A Girl and Her Blog are Eventually Reunited

Promotion for the first
Hobbit instalment assuming
Stalinesque dimensions in
Wellington, early in 2013.

Yes, lest anyone have thought that the wholly moribund appearance of A Little Lie Down was indicative of a retreat on the author's part from the world of cinema (or even from the “sundry other matters” which this blog's header purports the reader may also find addressed here), I've deemed it necessary to return to the Blogger coalface to chisel out an account of the year in film culture that was mine in 2013.

Indeed, it's been so long since the previous, Hobbit-heavy post here that a second fucking instalment of The Hobbit has already arrived in Melbourne cinemas. (Thankfully, it's a darned sight better than the first, and all credit to the wise heads who determined it'd be at 24 rather than at 48 fps that the media preview last week would be projected. That said, my criticisms in my last post regarding Jackson's vainglorious adoption of High Frame Rate technologies – and, by extension, shooting a film in this one, particular flawed format only to ultimately present it in multiple others, each unavoidably compromised by trickle-down shortcomings in the translation, and with, perforce, a corresponding diminution in cinematic vocabulary imposed upon all, especially with respect to any play with depth of field – still, vehemently, stand!)

But, look. I am already digressing.

What now follows will be a link-filled, media-rich reckoning of what I got up to in the year very shortly now to have been 2013.

I'll begin with work accomplished which had been harbinged here previously.

The fabulous Bright Lights Film Journal ran my review of Alexandra Heller-Nicholas' Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study in its 79^th issue in February. It was a long time coming, my getting it to them and up to snuff, but I'm very glad that I did. It's a fine book, detailing thoroughly an often unpleasant, yet ethically complex realm of cinema which had never been given a tenth so comprehensive an account of before.

I alluded in my only other post here this year to ensuring there'd shortly be more on ALLD, and in Senses of Cinema, on legendary Czech animator Jiří Trnka. I came good on this promise in Senses rather sooner than on my blog; please refer “The Passion of the Peasant Poet: Jiří Trnka, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Hand” in February's issue 66 of a gal's longtime favourite film journal.

The context for my writing on Trnka is important, and is in fact key to my being so very busy this year that, till now, I had failed to blog even once since Thursday, January 3's “Less is more: If 3D is more 2D than 2D (and 48fps is even less truth per second than Godard's 24) then how much more 2D will 4D be than 3D?”

Less is more, indeed?

My Trnka piece appeared in Senses of Cinema under “Cinémathèque Annotations on Film”, indicative of its having been written to provide contextualising accompaniment to Melbourne Cinémathèque screenings of certain of Trnka's sublime puppet animation films. Moreover, I had made it a personal mission to get those films over here in the first place, through becoming a Cinémathèque committee member after enjoying many a long year as a dedicated regular at the Cinémathèque's Wednesday nightly screenings, and as she whose task it had been for many of those years to prepare the annotations for publication in Senses of Cinema in my role as that journal's tireless, seldom-complaining Web Designer.

Trnka's sublime A Midsummer Night's Dream (1959), which screened at the 1^st CaSFFA,
presented in conjunction with the Melbourne Cinémathèque

But rather more key still to acquiring those films for screening in Melbourne was the launch of the inaugural Czech and Slovak Film Festival of Australia (or “CaSFFA”) in May and June of this year, with me appointed as its first Artistic Director, who sought a partnership with the Cinémathèque in order to present these very rare films in sunny Melbourne on glorious 35mm, care of the National Film Archive in Prague and with no small amount of help from the Consulate of the Czech Republic in Sydney.

CaSFFA also presented an accompanying exhibition, “Jiří Trnka - Serving Imagination”, prepared by the Czech Centres, with other highlights of our debut festival including the presentation of a 50^th anniversary digital restoration of Štefan Uher's brilliant The Sun in a Net and our restoring some utility to the still beautiful, but overlong neglected RMIT Capitol Theatre, by presenting the bulk of our other screenings there, along with two memorable absinth- and Becherovka-soaked parties!

