Australian soap-opera fans fondly remember Kimberly Joseph, the radiant young actress who won the nation’s heart in the popular series Home and Away and All Saints. But her starlet days are a distant memory for the LA-based Australian-Canadian; despite acting in such hits as Cold Feet and Lost, for most of the last decade she has shared production duties with Adam Schomer on her passion project, The Polygon. This heartbreaking documentary captures the hardships and humanity of a Kazakh village called Sarzahl, located a mere 18 kilometres from what was once the largest nuclear test site on Russian soil. Having recently attended its World Premiere at the 2014 Gold Coast Film Festival, the debutant director spoke to SCREEN-SPACE about her many visits to the region, the villagers she has grown close to (pictured, below; Joseph, far right) and the fate of an irradiated landscape that a cash-rich government refuses to tend to….

The fateful nature of your involvement with the Semipalatinsk region in Kazakhstan began with a chance meeting on a plane with Scottish MP Struan Stevenson (pictured, below). What do you recall of that first meeting, over ten years ago?

He spoke with such passion about the conditions these people lived in and I was moved so much, I said let me know if there is anything I can do to help. A few months later I was on the ground in Kazakhstan. There are so many humanitarian issues, so many people suffering in the world, I’ve been asked why focus in on this and my answer is that it came about very organically, that I was pointed in this direction by chance. Having met the villagers first hand, I knew I had to do more for them. That began with a photographic exhibition in Scotland in 2004 then New York City in 2007 to raise money.* The villagers (are) convinced that he was instrumental in raising the awareness needed to help them.

You travelled back and forth to the region over the course of the production, but can you recall your first impression of the landscape and the people?

They were initially nervous about telling their stories but they really needed to. They hadn’t had the opportunity to do that. These people are very well-read, very proud people. They are living in villages that have not been improved since the Soviets left; roads have not been maintained, access to clean water is scarce. There is very little trade in the area, just a couple of shops that sell potatoes and rice; they exist on the small income they make off their livestock. It is truly remote.

How did the ruling Kazakhstan government treat your presence?

When we travelled through the region, a local government official accompanied us. And the villagers were livid that this man had never been out to see them, which I found very upsetting. The people had lost children and grandchildren; generations had been affected by the test site and they had gotten no attention from this man or his government. The country uses the closure of The Polygon as a drawcard, proud of their relinquishing of the nuclear arsenal. It should be noted that it was the previous Soviet regime that detonated the weapon, not the independent Kazakh state. But while (the new leaders) admit that these villagers have been affected and acknowledge high cancer rates and other effects with some very carefully worded press releases, they are doing very little about it.  This government has so much wealth and sits on such a richness of natural resources, there is just no excuse for them not to be paying attention to the people of Sarzahl.

In the years since Mikhail Gorbachev’s Glasnost period of reform led to the closure of the site, has any criminal action against the masterminds behind The Polygon tests been considered? 

So much of what went on was shrouded in that Cold War ‘top secret’ status, that establishing fault in hindsight is impossible. There are accounts of the deceased being flown out of the region and buried elsewhere so that the cause of death could not be traced or linked (to the testing). A lot of the records and reports were taken elsewhere and destroyed. Medical officers and workers involved in the project were just not allowed to talk about it for fear of imprisonment. And the people in the villages, who would watch the explosions from their homes, had no idea that the radioactivity would settle on them. Everything points to these villagers being used as human guinea pigs. They moved them initially, but then they didn’t.

Following this World Premiere, your film will eventually make its way back to the people of the Sarzahl and the politicians that rule over them. How do you feel about this ten-year project nearing completion? What would be the best possible outcome for you?

I’ll be a little nervous to see how the government responds to it, but I know that the villages will be very happy. And that was always my intention, to give them an outlet to tell their stories and to impress upon the government the inherent human value of these beautiful people and their villages. They are the keepers of the Kazakh culture and without them, the Kazakhstan of old will disappear. I am hopeful that in the future these people, who want to be so much more connected to their country and its government, will get what they need. My only hope is that I do the people and the story of their plight justice. I hope that the film can raise awareness of the suffering of the people around The Polygon and inspire their government to help them in meaningful ways.

*The photos can be seen in Struan Stevenson’s 2006 book, Crying Forever: A Nuclear Diary. 

It has been 20 years since Lee Tamahori’s adaptation of Alan Duff’s novel Once Were Warriors left international audiences stunned. At the centre of the brutal, heartbreaking drama was Jake ‘The Muss’ Heke, brought to frightening, vivid life by one of New Zealand’s greatest acting exports, the charming Temuera Morrison. Ahead of an anniversary screening of the film at the recent Gold Coast Film Festival, a lean and chatty ‘Tem’ sat with SCREEN-SPACE to reflect upon his early career days, the Warrior shoot and working in the madness that is Hollywood…

Acting was always you’re passion, but I gather you entered the scene as a techie on The Piano…

I was working on the crew of Jane Campion’s film and had met Sam Neill and Holly Hunter and the great Harvey Keitel. I mentioned to someone that I wanted to give this acting thing ago, that was my burning desire; watching Sam, Holly and Harvey, all of whom had their own particular styles and techniques, was just incredible. I got a small role in The Piano, but actually left the film because I got a role on Shortland Street, which was, of course, very different from The Piano gig (laughs). But all of a sudden, I was a working actor. 

Can you recall those early days, when Riwia Brown’s script was doing the rounds and buzz was building for Once Were Warriors?

A lot of the industry was off working on Rapa Nui, which I was overlooked for, and word had started to get around about the Warriors script. After the first round of auditions, I got a little role in the film as a policeman, then I got the Uncle Bully role. About a month out from shooting, my agent got a call and he told me they wanted me to read for Jake. When I got that news, a light went off in my head. The first thing I thought was, ‘Here’s my chance’. I’d grown up in Rotorua, where the book is set, and I’d read it. So between my scenes as a doctor on Shortland Street, I got the make-up team to put some tattoos on my arms, found some rough shirts and went into the audition. And I just fired into one of the scenes, just thought to myself, ‘Right, I’m going to give this a nudge.’ (pictured, right; Morrison as Jake)

How did you begin the process of bringing Jake to life?

My agent was a lovely guy, Robert Bruce, (pictured, left; Morrison and Bruce preparing for the role of Jake) who has passed away now. He was a bit of a scrapper, a fighter; he was wrestler, as a younger man. So he relished the news that they wanted to cast me. When the director rang Robert, he said, ‘We are going to go with Tem, but you have to get him ready.’ So he would get me revved up, got me into physical shape. We’d start training at 6am, do lots of boxing and fighting.
And a lot of the kids hadn’t acted before, so I was able to work with them and work through getting the dynamics of the family right. Especially Grace (actress Mamaengaroa Kerr-Bell), who I had to get revved up for all her scenes. They weren’t always nice times for me, for us, because it was a bit raw. You have to put those moments aside, convince yourself you are doing it for the character, for the film.
Also, we based a lot of the film on A Streetcar Named Desire, so I watched that a lot. The domestic situation was similar, Brando’s wild animal performance; Lee told me to watch that a lot. Years later, the reviewer in The Chicago Times, called me ‘The Maori Stanley Kowalski’. And I was like, ‘Yes, this guy’s got it!’ (Ed. - Reviewer Roger Ebert called Morrison's performance "as elemental, charismatic and brutal as a young Marlon Brando")

Were you prepared for what Rena Owen brought to the role of Beth?

No one could have played Beth other than Rena. All the other actors, me included, had to lift our game to match this woman. She was just so powerful, her well was so deep, her energy source and emotion that she could draw upon. She could be a little bit, you know…she had an edge about her, that kept you on edge as well. 

You were carrying a major film in your first starring role. The physical nature of the role aside, was it a tough shoot?

Rena had concerns about me, just as the producers had their concerns about me, which I could feel. They were waiting for me to drop the ball.  It was a painful lesson, learning to believe in myself. I wasn’t getting the support I wanted going into this film. They were nervous and I could feel that nervousness. They weren’t giving me the things I needed as an actor so I just went for it myself, doing the work as best as I knew how. I heard that stuff was happening behind the scenes, stuff like ‘What was I doing in that role?’ Rena had a few words to say, I know. So I just took it all on board and used it in the role. When the cameras started rolling, I just said to myself, ‘All right, let’s go.’

Were you in any way prepared for the impact the film would have globally?

We didn’t realise what we had made. We never anticipated anything.  We had a cast and crew screening early on and it was a very solemn, very quiet experience. We all went back to one of the cafes that was nearby and everyone was silent. I knew then that if this film was affecting us like this, all the people who were there making it, then I knew it was going to affect a whole lot of people. We played a packed theatre at Sundance and I knew it was packed because just after the film started, a bloke came in and sat in the aisle right next to me, stayed there for the whole film. When the lights came up it was Robert Redford.   

The Hollywood scene beckoned and you got some pretty high-profile gigs…

I took Barb Wire because it was Casablanca! I don’t know how I didn’t win an Oscar. Pamela Anderson (pictured, right; with her co-star) was Ingrid Bergman and I was Humphrey Bogart. That’s how I was playing it (laughs). Then Speed 2 and Six Days Seven Nights. I had an agent who’d bring me out to Hollywood, which I knew straight away was too crazy for me. I couldn’t relate to it. But I’d love going for there for two weeks, then I’d love going home again.

Perhaps craziest of all was your part in the madness that was John Frankenheimer’s The Island of Dr Moreau…

We get there for one of Brando’s first scenes, just as David Thewlis’ character arrives on the island. Brando starts going, ‘Look at all my children, look at what the French nuclear bombs have created’. He starts blaming our look on French testing, which has nothing to do with the script. He just started making up his own lines. The director starts mumbling, ‘Uh, cut, cut please’ and he starts talking to Marlon, who politely says, ‘Ok, John, let me try another take.’ Then he’d make up something else out of the blue!
And poor Richard Stanley, he got sacked from his own film. After two weeks, he had no dailies to show New Line; he should have just shot the rain and sent that to them, told them ‘We can’t shoot much else.’ Poor guy had been working on this script for seven, eight years, had got Brando involved, but that’s the nature of the business I guess.
I actually got in a lot of trouble because my agent had double-booked me and the shoot went on and on. We were meant to be done in three months and it went on for months, all the time I was putting on this make-up then sitting around on-set and doing nothing. So I just left. I bought a ticket and just flew home. And I got home and there was a lawyer in my driveway with a lawsuit! I had to fly back in a hurry. Those were the days. (pictured, left; Morrison in full make-up on the film's set). 

Did you actively seek out the role of Jango Fett in The Phantom Menace?

Well, I didn’t know too much about all that Star Wars stuff. I just saw it as a great opportunity to work in Sydney, because it was all shot at Fox Studios. I spoke to George Lucas’ casting agent, just a little chat with the video camera on me, very cordial. I’d never had an audition like it. Then I got the phone call, ‘We’d love you to play Jango Fett.’ I remember jumping out of my chair and yelling, then I said ‘Who’s Jango Fett?’ (laughs) I got the videos to see who this Boba Fett fellow was, and here’s hardly in them, though he had already become iconic by then. So I was, ‘Alright, I’m in.’ I remember they had the most amazing caterer, a New Zealander. We had great lunches on that film. (pictured, right; Morrison in full costume with George Lucas)

The Hollywood roles continue to come your way, most recently in Green Lantern…

I swore I’d never do another make-up character, but there you go! That was shot in New Orleans, very nice place, and it was a big make-up job. It can get very claustrophobic and very hot and sticky in that stuff. I got that because I’d worked with the director Martin Campbell on Vertical Limit and had that connection. He just called me up and said, ‘You’d make a great Abin Sur’. I could see (the production) was having their own set of problems, too. The shooting schedule and then the conversion to 3D, a whole set of deadlines to meet. I think the budget just went way out of control. And I was hoping to do another one because they were going to focus on my character!

