Kino screening and Climate Change protesting

So Alex and I screened our film on Monday at Kino… Everyone who had helped out came down and it was great to see the fruits of our labours on the big screen. It almost didn’t happen, though, because right at the last minute the gallery where Kino is held every month said they couldn’t use the space because an expensive marble artwork had just been delivered which took up most of the room. Ever-resourceful, The Festivalists (Matt and Marianne) moved upstairs from the gallery, and when I arrived they were hastily blocking out the windows with black cloth and gaffer tape. Matt had spent the afternoon painting a makeshift screen white, which they then hung from the ceiling, and by the time the crowds arrived you’d never had known it was an outcast outfit!

Matt painting the temporary screen


Our film Long Way Round went down really well… it’s a short film based on a Dixie Chicks song, although I’m not sure everyone quite got that! And I think people assumed it was a comedy at first. Check it out here if you’ve got 3 minutes to spare… It’s not the best film in the world but it’s sweet and Alex and I had fun making it: the whole point for me was to find people I can collaborate with in Aus for future projects and in that sense it was a great success. The guy we used for the stills photography is excellent, and I definitely want to work with him again. You can’t quite tell from the youtube compressing, but the stills are beautiful. I’ll upload them onto flickr when I get chance. Check out pics from Kino here, including Alex and I introducing our film.

With Claire, Christina, Ruth and Erik at Kino


Last weekend a bunch of us had planned to go kayaking in the Kangaroo Valley, but we were rained off so stayed in Sydney instead. I’ve been ill with a chesty cough lately so was secretly quite glad. Instead it was all yoga and walking by the beach, chilling out. Check out more Sculpture by the Sea pics here.

On Sunday there was a Walk Against Warming in the city, to highlight the perils of climate change and speak out about Australia’s incredibly high contribution to Global Warming: especially pertinent given the imminent general election in Aus. A typically laconic Aussie affair, the walk was sedate and chilled out, not so much a protest march as a pleasant stroll down the street. Not sure what was achieved but I signed a few petitions and felt worthy.

Matt and Carmel protesting


The election is hotting up now, with John Howard bidding for a fifth term and the bouncy Kevin Rudd attempting to oust the right-winger from his unhealthily long 12 years as Prime Minister. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that Australians make the right decision, for all of our sakes.

Right now I am on the Gold Coast: Australia’s answer to Miami or Las Vegas, hot and incredibly tacky. What fun. I’m here for the annual Inside Film Awards, the people’s choice awards for Australian film. Basically a big shindig with all my fellow film industry folk. The dress code is Raw Elegance, which was particularly perplexing, and the red carpet is being televised so my housemates are poised by the TV for my star appearance. Will report back once I recover from the hangover…

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Nature and culture

A giant sculpture by the sea

Plagues have descended upon Sydney in recent weeks, of various kinds. First of all there was a plague of bogong moths, huge ugly brown moths which gathered round the city centre at night, drawn by the lights, and never quite left during the day. Round the harbour bridge the sky was thick with moths for days, it became quite a talking point, with celebrity chefs even chipping in to discuss their nutritional value.

Then the flies arrived: lured by the increasingly warm spring weather they hover over us as we dry off from a swim on the beach. I’ve been wandering down to Tamarama beach in the early evenings for a bracing sleep-inducing swim, and the flies can be most irritating. I have learnt the ‘bushman’s salute’ though, which is a basic nonchalant wave in front of the face, spotted often on the streets of Sydney as well as in the bush. The clocks changed recently so the evenings are lighter for longer, giving the surfers more surf time in the evenings, and making my cycle home from work through Centennial park less scary and dark. The jacarandas are blooming so the city is bathed in lilac and smells wonderful as dusk settles.


Evening surfers in Tama

Last weekend I attended SPAA Fringe, a 2-day event run by the Screen Producers’ Association of Australia, where people from all over the Australian and international industry got together and attended various lectures and workshops on diverse topics. From HD camera tips to independent producing advice; budgeting to marketing; funding to cross-platform saturation, the weekend was a great way for me to meet lots of other enthusiastic people in the Aus production industry and cultivate contacts for future film projects. Oh, and of course drink lots of champagne and talk crap with them too. I walked away from the two days with a purse full of business cards and a head full of ideas. Inspirational.

My first film project in Australia has its debut screening tomorrow. It’s not as glam as it sounds, my friend Alex and I have made a short film which is live action with flashbacks in animated photography, and it screens in a gallery tomorrow evening as part of Kino, a monthly short film night which encourages collaboration and shooting on limited resources. It’s been fun and I’ve met lots of great people as a result, which is important.

We finished editing the film today and celebrated with a dip in the sea at Tamarama and a walk along the cliffs back to Bondi. At the moment there’s an exhibition on the Tamarama headlands called Sculpture by the Sea, an annual exhibition of sculpture dotted along my favourite clifftop walk. The pieces have transformed the headlands and range from the eerie to the comic, bringing hundreds of people out to the coast. It’s wonderful but I’ll also be glad to have my beach back to how it was, and swim in the quiet sleepy evenings sharing the sea with a few surfers and fewer swimmers.

Kangaroo sculpture by the sea

Study in blue

I’ll let you know how the screening goes, but in the meantime I’ve scanned in some photos from the late-70s early-80s of mum, Adam and myself, and there’s even one of Granny and a great one of Helen and Martin. Enjoy them here.

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