The Sun in a Net also appeared at the 1^st CaSFFA, co-presented by the Melbourne Cinémathèque
and with large thanks due to the enthusiastic co-operation of the Slovak Film Institute

Here's a taste of what you missed/a further reminder of all the fun you had, at the 2013 CaSFFA:

I'll pause here also to hail once again Alesh Macak's superb CaSFFA trailer, inspired by Linda Studená's super leggy designs, as seen all over all of our festival literature and collateral in promotion of our inaugural event!

A 2^nd CaSFFA – bigger! bolder! even betterer! – will be staged in 2014 in Melbourne and, I will carelessly not hesitate to rumour, elsewhere too. Really wonderful things are in store, folks – watch this space!

And, in other developments

As anyone who knows me might tell you, after they've weighed up what's at stake in compromising my privacy, I'm very fond of hotfooting it abroad to attend film festivals, whether as a member of the media corps, providing coverage for Senses of Cinema; representing CaSFFA; attending in a more participatory capacity, or a mixture of all three. One such multi-purpose trip I took mid-year, escaping Melbourne's winter for a preferable European summer, took in major festivals in the Czech Republic and Ukraine. And hence, September's 68^th issue of Senses of Cinema ran a report of mine entitled “Post-Soviet Bloc Partying West of the East and East of the West, Into and Out of the Past: The 48th Karlovy Vary and the 4th Odessa International Film Festival”. The smart money would have to be on some of the films mentioned within this piece making it to the 2^nd CaSFFA in 2014 – but which?

Excerpt from the June 30 edition of the
Karlovy Vary Festival Daily

Whilst in Karlovy Vary, I managed, wearing my CaSFFA hat (not depicted at right), to find my way into the KVIFF's daily paper. And in Odessa – where my film geekdom may have come close to reaching its apotheosis in catching a screening of Murnau's Sunrise, at sundown, with live symphony orchestral accompaniment, on none other than the Potemkin Stairs – I wound up giving an informal lecture-cum-Q&A to the festival's Summer Film School students entitled “Film Criticism Sans Frontières: The roles that critiquing and staging international and transnational film festivals can play in furthering critical practice and professional opportunities in the Internet age”. No, really. I believe it went quite well, if falteringly at first, with hopefully not too much lost (and maybe a little gained?) in the translation into Russian. Personally, I can't bring myself to watch it (not least for my mortification upon realising I'm wearing the same top in both the KV Festival Daily pic as in the clip from Odessa, below). While I'll concede that this post could come across as something of a trumpeting of one's own 'orn, truth be told, I'm actually not over-enamoured of the sound of my own voice...

Enter Guy Maddin

What would a year of Little Lies Down be (even if numbering in posts only two) without a guernsey for my favourite Winnipeger?

Early in the year, Slovenian print journal Kino! surprised me by commissioning me to contribute to a dossier it was compiling on zombie movies. In turn, I provided Kino! with probably the very piece of writing of mine on cinema of which I am most proud, “Guy Maddin, Zombie Master”.

To whet your appetite for something you'll, at least for the time being, only be able to obtain in, or from, Slovenia (or, I suppose from me directly, if you play your cards right (which is to say, ply me with liquor or with film festival accreditation)), here's the abstract for my essay, from Kino! no. 19/20:

Guy Maddin is a filmmaker almost invariably overlooked in the consideration of zombie films. This essay aims to right that wrong, not only by dredging up multiple clear instances where Maddin has explicitly employed the tropes of zombie films in his work, but also in demonstrating that, in fact, the entire cinematic corpus of Winnipeg's most celebrated filmmaker is predicated upon exhumation, on and off the screen. Maddin is forever resurrecting long dead film aesthetics, language, genres, performance styles and even entire lost films, whilst ever privileging an aesthetic of impossible material agedness and decomposition. His is a cinema full of somnambulists, amnesiacs and entranced obsessives whose actions resurrect elements of Maddin's often traumatic autobiography. It is a cinema absolutely bursting at the seams with zombie-ism and undeath. Maddin himself will be positioned both as zombie and zombie master, à la Bela Lugosi's 'Murder' Legendre in White Zombie (Victor Halperin, 1932). Moreover, his cinephilic audience, extensible to all cinephile audiences, will be implicated in zombie-ism as well. Ultimately at stake in this essay is nothing less than an argument for cinephilia as an entirely zombie fascination, with Maddin, one of the most cinephilic of all filmmakers, providing the perfect springboard for this argument. Along the way, analogues for Maddin's zombie film practices will be explored variously in the limitations of method acting, in the writing of Laura Mulvey and in the vexing matter of film canons.