Finally, how do you feel the New Zealand industry is travelling at present?

Our industry has been quite flat. There is a great void between work on Shortland Street and work on The Hobbit. Vast time and space, the Cosmos, that’s the New Zealand film industry. I was at the Maoriland Film Festival in Otaki last week (pictured, right; Morrison with attending US director, Blackhorse Lowe) and I spoke to a fine young filmmaker and he said that he would have to go and work now for five years to pay off his little film! That is how tough it is for these passionate, talented young filmmakers. But that’s just how Peter Jackson started and now he’s a mogul! I was with Himiona Grace just last week, whose a great guy and just got out there on the road and made his film, The Pa Boys, which is wonderful. That’s what it takes.

Bold new ventures from the likes of Robin Wright, Nicholas Cage and Tom Hardy mingle seamlessly with the latest in socio-political commentary and underground edginess at Revelation 2014, as the west coast film festival kicks off its 17th year with a staggering 116 film screening schedule.

Scattered throughout the 10-day event are works that suggest cinema’s A-list stars are growing increasingly frustrated with Hollywood’s reliance upon comic properties and effects-heavy tentpoles. Several works featured at Revelations indicate a return to the indie film heyday, when a wave of offbeat works emerged in the wake of Tarantino’s game-changer, Pulp Fiction, many bankrolled by name players.

Launching the event on July 3 at Perth’s arthouse cinema mecca, the Luna, will be Jonathon Glazer’s hypnotic earth-bound sci-fi drama, Under the Skin. Starring Scarlett Johansson (pictured, right) in a mesmerising turn as a predatory alien scouring the Scottish countryside for men to consume, the film is a challenging sensory and intellectual vision from the director many are positioning as the rightful heir to Kubrick’s legacy.

Other marquee names that are sure to pique interest include Gia Coppola’s Palo Alto, featuring Emma Roberts, Val Kilmer and James Franco (upon whose 2010 short stories the coming-of-age drama is based); David Gordon Green’s Joe, with Nicholas Cage garnering serious awards buzz in the title role; Cold in July, which saw director Jim Mickle honoured with a Cannes Director’s Fortnight slot and stars Sam Shephard, Don Johnson and ‘Dexter’ star Michael C Hall; Steven Knight’s psycho-drama Locke, starring Tom Hardy; and, Ari Folman’s follow-up to Waltz with Bashir, the trippy meta-heavy The Congress (pictured, top), starring Robin Wright.

Perhaps no bigger personality will grace Revelation screens than the original Mr Sulu himself, George Takei, the subject of Jennifer M Kroot’s endearing and incisive bio, To Be Takei. Though certainly the highest-profile factual film in the 2014 schedule, the 19 other docos slated will just assuredly engage and, occasionally, enrage audiences, amongst them John Maloof and Charlie Siskel’s Finding Vivian Maier; Hilla Medalia and Shosh Shlam’s study into internet addiction, Web Junkie; Toby Amies intimate character study, The Man Whose Mind Exploded; Pan Nalin’s religious epic, Faith Connections; and, Daniel T Skaggs’ tag-along railroad expose, Freeload.

The very best in international cinema is represented by David Wnendt’s body-image German blockbuster Wetlands, based upon Charlotte Roche’s corporeal-obsessed coming-of-age tale. The film’s graphic, often humourous depiction of a young woman (the adorable and fearless Carla Juri) and how she embraces the sights, smells and tastes of her blossoming womanhood guarantees to both shock and entertain the festival crowd. Other countries earning a prized Revelation showing include Canada (Matthew Kowalchuk’s pitch-black ‘anti-buddy’ comedy, Lawrence and Holloman; pictured, right), New Zealand (Anthony Powell’s breathtaking documentary, Antarctica: A Year on Ice), Finland (the bleak naturalism of Prijo Honcasalo’s Concrete Night), Kosovo (Lendita Zeqiraj’s short Ballkoni) and Iraq (Nesma’s Birds, a fascinating glimpse of the country from the female perspective from directors Najwan Ali and Medoo Ali). The haunting, sparse uneasiness of Lucia Puenzo’s Wakaldo (The German Doctor) highlights the benefits of the co-production, bringing together creative elements from the industries of Argentina, France, Norway and Spain.

Returning after a hugely successful run at the 2013 festival is a sidebar dedicated to the cinema of Iran, one of the global community’s most impassioned filmmaking territories. Six features will screen, including Rouholla Hejazi’s The Wedlock, Payman Maadi’s Snow on Pines and Bahman Ghobadi’s APSA winning Rhino Season. A retrospective special event will be a rare screening of Bahram Beyza’s iconic 1972 work Downpour, having been digitally restored with the support of Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Foundation.

Revelation's reputation as a supporter of home-grown film culture continues in 2014 with the program strand Get Your Shorts On! (showcasing Western Australia’s finest short film productions), three of the four films in the genre showcase Slipstream Quartet (including Joshua Tanner’s The Landing, direct from the Fantaspoa Film Festival where it scored the Best International Live Action Short award; pictured, right) and two features - the world premiere of Samantha Rebillet’s The Last Goodbye and Jason Sweeney’s bracing arthouse odyssey, The Dead Speak Back.

In addition to the screenings, academic and film culture conferences will allow guest speakers and industry professionals to both network and share their experiences with the savvy Perth film buff. Primary amongst these events is RevCon, a screen sector conference that fosters passionate creative exchange on all matters of the film production cycle and that has grown into a series of must-attend sessions over the course of the festival.

Revelation Perth International Film Festival runs from July 3 to 13 at venues in and around Perth. For full details, include the complete program and ticket sales, visit the official website.

The first thing that strikes you about Josh Tanner is that he certainly looks like the current crop of young directors ruling the film world. Resembling a genetic level mash-up of JJ Abrams, Joss Wheedon and Wes Anderson, the Brisbane-based 26-year-old is also displaying the artistry and genre savvy of his doppelgangers; his fourth short film, The Landing, has spent the last 8 months sweeping award after award on the global festival circuit (most recently, the Best International Live Action Short at the prestigious Fantaspoa event). Ahead of his films sessions at Revelation 2014, Tanner spoke to SCREEN-SPACE about its origins, the filmmakers that inspire him and the complex production elements required to realise his unique vision... 

The Landing looks to be crafted by a filmmaker who imagined in detail each frame before stepping behind the camera. What were the narrative's origin?

As clichéd as it sounds, the concept of the film came out of a dream. I was in the middle of a barren field, painfully digging though dirt with my bare hands, eventually unearthing what appeared to be a buried spacecraft. A concept emerged involving the suppression of a UFO landing, not by the usual “government types”, but by the normal people that bear witness to it. This intriguing kernel unravelled into a story that my co-writer and producer Jade van der Lei and I got really excited about. The idea of delving into the cold-war 1950/60s era, which was a golden age of Science Fiction, was also an awfully exciting prospect. (Tanner, on set; pictured, right)

The pov the film shares with the boy can easily by classified as 'Spielbergian', but there are many other reference points. Who are the filmmakers and what are the films that inspire you and influenced The Landing?

There is an awful lot of Terrance Malick influence in there. Days of Heaven was a huge inspiration on visual style and location. Also Tree Of Life, (which provided) a structural and thematic point of view when it came to relationships with our parents and our connection to the past. There was definitely part of me that wondered what a Terrance Malick Sci-Fi film would look like, and hopefully we’ve achieved 1% of what that hypothetical film might be. I’d also be lying if I didn’t say that Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and ET as well as Kubrick’s 2001 weren’t also major influences on the film.

It is a film that shifts seamlessly between styles and genres; it is a memory piece, a political work, a domestic drama, a sci-fi vision. What themes and arcs most clearly define your directorial intent?

It sounds like a pun, but alienation really is the central theme of the film, and permeates the films relationships and broader concepts. It’s the alienation between a boy (Tom Usher; pictured, top) and his father (Henry Nixon; pictured, left), their ideologies, their innocence and maturity, and their past and present. The crash-landing of this visitor brings them both a dark but alluring adventure, and the potential fulfilment of their own personal obsessions, which ultimately stand only to distract them from their alienation from each other. But it is though this very encounter, that the characters are forced to come face to face with these obsessions, and make life-altering decisions for better, or worse.

Securing the likes of leading man David Roberts (The Square; Getting' Square) and behind-the-scenes contributors such as production designer Chris Cox (Acolytes; At World's End) and composer Guy Gross must have been significant moments. How did the pre-production progress?

We were so fortunate to work with an army of incredibly talented and creative artists. We were faced with the challenge of trying to make an Australian short film masquerade as a Hollywood feature in terms of aesthetic. Setting the film in rural America in the early 60’s was something concrete and necessary on a story level, so it was about relying on our dedicated team to figure out how we’d do that. The thing that crystallised everything was the discovery of 'the Barn' location (pictured, right), which is actually an abandoned set, originally built in Tamworth for Bryan Singer’s Superman Returns. This kind of Midwest American architecture does not exist in this country, so it became a real inspiration to our team to strive to make everything as authentic to the period and geography of the story as that barn was.

With all those elements in place, how did the shoot itself come together?

The shoot was a Frankenstein process, building sets, travelling out to barren farmland, and wheat fields and stitching it all together with the help of an expert team of visual effects artists. (They) deserve a great deal of recognition because while the films production design, cinematography (Tanner with DOP Jason Hargreaves, on set; pictured, left), score and sound design are all obvious in their merits, the visual effects are those of an almost thankless kind. Meaning they’re effects that you’re not supposed to believe are effects. The greatest lesson I learned as a director has been to remain faithful to the scale of your vision, and stick to your guns without being unreasonable. There were many times when funding bodies, or industry associates recommended that we change the films setting to Australia. Despite feeling the odds were heavily stacked against us, we were always resilient enough to look at the script and remind ourselves that it was worth the struggle to forge ahead in the way we believed was right for the story. 

And now The Landing is securing festival slots and winning awards around the world. How are you responding to the acclaim and the film's momentum?

The success of The Landing on the festival circuit has opened some fantastic career doorways for Jade and I. We are currently developing the longform expansion of the short film and a supernatural-thriller feature. But while we have definitely enjoyed this exposure to industry avenues, it is finding a receptive audience to enjoy your work that is the real prize of filmmaking. We honesty will never get bored of experiencing the audiences reactions to the twists and turns of the story. When you write something with the hope that an audience will feel a certain emotion, to see it happen on the other end is what it’s all about for us - that sharing of ideas and emotion.

THE LANDING screens at the Revelation Perth International Film Festival as part of the Slipstream Quartet sidebar. Further information and tickets can be found here.

Despite her films being warmly accessible works, Jennifer M Kroot favours the outsider's view of her America. In 2009's It Came From Kuchar, she offered a deeply affecting profile of the life and art of underground filmmaking giants, twins George and Mike Kuchar. Her latest, To Be Takei, is an off-kilter look inside the vast world and eccentric mind of Star Trek's iconic Mr Sulu, George Takei, a figure who has risen above TV bit-player status to help shape his adopted nation, despite decades of racial intolerance and homosexual persecution. With its Australian premiere at Perth's Revelation International Film Festival only a few weeks away, a forthright Kroot spoke with SCREEN-SPACE about the film that Variety lauded as "a unique blend of camp and conviction"...

Firstly, the most important question – are you a Trekkie? When did you first become aware of the unique human being that is Mr Takei?

