dave Bautista as Glossu Rabban, David Dastmalchian as Piter De Vries, Chang Chen as Dr. Wellington Yueh, Stellan Skarsgård as the villainous Baron Harkonnen, and Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck.

(Above: Zendaya, as Chani)

In 2017, Villeneuve told Variety that the opportunity to direct an adaptaion of Dune was too good an opportunity to let pass. "Since I was 12 years old, there was a book I read, which is Dune, which is my favorite book," he said. "After Prisoners, the producer [at] Alcon asked me what I would like to do next. I said, ‘Dune, if anyone could get me the rights for Dune’. And I knew it was very difficult to get those rights. I have images that I am haunted by for 35 years."

(Above: Sharon Duncan-Brewster as Liet Kynes)

Though a devotee of Herbert's novel, Villeneuve understood a 2020 adaptation of a 1965 story would need to be made contemporary, regardless of how visionary the source material had been. As Lady Jessica Atreides, Rebecca Ferguson had her part expanded considerably. "She’s a mother, she’s a concubine, she’s a soldier,” says Ferguson. “Denis was very respectful of Frank’s work, [but] the quality of the arcs for much of the women have been brought up to a new level." Arrakis ecologist Liet Kynes has been gender-swapped entirely, with Sharon Duncan-Brewster playing the part written as a white man. "This human being manages to basically keep the peace amongst many people," says the actress. "Women are very good at that, so why can’t Kynes be a woman? Why shouldn’t Kynes be a woman?"

(Above: Jason Momoa as Duncan Idaho)

Key contributors to the production include composer Hans Zimmer (Dunkirk; Interstellar; Crimson Tide); director of photography, Australian Greig Fraser (Lion; Vice; Rogue One; Zero Dark Thirty); editor and longtime Villeneuve collaborator Joe Walker (Arrival; Sicario; 12 Years a Slave); and, production designer Patrice Vermette (Vice; The Mountain Between Us; Cafe de Flore). Crucial to the production are veteran costumers Bob Morgan (Three Kings; The Lord of War; Inceptions) and Jacqueline West (The Revenant; Argo; The Curious Case of Benjamin Button), who supervised the construction of the functional desert-wear known as 'stillsuits'.

(Above, from left: Josh Brolin as Gurney Halleck; Rebecca Ferguson as Lady Jessica Atreides; Oscar Isaac as Duke Leto Atreides)

ALL PHOTO CREDITS: CHIABELLA JAMES. First published by Vanity Fair on April 15, 2020.