Wheeee! 'Tis a fortunate thing indeed that I conquered some time ago my fear of overreaching. And another that such folk exist as my wonderful friend Maša Peče to incite me to write such things as this, as would likely otherwise never get written, in the first place, especially given my lamentable track record on my own blog. Consider here also my (admittedly scarcely trumpeted) desire to write a definitive critical history of orchids in cinema. Will not someone one day dangle before me money/liquor/film festival accreditation in order to goad me into actually writing it?

Closer to home

On many Thursday mornings fortnightly throughout 2013 I could be heard in my usual slot on 3RRR joining Richard Watts on “SmartArts” for the segment “A Fistful of Celluloid”, which would oftentimes begin with Richard noting that this several-year-old segment is increasingly conducted under the pall of a dreadful misnomer, as celluloid is surely not long for this world, followed by me mule-headedly insisting that there's plenty of life in the old girl yet, and more even than there ever will be in the inert digital image which, anyhow, isn't proven to be long for this world at all, quite the contrary in fact, given the dire problems yet to be surmounted in reliably preserving it... (Discuss.)

Shirley Clarke

I also made some other appearances (so to speak) on the 3RRR airwaves this year, joining a crack couple of Plato's Cavers in Tara Judah and Josh Nelson for a couple of "Max Headroom" specials, both of which are still accessible online, “on demand”, as follows:

From Thursday, October 24: Tara, Josh and I wax lyrical about the cinema of Shirley Clarke, in celebration of ACMI's splendid season “Uptown Girl: The Cinema of Shirley Clarke”.

And from Thursday, August 1: Tara, Josh and I bitch, moan and wax joyous about the 62^nd Melbourne International Film Festival, in celebration of, ah, well, the 62^nd Melbourne International Film Festival, innit.

And lastly, much as was vaunted in ALLD at pretty well this same time last year, I'll have a contribution to Senses of Cinema's annual World Poll published any day now.

And that will about do for now, barring my customary pledge not to forsake this blog in the year to come... Well, let us wait and see.

Lawks! I almost forgot! Sundry other matters, matter to me...

Yes, it was a year when certain sundry other matters came into their own. I'll give a quick shout-out to the fab folk at Black Hole Theatre for inviting my lovely carny-lounge sometime trio, nowadays more oftentimes quartet Dirty Nicola and the Spud Hussies to tap into the musics of Jacques Brel, Irving Berlin and Cole Porter in accompanying some top-notch live puppetry at “Puppetry Slam Noir: How I Wish The Wish I Wish” at this year's Castlemaine State Festival. Fun!

The Spud Hussies – myself on bass, Katrina Wilson O'Brien on keys, David O'Brien on guitar and Nicola Bell on drums, with all keen and handy when it comes to contributing foley – may even have just landed a prize slot at the annual Great Trentham Spudfest in 2014 for our troubles – hurrah!

AND

I spent two weeks in November ensconced in the fabulous Footscray Community Arts Centre BRINGING IT with a fab bunch of magnificent lady folk working towards the realisation of something grandly theatrical which I'm not sure I can much speak about yet. But! As and when I can, you might hear about it here first.

But for now, till 2014, ahoj!

x Cerise

The cart before the horse: Addenda to a contribution to Senses of Cinema's 2012 World Poll

Or, everything really is cinema, more or less: part one in an ongoing series

Your humble correspondent pausing
a moment to pose alongside a
prostrate Otesánek, who, doubtless a mite
peckish, is just biding his time...