Of course I'm a Trekkie! I have enjoyed the original Star Trek series for as long as I can remember. I watched the show in reruns after school and I've loved it ever since. Initially it was the glamorous outfits and campy lighting and sets that I enjoyed, and then later I understood how incredibly progressive the show was. It never actually occurred to me what George Takei's sexual orientation would be or that he would have been imprisoned in American internment camps, so when I found those things out much later I became fascinated with him. While To Be Takei is about much more than Star Trek, I do think it's important that as a filmmaker I have the inside understanding of what it means to be a Star Trek fan.

This man’s journey represents a kind of new American social paradigm. He has emerged from a country divided by race and social tension to become a leading advocate of tolerance and change. How did you settle on the balance between exploring ‘Takei the Man’ and ‘Takei the Icon’?

Because George is such a beloved pop culture icon and because George's personality allows him to laugh at himself, he has been able to reach a wide audience with his advocacy work, regardless if it's for racial or LGBT civil rights. He's the perfect spokesperson! The US is indeed divided, but almost everyone loves George Takei for these reasons. I'm certain that George is able to charm many conservatives with his message of tolerance and change. I think that George's fans, especially on Facebook, think that they actually know him like a friend, because of his graceful and funny style. So people think that they know Takei the icon as Takei the man. Does that make sense? (laughs) This film is a very personal look at George, his history, his relationship, his regrets, his dreams. But that is balanced with George Takei the icon and, at the age of 77, the reignited, reinvented rock star. I wanted to show how he isn't just a pop culture icon but also a civil rights rock star. 

Neither seems uncomfortable with attention, but were George and his spouse Brad (pictured, top) immediately open to the intrusion of a doco crew? Did they have any kind of final say on where your camera could go or influence on the final cut of the film?

George was more comfortable with cameras than his husband Brad. I think George actually forgot we were filming sometimes. Brad is more like most people, and usually did realize that the cameras were on, becoming self conscious at times.  They were not involved in the editorial process at all. It was very nerve-racking when they saw the finished film at Sundance, but they loved it and continue to be active in the promotion of the film.

Despite the very different personalities of your subjects, I recognised similarities between George Takei and The Kuchars (pictured, below; with the director). These are society outsiders, struggling against the accepted norm to express unique creativity in the face of preconceptions and prejudices. What does your study of these men say about you as a documentarian?

And both gay men named George with wonderful voices! (laughs) It is an interesting question. Both Georges channeled their outsider-ness into their art. George Kuchar is the underground version and George Takei the above ground/galactic version. Neither have a pretentious bone in their bodies, despite being widely acclaimed. They are both willing to laugh at themselves, which is a big part of why these Georges were and are so beloved.

It's funny, I don't meet a lot of people who enjoy both underground film and science fiction. I'm not sure why the two categories don't usually overlap.  For me, the campy qualities of Star Trek remind me of the camp style of the Kuchar brothers' early films, especially Sins of the Fleshapoids.  There's a misconception that camp or theatricality can't be deep or meaningful, but of course camp can be profound, (just as) realism can be banal. I think Star Trek and the Kuchar's films are both great examples of meaningful camp.

I love that both Georges are older people who are driven to do artwork or advocacy of some sort because of obsessions they've had since they were children. George Kuchar has passed away, but I thought of him when I was filming. I am definitely attracted to people who are able to channel personal obstacles into something positive. It's hard to do. I tend to think of myself as a negative person. I worry a lot. I get caught up in the endless horrors of organic existence, so I enjoy being around people who inspire me. It's especially hopeful when they are older people doing amazing things. 

Is it the film you envisioned it would be? Perhaps more importantly, is it a version of himself that George Takei envisioned when he agreed to take part?

It's more of a romantic comedy than I expected, but other than that it is the film I envisioned.  I didn't know George and Brad prior to filming, so I didn't envision their unique relationship dynamics. That was an exciting discovery. I knew that the film would be dense and complex with many themes, just like George. I knew that I wanted to play with time, and try to create a nonlinear structure, so that we could flip easily from the present to various points in the past, like memories. I was able to interview everyone that I hoped from the original Star Trek cast to Howard Stern to the late Senator Daniel Inouye. I'm not sure if George envisioned what the finished film would look like. He saw my previous film, It Came From Kuchar, and he liked it and apparently trusted me.

To Be Takei will screen Sunday 6th and Saturday 12th of July at Revelation Perth International Film Festival. Full program information and tickets can be found at the official website.

Tom Skerritt has never sought A-list recognition, preferring projects that challenge and engage his craft. From early credits that would become counter-culture classics (M*A*S*H; Harold and Maude), works that encompass his maturation as a character actor (The Turning Point; Ice Castles; Steel Magnolias; Top Gun) to the accomplishments that continue to emerge after five decades on screen and stage, the Detroit native has an built an avid fan base and industry reputation the envy of many. Closing in on his 81^st birthday, the actor spoke to SCREEN-SPACE on July 4, a few hours before taking the stage at Melbourne’s Astor Theatre for a sold-out Q&A screening of his most iconic performance, as Captain Dallas, in Ridley Scott’s Alien…

“I was so lucky to be with a wonderful group of actors,” says Skerritt (pictured, below; Skerritt, far right, on-set with Sigourney Weaver, Harry Dean Stanton and Yaphet Kotto), who exhibits no tiredness despite jetting in from Los Angeles only hours before. He has spent a good part of 35 years recounting the production and phenomenon that is Alien, yet offers recollections with an engaging exuberance. “The film is based on the same principles as Hitchcock used, meaning that we all know that terror is out there but we are not quite sure where or what it is. You know something bad may happen if you turn the corner but you don’t quite know what it is,” he says. “Your mind really is the scariest thing you can confront.”

This visit represents a long overdue return to Australia for the actor, who followed Scott’s outer-space monster movie with A Dangerous Summer, a bushfire saga shot in New South Wales in late 1979. It is a largely forgotten work, not least by its leading man. “I recall the experience, sure, but I forgot the name of it. What’s it called?” Skerritt laughs. “I came here because I’d never been to Australia, it was a subject that I was interested in and, frankly, they were paying good money. But we were assured they were going to do rewrites, which I don’t believe ever happened, and some of it was just very ‘soap opera’.” Despite being produced by the great Hal McElroy and with a strong cast in place (“Wendy Hughes was such a wonderful person, as was James Mason,” Skerritt recalls), it proved to ultimately be less than the sum of its parts. “The producers had a lot of footage from a summer of terrible bushfires around Sydney so they thought, ‘Let’s make a movie out of that’,” says Skerritt with a laugh. “Which was fine, because you can start anywhere and make a good story out of it, but you’ve got to do the work.”

Twenty-five years prior, Skerritt arrived back home after military service and quickly became enamoured with the arts; a major in English studies led to a passion for writing, painting and photography. “Somewhere along the way I became very curious about the theatre from the point of view of a shy and self-conscious young man, just wondering how it might help me get out of this shell that I was in,” recalls the actor. “I wound up out in Los Angeles with a vision of being a film director. I did a lot of television back then but I really wanted to start directing and writing my own shows.” (pictured, left; Skerritt in NBC's The Virginian, 1964)

He hit Los Angeles just as the ‘Golden Age of Television’ was blossoming, and worked consistently. The behind-the-scenes talent and pace of production proved invaluable for the young actor. Skerritt recalls, “I worked with some extraordinary directors (which) helped me hugely as an actor and as a writer. Each skill works in unity with and affords a degree of sympathy for the other and learning and applying that means you can work on anything without letting your ego get in the way. Knowing what writers do, what directors do, what editors do, all that knowledge brings a richness to the work an actor does.”

One of those directors was Robert Altman, who warmed to the young actor’s eager, raw talent and attitude, guiding Skerritt through both career and life decisions. The friendship led to the break-out role of Capt ‘Duke’ Forrest, in a film that changed the Hollywood landscape, Altman’s Oscar-winning military satire, M*A*S*H. “He was my mentor and that is how I got the job,” Skerritt says. “I responded to his talent, of course, but also his philosophy about work and his approach to the business.” The set was a legendarily anarchic one, the suits of 20^th Century Fox clashing constantly with the anti-establishment production. Skerritt is still surprised by the hit that it became. “Oh, we had no way of knowing that it was going to be as extraordinary as it turned out to be,” he laughs.

M*A*S*H was also the first of Skerritt’s standout performances in ensemble pieces; he is at his very best in roles that draw the best from others – Fuzz (1972; opposite Burt Reynolds, Raquel Welch and Jack Weston); The Devil’s Rain (1975; with Ernest Borgnine, Eddie Albert and Ida Lupino); The Turning Point (1977;co-starring Anne Bancroft, Shirley Maclaine and Mikhail Baryshnikov); Alien, of course (1979); Top Gun (1986; pictured, right, with Tom Cruise, Anthony Edwards and Michael Ironside); Steel Magnolias (1989; with Sally Field, Julia Roberts and Maclaine again); and, his greatest TV success, Picket Fences, for which he won a Lead Actor Emmy.

“I respond best to actors who, like me, don’t take it all too seriously and don’t try to show-off,” he offers, when asked to define his philosophy on acting. “I learnt very early on from the likes of Bob Altman and Hal Ashby that the great directors make the filming experience a creative effort. Plant a seed inside the actor, ask them to grow and develop their character, show them a level of trust with the script. Actors who really have a talent will embrace the challenge to grow.”

With the wealth of debate on key issues and the availability of broadcast quality technology, the 'enviromental documentary' has become a ubiquitous genre. To rise above the new wave of 'message movies' takes keen insight, a fearlessness in one's filmmaking and a commitment for the long term. Director Jeff Canin is at the forefront of green-themed 'advocacy cinema'; his works with Cathy Henkel, most notably 2008's The Burning Season, have been recognised internationally. His first solo directorial effort, 2 Degrees, realeased under the banner of his recently-formed company Green Turtle Films, tackles the injustices brought upon the planet by world leaders at the Copenhagen 2013 Climate Change Conference as well as one small township's brave effort to tackle the issue of global warming. Ahead of a screening of his film at Sydney's Chauvel Cinema on August 20, Canin (pictured, below; with DOP, Damian Beebe, in the South Australian hinterland) spoke with SCREEN-SPACE about the all-consuming passion that the environmental documentary demands...    

What were the motivating forces that inspired the 2 Degrees film and intiative?

My previous film, The Burning Season, ended at the Climate Change Conference in Bali in 2007. I was struck by the enormity of what governments were trying to achieve and fascinated by the machinations of the whole process.  Machiavelli would have had a field day. I've always been motivated by the desire to make a difference, and felt it was important to follow the negotiations until the meeting in Copenhagen, which was supposed to produce a legally binding agreement for significant cuts in carbon emissions. The working title was ‘The Road to Copenhagen’. But all through 2009, the mantra repeated over and over was ‘2 degrees’ and how vital it was to keep global temperature rises to below 2 degrees. Yet even this was controversial, because the small island states believe that any rise above 1.5 degrees is the kiss of death. But the industrialized countries believe that they can survive a rise of 2 degrees, and economically, anything below this will be too difficult and expensive. So the title of the film is also somewhat sardonic.  

What were your goals heading into production?

My goal was to make the highly convoluted United Nations process accessible for the general public. And through our interesting characters, inspire them to look at their own lives and ways they could reduce their own personal carbon emissions.  

The toughest lines to walk in an advocacy piece are between the message-based aims and what makes it ‘entertaining’. What were the ‘dos and don’ts’ you adhered to provide that balance in 2 Degrees?

We knew that a whole series of talking heads would kill the film. But how else do you explain the incredible complexity of what was going on? So we tried to interview people on the run, in situ as it were, rather than formal sit down interviews. We also tried to interview as many women as we could, as it was mostly men in suits. And to show the colour of where we were, especially outside the negotiations, in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Ecuador, for instance. Showing footage of forest dwellers and their struggle to survive, especially in the Congo (pictured, right).  Those images humanize and give a face to the issue.

The lack of action at Copenhagen 2013 in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence made for some gut-wrenching scenes; experts who base their entire lives substantiating truths were clearly shaken when the inaction of our leaders became evident. What was the experience of being there like?

It was your classic multi car pile up on a freeway, but in ultra slow motion. We watched the delegates struggling through this tortuous process, often negotiating right through the night, desperate to produce an outcome that was more than cosmetic and result in real emission reductions (pictured, left; the press corps assembled in Copenhagen). And to watch in complete disbelief as the world leaders arrive and spend two days making posturing speeches purely for the TV audiences back home, instead of sitting down to iron out the remaining issues. It was unbelievably frustrating, and was only tempered by how exhausted we all were.  

2 Degrees is a film of two distinct halves - the Copenhagen 2013 coverage and then the intimacy of the Port Augusta scenes. How did you settle on the structure of the film?

We tried to weave the two stories together from the beginning, but it just didn't work. When it's so complicated, you have to keep it flowing or people lose track.  We needed the Port Augusta story to provide the inspiration and counter the depressing saga of Copenhagen. So we set up the problem: the almost insurmountable task of getting 194 countries to agree on anything substantial. Then we contrast that with communities taking action and not waiting for world leaders to act. (Politicians) are not leaders, they are followers, and will not do anything that is an electoral risk. They will always follow behind the public, which is why we need to take action first and pressure our governments to follow. 

The strong central figure of Port Augusta mayor Joy Baluch (pictured, below) paints a crucial picture of the passion needed to fight for this, for any, cause. How would you best describe both her contribution to the film and being in her company during filming?

Joy's contribution to the film was immense. She is such a great character, and also because of her impact on us. Her courage was extraordinary. She was dying of cancer and in immense pain all the time we were filming her, but you would never know it from the footage.  We'd arrive to film and she would be in agony, but she wouldn't hear of delaying the shoot. "I'm in pain whether I'm in bed or doing the filming, so let's do it," she’d say. She was willing to do whatever she could to help the film come to life. It was so hard to see, yet we were so moved by her courage and determination to fight to the end. It was very humbling, and constantly put things into perspective. People find her incredibly inspiring, and I feel very lucky to have met her.

Are you ever concerned that in the future 2 Degrees will become a kind of ‘I told you so’ document, used to chart the terrible decline of our planet? Or is their still time for significant change?

I'm not a climate scientist so I don't know if it’s too late. I'm not sure anyone does. But in case it's not, we have to do everything we can to reduce our own personal carbon emissions, and pressure our governments to do more. And vote in governments that are going to take action, instead of kowtowing to the fossil fuel industries and letting them off the hook. The ‘big buck’ actions need to come from governments: banning all future coal exploration, phasing out existing coal mines, rapidly developing of solar thermal power and other renewable energy sources. Setting emission reduction targets that match what the science demands. We have to stop electing leaders like Tony Abbott who thinks, in his words, "climate change is crap.” It's extremely difficult to get anything significant through the UN process, when any one country can derail the negotiations. But having Governments there like the current Australian one guarantees the top down UN led process will fail. 

Catch a glimpse of the 2 DEGREES movie from Green Turtle Films on Vimeo.

The 2014 Sydney Underground Film Festival (SUFF) enters its 8^th year topped and tailed by two of international cinemas most buzzed-about films, ensuring the event, overseen by the dedicated duo of Stefan Popescu and Katherine Berger, further strengthens its reputation as a genre festival of global standing.

Opening the event on September 4 is New Zealand horror comedy Housebound, the directorial debut of Gerard Johnstone and coming to SUFF from a triumphant South-by-Southwest screening. It represents the second time this year that the Kiwi film community has snared a coveted festival slot across the ditch; in June, the vampire mockumentary What We Do In The Shadows closed out the Sydney Film Festival.

The centrepiece of the Closing Night festivities on September 7 will be the German adaptation of Charlotte Roache’s  coming-of-sexuality bestseller, Wetlands (Feuchtgebiete), from fearless filmmaker David Wnendt (Combat Girls, 2011). Carla Juri (pictured, right) stars as Helen, Roache’s teenage protagonist obsessed with the sights, sounds and smells of her changing body. Wnendt was drawn to the project after a campaign pleaded that the novel never be made into a film due to its graphic nature; thumbing his nose at puritanical convention, the director opens his film with excerpts from the letter that kickstarted the movement.

Ten Australian Premieres highlight one of the strongest SUFF line-ups in recent memory. These include Leah Meyerhoff’s dark, fantastical spin on adolescent romance, I Believe in Unicorns, which scored the Grand Jury honours at this years Atlanta Film Festival; the highly-anticipated Amazonian cannibal epic, The Green Inferno, from horror maestro, Eli Roth; Zack Parker’s prickly pregnancy thriller, Proxy, starring Joe Swanberg and Alexia Rasmussen (pictured, top); the bleak, bare-bones misfit romantic odyssey Shadow Zombie, from filmmaker Jorge Torres-Torres; Richard Bates Jr, whose debut effort Excision wowed Sydney Film Festival audiences in 2012, returns with his sophomore effort, Suburban Gothic; and, Japanese ‘Guru of Gore’ Sion Sono’s Why Don’t You Play in Hell?, a relentlessly energetic, fiercely original assault on the senses from the director of the SUFF 2011 entrant, Guilty of Romance.

No more defining figure captured the complex purity of the underground cultural movement than William S Burroughs. SUFF, in conjunction with scholar and longtime supporter of the Festival, Jack Sargeant, will honour the great man with the Special Event screening of Andre Perkowski’s Nova Express, a radical, confrontational vision based upon the Burrough’s sci-fi novel of the same name.

Fifteen factual films make up the Feature Documentary strand of the program, including several hitting our shores for the first time. The bizarre, blood-soaked career of the ultimate shock-rocker is examined in the Canadian pic, Super Duper Alice Cooper, from co-directors Sam Dunn, Reginald Harkema and Scot McFadyen; Matt Wolf traces the evolution of the first century of youth culture in his demographic defining work, Teenage; Phil Healy’s and JB Sapienza’s character study ode to American oddness, My Name is Jonah (pictured, right); and, direct from its world premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival, Michael Dahlstrom’s meditative, unforgettable study of food industry practices, The Animal Condition.

The craft of filmmaking and the warped personalities that populate the fringes of our cinema landscape feature in several SUFF sessions. The enigmatic visionary that is director Leos Carax (Holy Motors; The Lovers on The Bridge; Pola X) is afforded his own mesmerising semi-hagiographic study in Tessa Louise-Salome’s Mr X; having wowed audiences in across the world, Andrew Leavold brings to Sydney his obsessive study of The Philippines’ biggest, smallest film star in The Search for Weng Weng; and, Allison Berg and Frank Kerauden study the warped, wonderful life of John Wojtowicz, the real-life anti-hero and hedonistic icon whose short career as a bank robber inspired the classic film, Dog Day Afternoon.  

The vibrant global short film community always welcomes the annual SUFF gathering, which provides rare big-screen sessions for films that are often on the very edge of the experimental and avant-garde. Six different short film strands are scheduled this year, with works from the US (including the World Premiere Paul Turano’s Toward the Flame); Sweden (Sara Koppel’s provocatively-titled Little Vulvah & Her Clitoral Awareness; pictured, right); Brazil (the World Premiere of Julia Portella and Melina Schleder’s Damn You, Vougue); Canada (Veronica Verkley’s The Working Cat’s Guide to The Klondike); and, Austria (the first Australian screening for Markus Wimberger’s Bloody Monster).

And continuing an alliance established several festivals ago, SUFF will screen a selection of works from the Fetisch Film Festival, which unspools annually in the German city of Kiel and presents works of confronting eroticism. This year, the strand presents Jan Soldat’s BDSM-themed A Weekend in Germany; Canadian Matthew Saliba’s humiliation-vs-true-love drama, Eroticide; and, Loops, an episodic Danish work from Steen Schapiro which poses the question, ‘Why do we separate daily life and sexual needs?’

The 2014 Sydney Underground Film Festival runs Thursday September 4 to Sunday September 7 at The Factory Theatre, Marrickville. Full details can be found at the official website here.

Given the bracing originality and unique visions of the films programmed, there is a sweet irony to the almost clichéd progression of the Possible Worlds Film Festival. The annual celebration of offbeat US and Canadian works began as a small, passionate project for Matthieu Ravier and his non-profit cultural collective, The Festivalists; nine years later, it is one of the key film events on the Australian social calendar. In 2014, an even split of nine US titles and nine Canadian features means audiences are spoiled for choice. To help your decision-making, here are the five standout films that SCREEN-SPACE rank as Possible World’s ‘must-see’ movies…  

YOUNG ONES (Dir: Jake Paltrow; 100 mins; pictured, above) 
What’s it about? Water is to director Jake Paltrow’s Young Ones as ‘guzzoline’ is to George Miller’s Mad Max. A landowner living in the dustbowl that was once civilization must protect his family from the ruthless drifters of the desert planet. But could the ultimate threat come from within the very walls of his own home?
Why should I see it? ‘Post-apocalyptic Western’ is reason enough; the striking trailer, another. An indie-sector dream cast (Michael Shannon, Elle Fanning, Nicholas Hoult and Australian Kodi Smit-McPhee) working dark and dusty with such grand themes of survival, morality and desire, perched on the edge of a new, dangerous world landscape.

TRIPTYCH (TRIPTYQUE; Dirs: Robert Lepage and Pedro Pires; 94 mins)
What’s it about? Robert Lepage’ theatrical head-scratcher Lipsynch become a live venue sensation (it played to sellout crowds at the 2009 Sydney Festival). Interweaving three vivid inner-city narratives – the bookseller, the jazz singer, the neurologist – into a compelling, confounding whole proved revelatory theatre. The celebrated Lepage, with co-director Pedro Pires, now brings his work to the screen, both honouring its stage roots while embracing, with new vigour, the technologies of the new canvas.
Why should I see it? Because I have absolutely no idea what to expect! Having earned an Ecumenical Jury Special Mention at Berlin’s Panorama strand, it is clear that this deeply personal vision will be a challenging experience. Lepage has the astonishing creative credentials to make this something special…

WHEN JEWS WERE FUNNY (Dir: Alan Zweig; 89 mins)
What’s it about? Documentarian Alan Zweig takes a typically idiosyncratic stab at understanding how the cultural history of the Jewish people fuels the hilarious acts and inspirational neuroses of some of the greatest comedians of all time.
Why should I see it? Both the old (Rodney Dangerfield, Henny Youngman, Jackie Mason) and the young (Howie Mandel, Marc Maron, Andy Kindler) are called upon to analyse the heritage that has helped them form their acts. It is not often that the words ‘exhaustively researched’ and ‘hilariously funny’ can be used to describe the same movie.

OUR MAN IN TEHRAN (Dirs: Drew Taylor and Larry Weinstein; 85 mins)
What’s it about? Ken Taylor was the Canadian Embassy chief played by Victor Garber in Ben Affleck’s Oscar winner, Argo. A great film, no argument, but littered with dramatic licence. In this Canadian doco, the real Taylor sets the story straight about his role and the compassionate view his country took when they hid the six American diplomats at the height of the Iranian Hostage Crisis in 1979.
Why should I see it? For all the tweeking of facts that Affleck indulged in to make for compelling cinema, the true drama is in the feats of these very real people. Seeing their pure ordinariness and now knowing the heroes they became makes for a potent film experience. Won the Newport Beach Film Festival 2014 Outstanding Documentary trophy.