Senses of Cinema's annual world poll supplement will be posted online early in the new year. Meanwhile, so itching have I been to ensure there's some new content gracing this seemingly moribund blog before year's end, and so eager to expand, especially illustratively, upon some of the arguably more fanciful aspects of what I've contributed to Senses of Cinema's latest poll, with particular respect to claims towards the everything-is-cinema-ness of all things, that, well... here we are!

Some of what follows – whether for better or for worse, I cannot say – will adopt certain of the characteristics of a travelogue. This is somewhat unavoidable as this post's central cases in point were the stuff of recent adventures abroad, for, not so terribly long ago, I was summoned to my beloved city of Prague to sit on a jury at Mezipatra, the Czech Republic's wonderful queer film festival, or at least for the Prague leg of it. Now, to either side of my gleefully adopted Mezipatra duties – not to mention right smack-bang in its midst as well, of course (samozřejmě!) – I had me some (extra-)cinematic adventures, as demonstrated below and which will link to my corresponding part in Senses' 2012 world poll, as and when it's live.

By the way, wrapped up in all the pictorial splendour and waffle below lies in wait an allusive announcement, whose time I can comfortably say has almost now come, with respect to a project of mine and certain esteemed others set to launch in mid-2012 and shake up stuffy old Melbourne town, where too many film festivals is never enough...

But let's deal with one horse before its cart at a time – on with the picture show – roll camera!

Here's the rather de Chirico-esque big-screen backdrop above the stage at Kino Lucerna ahead of this year's Mezipatra closing ceremony. Should I hasten to add that de Chirico was cinema? After all, I've just watched Alain Robbe-Grillet's Eden and After (1970) (thank you thank you thank you! the Slovak Film Institute, for releasing this on DVD!), and if those scenes in the Eden nightclub weren't de Chirico all over (if also a few parts Mondrian, after a '60s Godardian fashion), then my name isn't Cerise Howard, and nor has it always been.

(Mezipatra's website hosts a fab gallery covering its closing night, which was altogether rather busier and more glamorous than my photo above would suggest, and in which I make a few appearances.)

Now, I could scarcely have timed my journey to Prague any better. For unbeknownst to me at my journey's outset, what should happen to be on in the very centre of olde Prague but...

"Jan Švankmajer: Dimensions of Dialogue – Between Film and Fine Art"

in the House at the Stone Bell in Prague's Old Town Square
(26 Oct 2012 – 3 Feb 2013)

Per my world poll contribution, "Dimensions of Dialogue" is "room after Rudolphinian room a-glut with Švankmajeriana. Magical, obsessive, capital-S Surrealist objects abound, all riffing on relationships, direct or indirect, with Švankmajer's 48-year-long filmic output, with one film, whether long- or short-form, looping in its entirety in each room, and the exhibition's great plenty of uncanny objects organised correspondingly. Magnificent!"

Please find here following a corroborating, annotated gallery:

This is a room devoted to Conspirators of Pleasure (1996), which also featured a number of "tactile portraits", object-characters from the film and, centre-frame, its unforgettable masturbation machine, which had in fact been switched on for the exhibition. (On which note, Prague's Sex Machines Museum is just a hop, skip and a wank away from the House at the Stone Bell and the Old Town Square, but I don't recall it having anything half so elaborate, nor half so modern, let alone half so amusing, as the Conspirators of Pleasure machine amongst its offerings. If anything, as memory serves – I visited it several years ago – its exhibits are not terribly far removed from those in Prague's cheesy mediaeval torture museums...)

In the room devoted to Historia Naturae, Suite (1967) can be found collaged drawings and objects, imaginary creatures, and taxonomic descriptions thereof galore, in a fabulous demonstration of the full rein Švankmajer has always given himself towards the creation of alternative zoologies, ones to long outlive we sadly less fabulous critters to presently have the run of our grimly imperilled planet.

Natural enemies in the wild?

The scenes in this and the preceding image have more than just a little in common with Salvador Dalí's 1936 painting, "Autumn Cannibalism". See also the second section of one of my favourite Švankmajers, his final short film, Food (1993).