THE AUCTION (LE DEMANTELEMENT; Dir: Sebastian Pilote; 111 mins)
What’s it about? Bouchard & Sons is one of the oldest traditional lamb farms in rural Canada. But the proprietor Gaby (Gabriel Arcand), with no heir to pass the farm to and a daughter in dire financial need, is faced with the closure of his family business. Legacy, memory and the strength of tradition in a world of heartless progress are all examined in Sebastian Pilote’s moving drama
Why should I see it? Shot on 35mm film stock, the visual richness of the rustic, rural setting is reason enough; DOP Michel La Veaux won the Quebec industry Jutra Award for his lensing. A elegant, achingly melancholy script from director Pilote (which earned him the Cannes Film Festival SACD honour) and the Best Actor Genie Award for Gabriel Arcand certainly sweeten the deal.

The 2014 Possible Worlds US and Canadian Film Festival screen September 7-17 in Sydney with Perth and Canberra seasons to follow. For full details visit the official website.

In her two decades as one of French cinema’s most influential producers, Anne-Dominique Toussaint has guided to international glory such award winners as Respiro (2002), Caramel (2007), The Hedgehog (2009), The French Kissers (2009), Where Do We Go Now? (2011) and Bicycling with Moliere (2013). While in Melbourne for the MIFF season of her latest production, Jacky and The Kingdom of Women, Toussaint (pictured, below) told SCREEN-SPACE that her latest project explores the multi-faceted creativity of the great film artisans…

“I’ve been a producer for 24 years now and have produced a lot of films but I felt it was time for a new type of challenge,” said Toussaint, a woman whose elegant, sophisticated presence draws many admiring glances during our chat in Melbourne’s Sofitel motel. “I have opened an art gallery in Paris called Galerie Cinema. We will be displaying artistic works but only those from filmmakers or other people who have a direct link to cinema.”

Having worked with so many of the talents synonymous with European cinema, it seemed a natural progression for the producer to find an outlet for the full scope and scale of her colleague’s visions. “There are so many people in the world of film who are creative in so many ways, such as photography or sketching or painting, so to discover this side of these talented people is so gratifying and so much fun,” Toussaint says.

Her latest curation will launch in September with a display of photographic art from French director Cedric Klapisch (L’Auberge Espagnole, 2002; Russian Dolls, 2005; Paris, 2008; Chinese Puzzle, 2013). After a two month run, Galerie Cinema will present a collection of Parisian-themed works from the American actor James Franco (pictured, right). Says Toussaint, “It is a very different creativity to what I am used to, the production and creation of films, but it is also the same thing, helping to bring the visions of talented people to an audience.”

Although the end result may be hung on a wall or stand on the gallery floor, Toussaint is determined to keep the link to her filmic roots intact. “It is still about cinema,” she says. “For me, it will always be about the world of cinema, but it is another type of relationship with the world of film.”

The unique endeavour is situated at 26 rue Saint-Claude (pictured, left) in the French capital’s artistic 3^rd arrondissement. The exhibition space has a long history with the display of creativity in many forms; until recently, it housed the renowned Eric Mircher Gallery as well as operating as a creative community hub known as ‘sometimeStudio’.

As is the case with all the most successful film producers, Anne-Dominique Toussaint does not lack for ambitious vision. Should the Paris location prove successful, expect a Galerie Cinema near you. Says the producer, “It is my dream to open up a Galerie Cinema in cities all over the world, in New York, and maybe here in Melbourne, and one in Beirut, a city that I love.” 

Full details of the exhibition schedule for Galeries Cinema can be found on their Facebook page here.

Much is made of the notion that it must be the current generation of young people who will start to rebuild the planet, righting the wrongs of those before them. No one embodies the spirit of global change more than Madison Stewart, currently travelling the world with her documentary Shark Girl, a moving account of her life amongst the ocean’s alpha predators and a blistering indictment of the brutal exploitation they suffer. Her actions and words are generating a groundswell of global support; just don’t call her and activist…

“I hate being called an activist,” the 20 year-old Queenslander says with a laugh from New York City, where she has slotted in a few minutes to chat with SCREEN-SPACE as part of a hectic US media schedule. “People hear that term and think that what we do is part of some ultra-radical green agenda, when the truth is I am just a normal Australian person who loves our oceans. I can’t just sit down and let injustice occur.”

Shark Girl traces Stewart’s deep bond with the ocean, from her childhood living on the family boat on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef to her acceptance of the role as global ambassador for shark conservation. “I spent more time growing up in the ocean with sharks than I ever did with people, so to me they are just such a normal, everyday part of my life,” she recalls. The film features footage shot by her father of a pre-teen Madison swimming with schools of reef sharks and her first dive amongst Tiger sharks. “I couldn’t imagine growing up without them.”

Offering an international perspective with footage from Mexico, Palau and The Bahamas, the film balances Stewart’s personal journey with insights into the worldwide slaughter and trading of sharks. At times, the footage is harrowing and the truths behind fishing industry claims remarkably affecting. “The laws pertaining to our oceans are allowing destruction and failing to protect the protected species,” she says, hoping that education will inspire action. “Reaction from the public is now required, the kind of reaction that I have been having for so long that it has become a normal part of my life. As long as the injustices keep occurring, we have to fight back.”

Although the filming duties on Shark Girl went to co-directors Gisela Kaufman and Carsten Olt (pictured, right), Stewart is an accomplished underwater photographer with several documentary shorts to her credit. The latest is Obstruction is Justice, compiled from footage while on location in Western Australia to cover the introduction of the controversial shark culling policy. Says Stewart, “What is happening in Western Australia is an unfair, misguided gross injustice. The culling will never stop shark attacks and any shark expert will tell you that. To see these amazing animals, these beautiful Tiger Sharks, being so randomly killed is such a tragic thing.”

The footage captures fisheries officers breaching ocean-going rules and threatening the lives of Stewart and her crew. The stakes were clearly high for both parties. “It took a rather harsh turn,” she acknowledges. “My decision to film sharks in WA turned into this much bigger thing, a movement (that) was threatened with court action. They tried to take our footage from us, just because we wanted to film what the government was doing to the shark population.” But the fierceness of the fight against the state government’s policy only succeeded in highlighting her presence and the callousness of the cull. “Taking a stance like that is becoming a necessity for the everyday person and there were a lot of everyday people who became involved for the first time while we were in WA,” she says, proudly.

Madison Stewart understands that the inherent fear/thrill response human beings have towards sharks will be hard to alter. “Sharks are one of those few animals that we have not established control over. I can understand how that can be scary for people,” she admits. It is an easily exploited avenue for a modern media seeking a fresh sensationalistic angle. “(They) still love a good shark attack story and still exploit the images created by Jaws. That kind of media is just not realistic.”

What the young documentary maker does hope to achieve with her films and growing profile is a more balanced social acceptance of the ocean’s greatest predators. “I don’t need people to love sharks or not be scared of them,” she says, “I just need to people to respect them.”

Shark Girl is available on DVD at The ABC Shop in Australia and is currently screening on the Smithsonian Channel in the US.

It all began with For Y’ur Height Only, a no-budget Filipino Bond rip-off starring an 83cm tall Primordial dwarf named Weng Weng. Cult movie aficionado and guerilla filmmaker Andrew Leavold recalls happening across an “8th generation VHS tape of the film in the early Nineties”, a fateful event from which an obsession grew, leading Leavold deep into the Pinoy film sector to unearth the truth behind the legend that was Weng Weng. Seven years in the making, his documentary The Search for Weng Weng chronicles the journey, from the bewildered faces of those who have no idea who Weng Weng was to the palaces of Imelda Marcos to the dark truths about the diminutive actor’s brief stardom. Ahead of his films’ screening at the Sydney Underground Film Festival, Leavold chatted with SCREEN-SPACE about the extraordinary project… 

How many forms did the film take over the long course of the production’s history?

When I started shooting in 2006, I had absolutely no idea how the narrative would take shape. 
I was stumbling around in the dark trying to piece something together. Initially I kept running into brick walls 
and suspected that the "search" part would end up just that: a collision into a wall of silence, indifference or forgotten memories.
 It was only on the second trip to Manila in February 2007 that Weng Weng's story began to take form.
 His personal details, childhood, his rise to fame and subsequent betrayal by his producer/manager/adoptive parent figures. I knew that I was sitting on a dynamite story 
but didn't have the detail, or the narrative frame, to piece it all together. That took another six years, right up to the end of editing, to nail properly. So you could say it's taken many shapes over the years, not least its morphing into Machete Maidens Unleashed for three years! I thanked (Machete Maidens… director) Mark Hartley for that at our MIFF screening. Machete Maidens freed up the film, (allowing us) to focus on the personal journey.

What is your take on the role played by Peter and Cora Caballes, the husband/wife team who controlled Weng Weng’s career? At best, they emerge as estranged parental figures; at worst, a film industry version of the freak show operator.

I desperately wanted Cora on camera, giving her side of the saga 
to give the documentary an even-handed focus. She issued me a challenge over the phone: come to California and talk to me face to face. So after two phone calls to arrange an interview, Daniel (Palisa, co-producer and co-writer) and I flew to the US 
and rang her answering machine every day with no response. To this date, I have received no replies to hundreds of emails.
Instead, we have the testimonies of several of her closest team members - the two directors for the Caballes' Liliw Productions, who both call them "Godmother" and "Godfather", who say some pretty damning things about their lack of care and financial culpability. Also, you hear Weng Weng's brother telling the family's side of things
 so personally, I think that speaks for itself.

When the home-video market exploded and action reined, every country had their enigmatic action hero. Was Weng Weng's success just a case of 'right place/right time' or did he somehow transcend the one-dimensional action hero figure he played?

In the Philippines and overseas, he was more of a novelty act that a bona fide action hero. His contemporaries and co-stars like Tony Ferrer, Lito Lapid, Ramon Zamora and Dante Varona would all enjoy 20+ year careers, (but) not Weng Weng. The peak of his fame would last less than a year, after years of playing sidekicks. The very fact that his novelty transcended the Philippine borders is very much a case of right time/right place, as it has everything to do with Imelda's film festival in January '82 
selling his film to the world (pictured, below: press clipping from Manila media). That fuelled an intense fascination with Weng Weng in the Philippines but again, for a few months at the most. 
Primordial dwarves have a very limited lifespan, usually no more than thirty years. You can also apply that analogy to Weng Weng's career
- short, intense, then POOF!
-
 within a very finite time frame, he's back in his old neighbourhood, forgotten and ailing fast.

Your film begins small (the room full of locals bemused at this big Aussie and his obsession) and ends on a very small but achingly intimate moment, yet tells a vast story about celebrity and the Pinoy industry in between. Was it at all hard to remain focused on the personal journey at the heart of the story?

Some have criticized us for including too much "big picture" stuff. I disagree, as context is very important in understanding Weng Weng's place in Filipino culture. And for not concentrating on Weng Weng himself, which is absurd. We do give as detailed a portrait as is humanly possible, given the fact that the subject has already passed, archives have next to no material about him, and those closest to him have fading memories. I think those facts alone qualifies our film as a remarkable piece of research. A few audience members wanted more of me 
and the "search"
 so really, you can't win (laughs).

I'm glad you raised that because the current trend for documentarians to put themselves in their films frustrates me, yet you find a beautiful balance between your story and obsessive search and the focus of that obsession. Is it a tough balancing act?

To be honest, I wanted less of me in the film 
but structuring the film as a detective story rather than simple bio was an important narrative device. 
I deliberately avoided placing myself in front of the camera as much as possible, preferring to have my voice behind the camera as a guide rather than indulging in ‘Michael Moore’ moments like placing my hand on the grave or placing a polaroid of Weng Weng on Cora's doorstep.
 So yeah, it is a serious balancing act. 
From what audiences tell us, the majority think we got it right.

You must be heartened by the international acceptance and festival profile the film and your journey is enjoying?

2014 has been the payoff 
for what feels like seven years in the wilderness, staring at the sun and yelling to an empty desert about a two foot nine James Bond! To travel with the film, to share it with an audience and receive instant feedback, 
it's a dream. 
I'm sure Weng Weng, wherever he is right now, is clapping his hands together with pure glee. We took him back to Cannes 
after 32 years
 and last week took him home to Baclaran. We screened the film to his relatives, neighbours and classmates outside the house in which he was born and died.
We fed the neighbourbood kids pizza and soft drink, then sat down with the adults with three bottles of brandy and got drunk with them! 
Seriously, you can't get more profound a moment than that. When the people who knew him best all say "good job,” it makes the assholes that doubt your sincerity pale into insignificance.

Finally, does this mean your obsession has run its course? The very moving narration you provide over those final frames and the local’s acceptance you just describe suggest a closure of sorts.

Not at all. The book comes next. I keep running into more players in the saga 
and besides, I don't have Cora on the record.
 I mean, I talked to one of his neighbours about the Santo Nino thing, and he claims he was healed by Weng Weng! 
There are still so many holes to fill in the story
 and then there's the bigger picture stuff to tell in more detail, so I think my fate has been sealed. The Philippines is truly my second home
 and it's all thanks to that two foot nine avatar of mine.

The Search for Weng Weng will screen at the Sydney Underground Film Festival on Sunday, September 7. Full details can be found at the event's website.

Despite offering up one of the most confronting film experiences of the MIFF 2014 program, director Michael Dahlstrom is a happy man. His documentary, The Animal Condition examines our complex relationship with the animals we exploit and had just played to packed audiences for its World Premiere when he chatted with SCREEN-SPACE about the unique narrative structure he employs and finding the balance between harrowing expose and hopeful advocacy filmmaking…

“We sold out both sessions, which was surprising and great,” says Dahlstrom (pictured, below), a NIDA graduate, on the final day of an extensive media schedule that has accompanied the premiere of his debut feature. Audience reaction was exactly what he had hoped for, a passionate chorus of opinions from those involved in both the trade and protection of livestock. Says the director, “It became a spirited Q-&-A debate afterwards, lead by an intensive farmer and a free range farmer and a vegan activist, as well as plenty of the vocal public.”

Shot over four years, The Animal Condition underwent extensive shifts in focus and tone before it became the expansive, insightful advocacy work it is today. What begins as an adventure about four angry, wide-eyed inner-city types (at one point, rescued baby chickens dance on a piano keyboard) soon becomes a multi-tiered examination of industrialized farming and the emotional issues inherent to animal exploitation.

“In the beginning, we were definitely making a very deliberate activist film,” says Dahlstorm, who appears on-screen alongside producers Ande Cunningham, Sarah-Jane McAllan (pictured, below) and Augusta Miller. “Initially, we weren’t going to film ourselves. But as we started arguing about different points, we realised it might be interesting to capture the decision-making process we were going through. You can clearly see the filmmaking style change and us change as individuals as the narrative develops.”

The four friends engage the services of a radical animal activist who helps them gain illegal access to a battery hen factory; the sad footage turns shocking when, during the course of shooting, the live export controversy erupted and smuggled film of barbaric slaughter practices surfaced (see footage here; viewer discretion advised).  “That footage was informing the wider population at the same time as it was informing us and our filming,” says Dahlstrom, who remained mindful that the horrible minutiae of slaughterhouse reality is not always the most effective tool an activist can employ. “If you show really extreme footage, then people will have a knee-jerk reaction and they will switch off or react with the own extreme views.”

“What we wanted to capture was the realities of intensive farming facilities, but also the transition of animal welfare issue from fringe activism to something that all of Australia was talking about,” he says, confirming that The Animal Condition was designed to preach beyond the converted. “The audience that we had in mind was certainly the Australian public. We wanted to create a time capsule of what happened in 2009 up until the end of live exports.”

Ultimately, Dahlstrom’s film impacts due to a very even-handed approach, ensuring all parties involved in modern farming practices have time to air their points-of-view. Corporate heads, political leaders and intensive farmers are given as strong a voice as the pro-animal liberationists and traditional farmers. The film captures a turning point for a country that has proudly boasted of the wealth it has attained by ‘riding on the sheep’s back’, i.e. exploiting the rich, natural world for economic gain.

“I think for us to grow as a country we have to be self-reflective,” says the director. “If having an international eye on us makes us conscious of what we are doing and the example we set as a population, and this film helps to shine that kind of spotlight on us, then that can only help us as a nation.”

Michael Dahlstrom will be in attendance when The Animal Condition screens at the Sydney Underground Film Festival un Sunday, September 7. Full details can be found at the event website here.

One of the great unanswered questions in recent Hollywood history has been, “Why doesn’t Catherine Keener do more lead roles?” Beloved for support turns that enhance everything and everyone around her (notably, Living in Oblivion, 1995; Being John Malkovich, 1999; The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Capote, both 2005; and, Synedoche New York, 2008), the 55 year-old actress takes on that rare central role in director Mark Jackson’s War Story, an intimate, painful account of a warzone photojournalist, Lee, left struggling with PTSD after witnessing the murder of her colleague while on assignment. Genuinely enthused about any chance to reconnect with Australia (“I was there for five months working on Where The Wild Things Are and it was a dream being there,”) the two-time Oscar nominee spoke with SCREEN-SPACE about one of the most psychologically challenging roles of her career…

Mark Jackson has been open about writing the script with you in mind for Lee. Were you immediately won over when you read it? What made the darkness of Lee and her plight so attractive to you?

Oh man, I didn’t quite realise how dark it was before I jumped into it (laughs). Sometimes I don’t realise quite what I’m getting into. I like the story and then we get into it and I start thinking, ‘Oh shit, I’ve got to be that beat-up person.’ Some characters creep up on you and that’s what happened with Lee. Sometimes you don’t want to go all in for a while, but you ultimately cross that line and admit to yourself ‘Ok, I have to do it.’

Mark has said that he cast the actress with H’wood’s warmest smile and most beautiful voice then made sure she did neither for 90 minutes. Did your exploration of Lee feel like a particularly new direction for you?

He said that (laughs)? Well, Lee comes from the same body and spirit as all the characters I’ve played, but they all feel different. Even if they appear to other people as the same, they are living a different story, a different life (pictured, right; Keener as Lee).

The war zone photojournalist makes for a fascinating film character but few films have tackled the PTSD effect. How deeply did you research both the frontline dynamic faced by photojournalists and the PTSD impact?

I was fortunate enough to hang out with journalists, one very generous and respected one in particular. I became a bit of a groupie at the LA Times in their photojournalism department, especially with the war photographers. From doing that, I just became more and more aware of the impact of PTSD on correspondents who cover violence. We are only just starting to crack open what that does to these people, that they are not just objective observers in the middle of it all. These are human beings who are doing something particularly noble who are not immune to the horrors they are witnessing. And that’s what they are doing – they are ‘bearing witness’ – and that takes its toll. Where does all that they witness go? One moment is documented and then released and then the next one comes, and then the next one. It is just a barrage of images that haunt us, the viewer, but then we can turn away. But for the photojournalist, it is never ending, just one after another, until it becomes impossible to process. At some point, they pay for that.

The key emotional element in the film is the deeply personal relationship between Lee and Hafsia. Tell me about working towards that intimacy with Hafsia Herzi (pictured, below).

I love her so much. It was very easy to establish intimacy with her because she is a very soulful, very beautiful actress. She was immediately committed and we found that we bonded from the very first day. We grew very fond of each and shared a real sense of caring for the story.

The setting and the plotting opens the door to commentary on foreign involvement issues, but the film foregoes any grand political statement in favour of a more personal, humanistic approach. Was politicising the narrative ever discussed in the context of Lee’s journey?

No, it was never Mark’s intention. I tried to ferret out certain realities, because that’s what we do as actors. We try to find these reality-based touchstones, but this was not that (film). I mean, it was sort of based upon the region of Italy that houses Libyan refugees and that was shown somewhat, so I made up a lot of stuff based on that. I made up a backstory for myself, just to help me figure out how Lee got to be where she is when the story starts. But our focus was on what happens after that.

The final moments suggest that it is Hafsia’s story that ultimately moves forward. Lee seems mired in her grief; even the camera leaves her behind. Is there hope for Lee? Is War Story a film that suggests there is no happy ending for some people?

I can see that, but I do think that Lee accomplished what she set out to do. She finished her journey, finished an aspect of her life that was connected to that war. Even if much of the life of a journalist is never ending, she was able to bring some small aspect of her pain to a point of closure. In my mind, Lee had been following the story of the refugees and I had projected so much onto her…I think she fulfilled a sort of mission, in the end. I think that’s why a lot of warzone journalists do what they do. It represents a kind of call-out, like being on some mission. My God, why the fuck else would they do it?

War Story is currently in limited release in US theatres and premieres on DVD in Australia on October 22 from Accent Film Entertainment.

Nadir Caselli will remember 2014 very fondly. Already a beloved TV actress, the 26 year-old Tuscan native has chosen her big screen roles with wisdom and purpose. She debuted in a crucial support part in Matteo Rovere’s Bad Girls (2008), followed by Gabrielle Muccino’s critical and commercial hit, Kiss Me Again (2010). Over the last 12 months, she has featured in two domestic blockbusters – Federico Mocia’s millennials rom-com, University: More Than Friends; and, Sydney Sibilia’s raucous drug-culture romp, I Can Quit Whenever I Want. Accompanying both films as part of the 2014 Lavazza Italian Film Festival, the slightly jetlagged but flawlessly charming actress sat with SCREEN-SPACE to discuss, in fluent English that she needlessly apologises for over and over, her career to date…

Nadir Caselli’s upbringing in the township of Cascina was worlds away from Rome, long the production hub of the Italian film industry. With no connection to the sector (her mother is an office worker; her father, owner/operator of a self-defence academy), she recalls embracing the ‘dream factory’ quality of cinema, like most kids.  “When I was a child, I was inspired by colour and images,” she recalls. “Cartoons in general and the great films from Disney of course, are some of my earliest memories. I remember the magic, the sense of wonder, when something makes you go ‘wow!’ That is what I remember most about films as a child and that is what I look for every time I go to the movies, even now that I am 26.”

Intelligence and ambition led her to the nation’s capital, where she graduated from the esteemed Università degli Studi Roma Tre. Her years of studying were supported by a modelling career that saw her become one of Europe’s leading teen models. She still occasionally accepts photographic assignments, but Caselli admits that those heady days were, in hindsight, a means to an end. “I was not really happy in the role of model,” she confides. “It is a very hard job, don’t get me wrong, but it is not very artistic and ultimately was not very satisfying.”

What did satisfy were the small acting parts that she sought out. As ‘Alice’ in fellow debutant Matteo Rovere’s Bad Girls (pictured, above; Caselli, far left), she experienced first-hand the frenzied nature of the business when the sexually frank, female-centric narrative caused a censorship stir.  Steady TV work followed, until Gabrielle Muccino, one of Italian cinema’s most highly-regarded filmmakers (The Last Kiss, 2001; Remember Me My Love, 2003; The Pursuit of Happyness, 2006; Seven Pounds, 2008), cast Caselli in her most high-profile hit, 2010’s Kiss Me Again.

The work afforded the actress many hours on set, watching and learning from such respected stars as Filippo Nigro and Stefano Accorsi (pictured, left; with Caselli in Kiss Me Again). That said, Caselli’s preferred method is to draw from emotionally impactful moments rather than the acting style of any particular role model. “I don’t have specific actors who inspire me. I see moments of magic on the screen and I try to grab them,” she says. “I memorise them and think ‘that is what I want to achieve someday’ or ‘I want to be able to use that’.”