A tableau familiar from Alice (1988). This, like so much of JS' work, is equal parts Švankmajer and Švankmajerová.

Characters and sets from Švankmajer's Alice.

Waiting in the wings with some of the cast from Švankmajer's Faust (1994)

Some of the cast atop and within a set from Faust.

Several of the oversize puppets from Faust, and one oversize human from Wellington, by way of Melbourne.

Scary prop from Švankmajer's The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope (1984), as designed by the late, great Eva Švankmajerová. Fortunately, perhaps as much an OH&S consideration as anything else, it was rather more still in the exhibition than in Švankmajer's brilliant film. I don't think Poe has ever been as frightening on screen as in The Pit, the Pendulum and Hope.

Otesáneks, and parts thereof, galore. As seen in Little Otik (Otesánek) (2000).

Oh, and did I mention that I actually had a chance early morning encounter at a Prague tram stop with Švankmajer himself? Were that I could have captured the look in my eyes in that moment they locked fleetingly with his! Were too that I wasn't so dumbstruck by the occasion that I so easily let him slip by my clutches before I could surprise him with some strongly Australasian-inflected Czech, conveying some sort of gormless, grating, ingratiating précis of my adoration of his work ever since I first encountered it in the '90s. Actually, perhaps it's for the best I did keep my mouth shut after all. Next time, though, Švankmajer, next time... I'll be prepared!

"Slovanská epopej" ("The Slav Epic", Alfons Mucha, 1912-1928)

Now hanging permanently, if not without controversy, at Veletržní Palace, a campus of the National Gallery in Prague

Now, I may have made some slightly contentious claims in my poll contribution, if, I would argue, not really either as specious nor as spurious as all that, for Czech Art Nouveau godfather Alfons Mucha's 20-colossal-canvas-strong magnum opus "The Slav Epic" as cinema...

Here follow only a meagre few photos – my photography simply hasn't done these magnificent pictures justice – in under-substantiated support of certain aspects of my flimsy hypothesis. Happily, much better quality reproductions of Mucha's magnificent masterwork can be found all over the Web, and they do my lunatic theorising far prouder than my own underwhelming photography here can hope to.

This is the 2nd canvas in "The Slav Epic" – now, I ask you, is that a big screen, or wot? (Refer relative size of awestruck, darkened space-inhabiting gallery patron to artwork.) This is "The Celebration of Svantovit in Rügen" (1912).

This is a detail – almost a close-up, even – of that same canvas, from centre bottom. To stand but a foot away from the painting is for mother and child to fill "the frame". This woman's eyes have haunted me ever since I laid mine upon them.

Eyes no less haunting – a detail from the 1st canvas of the Slovanská epopej, "The Slavs in Their Original Homeland" (1912).

An awful purdy doodad which wouldn't be at all out of place in Argento's Suspiria (1977) but which is in fact merely a detail of the 5th canvas in "The Slav Epic", "King Otakar II of Bohemia" (1924).

Further postcards from Europe to prop up one's claim that everything is cinema

And now for a little more photographic everything-is-cinema-ness, surplus to requirement as addenda for my contribution to the 2012 Senses of Cinema world poll, as I in no way alluded to the following in my poll text, nor need have. But I no got worry.

I'll let the photographs, if necessarily aided to some extent in each instance by their captions, speak for themselves...

Elsewhere in Veletržní Palace, this permanent installation pays tribute to the great puppet animator, Jiří Trnka. (He was pretty handy in a few other fields, too.) There'll be more from me about Trnka hereabouts, and in the pages of Senses of Cinema, soon – that's a promise! (For many happy reasons which will become apparent in due course.) It's a shame about the shadow of a certain gormless pillock in this one. Reflective surfaces: the scourge of amateur photographers everywhere!

In the same room as the Trnka installation can be found these gorgeous vintage film posters. The two leftmost are for Gustav Machatý's 1931 film, From Saturday to Sunday. "Jsem děvče s čertem v těle" translates as "I'm a girl with the devil in (her) flesh"; it's credited to director Karl Anton and is instantly as tantalising a film to hunt down as any I've heard tell of any time lately.