Despite her tender years, Caselli has amassed many hours of television and accumulated seven features to her credit. It put her in the unique position of being the most seasoned performer amongst the six principal cast members of University: More Than Friends. “I’d never thought of that but, yes, I suppose I was,” she admits, allowing her a big, broad grin at the very notion. “Only myself and Primo Reggiani were experienced on the set so I guess I was a mentor to the other actors, at least to some degree.”

Under the guiding hand of veteran director Federico Moccia, a master of the broad romantic-comedy having helmed Sorry If I Love You (2008) and Amore 14 (2009), the core group quickly established the chemistry so crucial to such sweet natured melodrama. In describing the cast dynamic, Caselli’s English trips her up for the only time during the interview, when she enthusiastically recalled, “We had long rehearsal periods that would end with all of us sleeping together. I mean, in the hallway, y’know…not…you know what I mean!”

Her small but pivotal role in Sydney Sibilia’s I Can Quit Whenever I Want was a favour for the first-time director; she had starred in his 2010 short, Oggi gira cosi (see the full film here), and was happy to step into any part the director asked of her. The film is a ‘Breaking Bad’-esque black comedy about a group of retrenched academics who turn to narcotics production as a late-in-life career change. She had no reservations about working with untested talent, she says. “I had worked with a first-time director on Bad Girls. Each bring a fresh new vision to material.” Her faith in Sibilia has paid off, with the film a box office smash taking close to US$5.5million.

When the discussion turns to the line-up on offer at the Italian Film Festival, it is noted that many of the films are very contemporary stories, embracing a positive perspective on Italian society and culture. Nadir Caselli agrees, clearly proud of the passion for life that is synonymous with her homeland. “Italian cinema is very optimistic at the moment,” she states, any indication that the side effects of international travel may be taxing her now entirely gone. “Italian people like to look beyond the hardships of the moment, and there have been some very hard realities in Italy over the last few years. Our cinema reflects the healthier, happier aspects of life. It can be very critical of our society, but it is most often done as a celebration of some sort, from a hopeful outlook that celebrates what we can do and who we can be.”

For all session and ticket information visit the official website of the 2014 Lavazza Italian Film Festival.

The Normandy landings on June 6, 1944, represent arguably the greatest military operation of modern warfare. Despite being documented and studied as one of the most immense and precise invasions ever undertaken, Operation Overlord, or ‘D-Day’ as it is more widely known, still remains an enigmatic event of which much detail has been lost to history’s fading memory. French director Pascal Vuong (pictured, below) aims to rectify that with his epic yet deeply personal IMAX-3D feature, D-Day: Normandy 1944. Ahead of its Australian season, Vuong spoke to SCREEN-SPACE about his long-in-development film and the battle that changed the direction of World War II…

It is a significant departure from your last IMAX project, the 3D hit Sea Rex: Journey to a Prehistoric World, to this much darker material. Where did the inspiration come from?

When I was a kid, I was very taken by the film The Longest Day. It led to a fascination that stayed with me my whole life, though I never imagined that I could ever make my own film version of D-Day. The success of Sea Rex allowed me some time and led to some financing that meant I could make my dream project.

What were your primary aims going into the project, in terms of making the machinations of a military movement of interest to the broad audience?

We made the film with the family audience in mind, especially the children. I know that so many of our children don’t know about World War II and many people consider it so far removed from our social consciousness. So I felt it was important to teach this younger generation the full extent of the battle and of the sacrifice made by so many from past generations.

I was struck by both the familiarity of the tales of heroism but also the bold, fresh means by which the bloody details of the landing were conveyed.

Because of films like The Longest Day and Saving Private Ryan, I had to find a way to forge the D-Day story but in my own way. It led to using techniques such as the sand animation you see in the film (pictured, left). We know the story is a very gory one, and we found that sand animation was able to convey so much of the human horror of the war while still catering for the target audience.

How important was the vast canvas that the IMAX screen provides?

D-Day was a giant event, in its planning and in its execution, and the Imax screen is able to convey the scale of the undertaking. It allowed us to immerse the audience in so many aspects of the D-Day landing, adding both visual scope and emotional impact.

One of the film’s finest achievements is that it conveys the true meaning of the term ‘Allied’ as it applies to the war effort.

Beyond the technical planning of the attack and the military realities of the invasion, there are many human beings that were working for the Allied cause. Not just military minds, but also the hearts of men, woman and even children civilians. Do you know that there were about 3000 Australian men, primarily from your Air Force, that were involved in D-Day? So much of recorded history does not include the Australian and New Zealand contributions, soldiers who came from far away to help liberate Europe. So many nations were involved and it was important to show that not only were American and British forces involved, but that it was a truly Allied exercise.

Were you aware of how significant the role of your narrator Tom Brokaw would become in the telling of the D-Day story? Brokaw (pictured, below; with 93 year-old D-Day survivor Tom Blakey) and his French language colleague, The Intouchables’ star Francois Cluzet, bring a great deal to the work.

These men were crucial to the film. Their voices carry such importance and gravitas. Mr Brokaw, especially, brought so much. His involvement influenced the way I wrote the film. The memory of the young men who fought and the respect that we wanted to convey to the veterans of this conflict, of any war, was conveyed so wonderfully in Mr Brokaw’s voice, who has a profound passion for the period and the sacrifices made. Many people have said to me how moved they are by the film and how the voice of Mr Brokaw contributed so much to the experience.

It would become one of the greatest scandals in a nation’s sporting history. Young men, upon whose All-American shoulders rested the hopes of the 1978 Boston College basketball fraternity, ‘gotten to’ by mob heavies and coerced into influencing the points spread on key games. Central to the scam, mobster Henry Hill, the mafia rat brought to life by Ray Liotta in Martin Scorsese’s Goodfellas, whose small-scale fraud would ultimately lead to the downfall of underworld giant, Jimmy Burke. Director Cayman Grant, working alongside Emmy and Peabody award winning filmmaker Joe Lavine, affords the saga a vivid cinematic treatment in the compelling documentary Playing for the Mob... 

From the Los Angeles home she shares with her husband and producing partner Terry City, Grant (pictured, below) spoke with SCREEN-SPACE on the eve of her film's Australian premiere on cable sports giant ESPN, in which she discussed the intricacies of the swindle, the human cost of the crime and of being the last person to interview the once-fearsome Henry Hill…

Tell me about the early days of your involvement with the project and of collaborating with Joe Lavine?

Through our Pittsburgh producing partner, Paula Gregg, we were able to acquire the life rights to Paul Mazzei, who was the infamous “Pittsburgh Connection” in the movie, Goodfellas. Once I learned about the ’78-’79 Boston College Basketball scandal, I knew it would be a fantastic documentary. I started shooting right away and soon found out that Joe Lavine at HBO was looking to make a doc of the same story. We met and he was excited that I had many of the contacts and interviews in place. We formed a partnership with Gary Cohen at Triple Threat and pitched to ESPN. Lucky for us, I had already shot several interviews, most importantly Henry Hill and Paulie’s reunion before Henry passed away in June 2012.

Upon meeting Henry Hill, what struck you about his character and how he views his role in the scandal?

Until the day he died, Henry was somewhat perplexed that this scandal is what took down his friend, Jimmy Burke. As stated in the film, he didn’t even think it was a crime. I’m not sure that most of the people involved really thought it was a huge deal, at least not to the degree that they (would be) charged and sentenced to jail. The Feds wanted Jimmy Burke and this was the way to get to him. They got everybody.

Did the frail, elderly man still exude any of the fierceness one associates with his ‘Goodfellas’ persona?

I wasn’t nervous at all about having Henry in my home. In fact, I was excited to meet the real “Henry”. All I ever knew was Henry Hill as Ray Liotta. Henry was a wonderful houseguest. He was kind. He even kissed my baby. Mind you, he was much older now so that whole gangster persona was gone, aside from his hat (pictured, below).

What insight into the criminal mind, the ‘Mob mentality’, did you glean from contact with the likes of Hill, The Perla Bros and Paul Mazzei?

Once I reunited Paulie and Henry, I saw another side of them. They talked about the old days, crimes they committed together, like it was nothing. I’m not sure that I ever saw any remorse for what they did. They’re over it and have moved on. Actually, we also reunited Paulie Mazzei and Tony Perla, which was a memorable event. For me, it was fun to see their “real” personalities come out over the course of a few hours. I noticed that deep down these guys haven’t changed that much. Their true persona came out when they were all together. Through my encounters and research it was obvious that they all grew up in a time and in an environment that made it easy to get into the things they all got into.

There is a potent sense of tragedy about the purity of the sporting contest and, in a larger sense, the innocence of a society being corrupted by this event. Does this go some way to explaining the longevity of the scandal and the place it has in American history?

As a Canadian, I had no idea about the scandal until I delved further into the life of Paulie Mazzei. Anytime the mob gets involved, people’s ears perk up. The way this film has been embraced shows the fascination of American audiences with the mob and their involvement with sports. It would have been an even bigger deal had there been social media back in the late 70s, early 80s. Americans are huge sports enthusiasts and huge sports gamblers. There are tremendous stakes behind these games. One ‘call’ can affect a gambling spread, which then affects thousands of people’s money. Some people would argue that the reason sports are popular in the United States is that the gambling world is larger than anyone knows. It’s the ultimate form of American entertainment. We take our kids to these games. It’s a family event.

Were ESPN immediately keen to be involved in a story that de-glorifies sport? The network’s image is built on the lionising of sport and its heroes. Was Playing For The Mob seen as a departure for the network?

ESPN and their 30 for 30 Series have been able to show the human side of sports. The heroes that we glorify, the players that have gone broke, those who have done drugs and at times, those whom succumbed to it all. Playing for The Mob, while unique, isn’t such a departure, (although) there are not that many stories with the fame of Goodfellas that connect directly to college sports. I always wanted it to be an ESPN 30 for 30. I knew it was the right place for the story. ESPN loved that Joe and I had all of our bases covered, (with) all sides of the story ready to be interviewed. And of course, having Henry Hill’s last interview already in the can. 

What was the human element that you had to get across in the film? Why is this story still so resonant and relevant?

Part of its resonance is the mafia element but the reason we’ve been successful with the film is the human element. This is the tragedy of three young college kids who made poor decisions that they have to live with the rest of their lives. It’s even more relevant today because athletes at the College level are not compensated. They generally get their education paid for but with little or no stipend for spending money. These kids are broke. How many college kids would say no in this kind of situation? They would be torn, especially those players who grew up in poverty or have no other source of revenue. Boston College wasn’t the first scandal like this and given that colleges make millions off players’ performances, it certainly won’t be the last. (Pictured, above; Grant, second from left, and co-director Joe Lavine, centre, at the recent Boston Film Festival screening of Playing for the Mob).

Narrated by actor Ray Liotta, PLAYING FOR THE MOB premieres on Australian televsion on Tuesday 14th October on ESPN. Check local listings for times. 

Australian audiences first tasted the bittersweet world of Zach Clark’s White Reindeer on the genre festival circuit in 2013. The story of Suzanne, a recently widowed suburbanite who uncovers her dead husband’s hidden world and eventually her own renewed inner strength, has at its core a pitch-perfect performance by Anna Margaret Hollyman. The actress, adored in the indie sector after performances in Small Beautifully Moving Parts (2011) and Gayby (2012), is a revelation in Clark’s cult classic, which took out the Best Feature trophy at the Boston Underground festival. She spoke with SCREEN-SPACE about her friendship with the director, the inspirations that helped her understand Suzanne and the enduring, endearing legacy of the film…

I was fortunate to have met and interviewed Zach when he brought the film to the 2013 Revelations Film Festival in Perth.

I remember I wanted to go to that festival so badly! Zach was trying to get me there but I was shooting something at the time.

What immediately struck you about Suzanne when you first encountered her in early script drafts?

I responded to the quiet heroism in her that I really admired. I equate Suzanne to being my own personal superhero or avatar. She continues to persevere and push forward and put herself in uncomfortable situations in order to work through her mourning. She has a huge heart. She put herself into extreme situations with no judgement of others or herself and that’s admirable to me.

Zach has been very precise in interviews about the film that he wrote this as a break-up movie.

When Zach and I first sat down to talk about it, over tacos in Williamsburg (laughs), he just stated outright, ‘Essentially, this is a break-up movie.’ I do think that is a great way to describe it. I’ve never lost a loved one in the manner that Suzanne has to deal with but we’ve all gone through some kind of heartbreak in our life. Her arc is such a heightened kind of a break-up, because there are so many issues of betrayal and new definitions as to who this person was she was in love with. Recovery is a cyclical process and when someone has passed or murdered in (Suzanne’s husband) Jeff’s case, it seems more extreme but the experience is still a very universal one.

He has been very clear about Douglas Sirk’s classic melodrama All That Heaven Allows being an inspiration for White Reindeer. The collection of DVDs he made you watch to prepare for the shoot has become a thing of legend.

Yes, his stack of DVDs is legendary at this point. I actually thought about them this morning and hoped I could remember all of them (laughs). Apart from All That Heaven Allows, which was so important to Zach and to the film, is Chantal Akerman’s Jeanne Dielman* (pictured, left). It is three and a half hours long and is so meditative and quiet and very pervasive. There is such power in the rudimentary and the stillness of this human being. The repetition of this woman’s home life, juxtapositioned with the running of a prostitution ring from her apartment, is so impactful. The two extremes pull her and the audience in a really realistic and emotional way. Understanding how the counter-culture can exist with the mundane in a very symbiotic way was very helpful to me.

*Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles (Dir: Chantal Akerman, 1975; IMDb)

As dark as White Reindeer goes at times, a very positive Christmas message is part of the film’s resonating charm.

Well, Zach also made me rewatch Scrooged and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. At the heart of it, as I’m sure Zach told you, he really, truly does love Christmas, is very inspired by it. He has this childlike appreciation for it that he really feels and it was inspiring to come into contact with that as well.

You’ve mentioned words like ‘stillness’ and ‘quiet’ and ‘meditative’, all of which come through in your performance and Zach’s film. Suzanne’s journey often feels so painfully personal…

So much of what the film explores is a sense of ultimate aloneness, which is something that each of us experience in our own way. It is something that is not explored a lot on film but it is not necessarily a fun feeling, but one that is often particularly uncomfortable. The reason that many of us go to the movies in the first place is to escape that loneliness. And yet there is something relatable about watching a woman process being alone. It is something we all do every day, yet is something we never really talk about when we do interact. Nobody goes on a dinner date then confides that they spend all day alone and crying. The movie really takes the time to explore the externalizing of an individual’s internal self.

White Reindeer screens in January at the Brisbane Underground Film Festival. It will be available on DVD and Blu-ray in Australia through Accent Films on December 17.

Charlie Lyne, a culture blogger and film critic, has directed the stunning ‘clip-umentary’, Beyond Clueless, which deconstruucts and analyses the 90s/00s teen movie craze with incisive clarity. From 1995, when Amy Heckerling’s Clueless kickstarted a new wave of teen movies that lasted a decade, the genre tackled teenager life at the turn of the modern century, when uncertainty about the future was rife and the outsider angst of those teenage years seemed more universal than ever. From his London base, Lyne (pictured, below) spoke with SCREEN-SPACE about the films that both reflected and guided the teenage experience of the late 1990s and how they would inspire his feature directing debut….

Most great teen films from any period - Rebel Without a Cause, The Graduate, Carrie, The Breakfast Club - take on alienation, rebellion, coming-of-age, blossoming sexuality, etc. What point of difference do the films from the 90's-00s display?

Lyne: I agree with you that the thematic preoccupations of the teen genre have been relatively consistent over the years and decades, but I think the 90s/00s era offered a really diverse range of approaches to tackling those subjects. Whereas before, the teen genre had been defined by a few key players - James Dean, Molly Ringwald, and so on - now it was blown wide open, and those key concerns you mention were being expressed through the mediums of horror, comedy, drama and a thousand other modes of storytelling.

1994-2004 was a period of immense social change and uncertainty. The end of the millennium was nigh; the Net in particular and technolgy in general was expanding exponentially. How were teen films influenced by, and reflect the teenagers place in, this new world?

Lyne: I think one of the greatest assets a teen movie can have is insularity, so that whatever major social, political and technological movements are happening in the background are rendered relatively insignificant compared with the minor emotional problems of our teenage protagonist. So events like Columbine, 9/11 and the rise of the internet certainly left their mark on the genre, but in quite an oblique way — they were refracted through characters, rather than being portrayed directly.

You top-and-tail the film with two big hits - Clueless (pictured, above) and Mean Girls - but many of the films referenced did not register at box office. It could be argued that this was the period when teens, consumed with new personal devices and video game tech, starting turning away from cinema-going. Were these films undervalued by their target audience at the time?

Not at all. There was no major decline in teenage cinema attendance in the 1990s as compared with the 1980s; it's just that teenagers in the '90s had a far wider range of teen films to choose from, with relatively few 'big hitters' to soak up all the box office. So instead of something like The Breakfast Club becoming a behemoth, the same amount of money was spread between Swimfan, Down To You (pictured, left), The Rage: Carrie 2 and a bunch of other movies that made more modest sums at the box office.

The melding of montage and the music of Summer Camp is a highlight of the film. Tell me about that process; did the visuals or the music come first? At what point were the band members involved?

Lyne: We worked in tandem throughout the whole process, so sometimes I would take the lead on a montage, sending them a short reel of footage, and sometimes they would send me a demo and I'd start cutting to that. It created a kind of feedback loop, where we just kept playing off of each other's ideas until we reached something that felt right. And they were involved from the very beginning, so this process went on for nearly a year.

Recall for us securing The Craft's Fairuza Balk as narrator? How was the project pitched to her and what were her reactions?

Lyne: Fairuza (pictured, right) had always been my number one choice for the narrator — she has that perfect blend of 'outsider' and 'insider' encapsulated in her voice — but for various reasons we couldn't bring anyone on board until the film was nearly complete, so there was always a part of me that worried we wouldn't get her. Thank God she said yes once we eventually asked, otherwise I'd have had to reimagine my whole perception of the film.

What did you discover about yourself in revisiting the films that helped form the film lover you are today?

I still love the teen movies of my youth as much as I did ten years ago, only now I recognise all the lessons I unknowingly learned from them — some good, some less so. The whole process taught me just as much about myself as it taught me about the oeuvre of Devon Sawa.

Beyond Clueless will screen as a double feature with Andrew Fleming's The Craft as the Closing Night event at the Perth Underground Film Festival; read the SCREEN-SPACE review of Beyond Clueless here.

Matthew Darch is well known amongst Perth’s artistic community for his passionate commitment to all things cinema. As founder of the cult classics screening initiative 1UP MicroCinema, he brings old-school film culture to the Western capital. That role bled into shared duties as programming head of the Perth Underground Film Festival, which launches its 2015 edition on February 12 at the popular Rooftop Movies venue with the latest Oz-ploitation epic, Wyrmwood. Darch (pictured, below; at his microcinema venue) spoke to SCREEN-SPACE about overcoming those 'indie festival' hurdles, infusing the schedule with his love of movies and co-programming with the enigmatic industry iconoclast, Jimmy the Exploder…

Is it tough to define the balance between 'underground' and 'mainstream'? Much of what would once be considered subversive and edgy is instantly accessible and embraced.

We identified this very early in our conversations. We examined 'UFF' programs (from) around the world, finding each unique in their own way. We focussed on films that existed outside the Australian distribution channels and which you could not already download, legally or otherwise. Which made it hard, because most films these days are being released on VOD the same day they are released in cinemas in the US. Given the Federal government’s proposed anti- piracy measures, we thought (the approach) was topical. And we managed to stick to these rules with nearly all the films. I began sourcing films around the middle of 2014 and many that I approached early on were keen, but subsequently were picked up by Oz distributors. But that's the programming game.

Paint a picture of the Perth audience for 'underground' cinema. Did you program for both the hardcore anti-establish types and a broader crowd who might occasionally try edgier stuff?

We were very lucky to be accepted into the Fringe World program, a fantastic time when the inner city comes alive with people from all sorts of backgrounds. Having run my own 20 seat ‘micro cinema’ for a few years, I knew what sort of prices film makers expected for screenings and knew that to recoup our costs we would need a 100-seat venue, minimum. So to have this venue, combined with the in-kind promotional deals that Fringe World offered, we were very happy. Rooftop Movies (pictured, right) traditionally play late-release theatrical films and 'cult classics' like Donnie Darko, Napolean Dynamite, Ghostbusters, Kubrick, and so on. So, yes, we did have a broader audience in mind who might appreciate the opportunity to see some edgier stuff. In that regard, we hope PUFF compliments Perth's really only independent film festival, Revelations. Monster Pictures have also done a great job over the last few years bringing a MonsterFest leg to Perth. They snap up a lot of the horror festival favourites, so we might have to let them run point on that genre.

What earned Kiah and Tristan Roache-Turner's Wyrmwood (pictured, left) the Opening Night slot?

We’re very happy to have an Australian film for our opening night, particularly one that has received such rave reviews. I'm sure the screenings they have lined up around Australia will get a great response. Isn't it every filmmaker’s goal to make enough money from a film so they can fund their next one? Can't wait to see what the brothers come up with next.

Tell me about working with the enigmatic Jimmy the Exploder. How much of PUFF is an extension of his profile and personality?

Jimmy is great to work with, as is the third member of the team, Tiff Flynn. Between us we all bring different skills to the table. Our group dynamic has really made this venture smooth sailing. PUFF isn't necessarily an extension of Jimmy's personality; he is happy to keep a low profile and work hard behind the scenes. Our shared goal is to make this festival sustainable for the future. We received no grant funding or monetary sponsorship deals this time around. If we need these in the future, then we might have to talk up both mine and Jimmy's previous track records to seal any deals.

The programme suggests that eccentric, vivid central characters are important to you - Ray in Suburban Gothic; George Romero in Doc of the Dead; the dual leads in Foxy Merkins (pictured, below); Scott in Zero Charisma. How do the films and these characters serve the aims you had for PUFF 2015?

I have never thought about the films in that way. I worry that I miss picking up on things like that. I program based around what additional elements I can add to make it an event. I want to give people value for money, unlike the multiplex experience, where you sit down, watch and then leave. We want the patrons to interact. That's why most of our screenings have additional elements; a game of Film Maker Feud before Zero Charisma plus each audience member will get a Dungeons & Dragons character sheet created by a local Perth artist. We have a Valentine’s Day Perfect Match-Making Service before Suburban Gothic. We have teamed up with Pilerats and DJ Holiday Pete to provide music and atmosphere at our double-bills and we will have character actors at most screenings in the rooftop elevator. I also like to program around different subcultures, who can identify with the films. Each film in this program will appeal to different cohorts, I guess. The trick will be, will they overlap and step out of their comfort zones?

The Perth Underground Film Festival runs February 12 to 21. Full programme and tickets are available via the official website.

Read SCREEN-SPACE's review of PUFF 2015 Opening Night film, Wyrmwood, here.

Read SCREEN-SPACE's review of PUFF 2015 Closing Night film, Beyond Clueless, here.

Read SCREEN-SPACE's interview with Beyond Clueless director Charlie Lyne here.