Also from that same room. I haven't figured out which films these gorgeous images pertain to – something by Martin Frič, perhaps? Anyone, any leads?

Oh lookee here – seems we've taken a wrong turn mid-exposition, as can happen, and have wound up in Vienna.

The Wiener Riesenrad – which is to say, this is the Ferris wheel seen in The Third Man (d. Carol Reed, 1949) in Vienna's nowadays impossibly kitsch Prater amusement park.

Kitsch? The Prater? With this photo, I rest my case.

Still: what is this post if not a paean to the "Magic Dreamland" that is the cinema, anyway? And is that really any less naff a term than "Dream Factory", that popular epithet for Hollywood?

Well, that'll do for now. I've more piccies from other far-afield adventures in cinema recently had, but it'd be remiss not to save some for another day, which would greater risk this blog's going another few months without an update...

But wait – a pledge! Yes, I hereby pledge, contrary to all recent indications, that this blog will actually regularly feature new content in 2013. Truly!

Let's see then if I'm not yet as good as my word. (And here I'll confess to knowing something you don't, at least, not for very much longer – my year in film in 2013 will be a very busy one, and it'll sure need some documenting and ballyhooing here. Stay tuned!)

Toodles for now then,
C.

Of content elsewhere, new and old, and more on MIFF releases

Firstly, a stocktake

With but five further days to go of the 61st Melbourne International Film Festival, folks who missed it going live to air might like to do some catch-up listening to last Thursday's hour long "Max Headroom" MIFF special on Melbourne radio station 3RRR, in which I and estimable fellow critics Tara Judah and Josh Nelson set the 61st MIFF to rights, alternately waxing laudatory and scornful about umpteen of the festival's big screen offerings and various peripheral matters.

(A bonus? - seldom can Kylie's "Can't Get You Out Of My Head" previously have been heard to emanate forth along the airwaves from Melbourne's legendary independent community radio station nonpareil, but it did, and, what's more, in context. Who'd ever hitherto a-thunk it?)

Our Kylie, all growed up, in Leos Carax' sublime Holy Motors

Speaking of 3RRR and Max Headroom specials, and with ACMI's thorough Guy Maddin season not long come to a pre-MIFF close, here's reminding y'all of the hour long "Max Headroom" Guy Maddin special I, fab fellow critic (and, latterly, MIFF's Next Gen & Shorts Coordinator) Thomas Caldwell and ACMI programmer and season co-curator Kristy Matheson perpetrated back in late June, replete with many minutes of interview gold contributed by Maddin himself. It's still available "on demand", courtesy of 3RRR, for another few months.

(Here's reminding you too of the double Guy Maddin book review of mine in the Senses of Cinema before last, the better that you, whether an old or a new convert to Maddin's singular cinema, might want to deeper immerse yourself in (critical writing on) critical writing on Winnipeg's finest and most delirious filmmaker.)

Speaking of Senses of Cinema, issue #63 finally emerged at the very end of July and with it, my festival report "The South’s Not Long for This World: The 26th Fribourg International Film Festival", accounting for my 3rd trip to this terrific Swiss film festival in beautiful, principally francophone Fribourg and my first experience as a member of a FIPRESCI jury, something I'm still savouring. Maybe everyone who lands one of these gigs is as lucky as I was (though I doubt it), finding themselves working entirely with altogether lovely, super smart and highly collegiate fellow critics; mad props and shout-outs go out to fab fellow jurors Sheila Johnston (President, Great Britain), Hauvick Habechian (Lebanon), Katja Čičigoj (Slovenia) and Nina Scheu (Switzerland) - wotta team! May that we all be reunited somewhere, sometime, and were that such a thing were possible here in Australia, where such juries, with all their exciting, horizons-expanding internationalism, are nowadays almost unheard of. (Grrr, argh.)

Image: Caroline Alexandra McCurdy

Moving on, in my last post (lawks, has it really already been a month?), I neglected to plug something I put out into the world, which, I'll concede, is unlike me. I refer to my guesting on the May 2012 edition of Hell Is For Hyphenates, in which I join HIFH hotshots Paul Anthony Nelson and Lee Zachariah in poring over the ever astonishing film work of my pick of a filmmaker to focus upon, Czech Surrealist Jan Švankmajer, after a precursory gloss over a few recent releases and a consideration of the sometimes vexing matter of film remakes.

Oh, and while we're on matters Czech, it was only last week that I was party to the incorporation of CaSFFA, or the Czech and Slovak Film Festival of Australasia. Just call me Paní prezidentka! Let's see if we can't just pull off a memorable inaugural festival in mid-2013. Much more news about this will emerge in due course.

Secondly, a MIFF release dates update

Before getting to the nitty-gritty, I feel I should mention another couple of avenues through which you might legitimately encounter films screening at this year's MIFF outside of this year's festival, perhaps then sparing yourself from needlessly making haste to see them at MIFF rather than catching something altogether scarcer, something which you really might not have the opportunity to ever catch on a big screen, or even on 35mm, ever again, or from the worry that to have missed them at this year's festival might be to have missed them altogether.

Firstly, any number of this year's MIFF titles will doubtless re-emerge at other film festivals staged hereabouts in the year ahead, whether, for example, at the Melbourne Queer Film Festival, which often re-runs a handful or so of queer themed MIFF titles in the March of the following year, or at any of the multitude of festivals celebrating (typically only the recent) cinema output of a given nation.

To cite just one example, it has been announced that the Taviani brothers' highly regarded Caesar Must Die will screen at the forthcoming Italian Film Festival, running from 19 September through to 9 October in Melbourne, and at different times in other capital cities.

Credentialled industry bods could also look to the Festival Scope platform to access 10 out of 12 of the features in the TeleScope program and as many of the Accelerator offerings as well, presuming they're willing to pony up/have already ponied up for an initial subscription charge to stream them (and much, much more) on demand.

(To quote the latest Festival Scope newsletter: "Time to swan dive into Port Philip's Bay!")

Now, there hasn't been a terrific flurry of new release date announcements made or press releases issued by distributors and exhibitors over the few weeks since my previous post. There have nonetheless been a few of significance, with the most notable regarding Tony Krawitz's adaptation of my favourite Christos Tsiolkas novel, Dead Europe, which wasn't even in the MIFF program when I previously posted. That, and my need to remedy an error I made last time, have led me to update the table, below.

Dead Europe

Re that error, my apologies go out to Hi Gloss Entertainment. I had had DVD releases for the three titles of theirs listed below down for October but my original source was evidently not really in the know; no DVD release date has, in fact, been scheduled yet for any of Italy: Love It or Leave It, Journal de France or The Minister. Two of these three titles (with one of them being The Minister) are presently, furthermore, under discussion for theatrical release.

All the usual caveats then about the following table, and more, apply. None of the following can be taken as gospel, not least for the fact that human error, my own most certainly included, can be a factor in information provided below not ultimately standing the test of time. Let the browser beware!

TITLE	DISTRIBUTOR	RELEASE INFO (where known)	SECTION
¡Vivan Las Antipodas!	Madman		Documentaries
[REC] Genesis	Vendetta Films		Night Shift
100 Bloody Acres	Hopscotch		Night Shift
11 Flowers	Palace		Next Gen
A Monster in Paris	Madman		Next Gen
A Simple Life	Dream Movie		Accent on Asia
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry	Madman		Documentaries
Alois Nebel	Madman		Animation
Amour	Transmission		Int. Panorama
Back to Stay	Transmission		Through the Labyrinth
Barbara	Madman		Int. Panorama
Beasts of the Southern Wild	Icon	13 September	Int. Panorama
Being Venice	Curious Film		Aust. Showcase
Berberian Sound Studio	Madman		Int. Panorama
Beyond	Rialto		Facing North
Beyond the Hills	Madman		Int. Panorama
Bully	Roadshow	23 August	Next Gen
Caesar Must Die	Palace		Int. Panorama
Chasing Ice	Madman		Documentaries
Croker Island Exodus	ABC	TV	Aust. Showcase
Damsels in Distress	Sony	6 September	Int. Panorama
Dark Horse	Roadshow		Int. Panorama
Dead Europe	Transmission	1 November	Aust. Showcase
Easy Money	Madman		Facing North
Ernest & Celestine	Rialto		Animation
Errors of the Human Body	Curious Film		Aust. Showcase
Farewell, My Queen	Transmission		Int. Panorama
First Position	Hopscotch	27 September	Next Gen
Girl Model	Aztec		Documentaries
God Bless America	Potential Films	15 November	Night Shift
Hail	Madman		Aust. Showcase
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai	Icon	18 October	Accent on Asia
Headshot	Madman		Accent on Asia
Holy Motors	Icon	23 August	Leos Carax
I Wish	Rialto	4 October	Accent on Asia
In the Fog	Sharmill		Int. Panorama
Italy: Love It or Leave It	Hi Gloss Entertainment		Documentaries
Jack Irish: Bad Debts	ABC	TV	Aust. Showcase
Jayne Mansfield's Car	Eagle	DVD, early 2013	Int. Panorama
Journal de France	Hi Gloss Entertainment		Documentaries
Killer Joe	Roadshow		Night Shift
Last Dance	Becker Film Group		Aust. Showcase
Le Grand Soir	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
Liberal Arts	Icon	2013	Int. Panorama
Make Hummus Not War	Antidote Films		Aust. Showcase
Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present	Madman		Documentaries
Mental	Universal	4 October	Closing Night
Metropia	SBS	n/a (has previously aired on SBS)	Facing North
Miss Bala	Transmission	22 November	Through the Labyrinth
Monsieur Lazhar	Palace	6 September	Int. Panorama
Moonrise Kingdom	Universal	30 August	Int. Panorama
No	Rialto		Through the Labyrinth
On the Road	Icon	27 September	Int. Panorama
ParaNorman	Universal	20 September	Next Gen
Paul Kelly: Stories of Me	Madman	18 October	Backbeat
Policeman	Curious Film		Int. Panorama
Rampart	Madman		Int. Panorama
Robot and Frank	Sony	15 November	Int. Panorama
Ruby Sparks	Fox	20 September	Int. Panorama
Safety Not Guaranteed	Rialto	18 October	Int. Panorama
Save Your Legs!	Madman	24 January, 2013	Aust. Showcase
Searching for Sugar Man	Madman	4 October	Facing North
Seeking A Friend for the End of the World	Roadshow	23 August	Int. Panorama
Shadow Dancer	Potential Films	11 October	Int. Panorama
Shut up and Play the Hits	Vendetta Films		Backbeat
Sightseers	Rialto	26 December	Night Shift
Sister	Palace		Int. Panorama
Sleepless Night	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
Sound of My Voice	Fox		Night Shift
Tabu	Palace		Int. Panorama
Teddy Bear	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
The Angels’ Share	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
The First Fagin	Ronin Films		Aust. Showcase
The Hunt	Madman		Int. Panorama
The Imposter	Madman		Documentaries
The Intouchables	Roadshow	25 October	Int. Panorama
The King of Pigs	Madman		Animation
The Loneliest Planet	Palace		Int. Panorama
The Minister	Hi Gloss Entertainment		Int. Panorama
The Sapphires	Hopscotch	9 August	Opening Night
The Sessions	Fox	8 November	Int. Panorama
The Taste of Money	Madman		Accent on Asia
This Ain’t California	Management of Doubt		Documentaries
Undefeated	Madman		Documentaries
V/H/S	Roadshow		Night Shift
Violeta Went to Heaven	Madman		Through the Labyrinth
Vulgaria	China Lion	23 August	Accent on Asia
War Witch	Curious Film		Int. Panorama
Warriors of the Rainbow – Seediq Bale: Part 1	Monster Pictures	13 September *	Accent on Asia
Warriors of the Rainbow – Seediq Bale: Part 2	Monster Pictures	13 September *	Accent on Asia
Wunderkinder	Umbrella	6 September	Next Gen
Wuthering Heights	Transmission	11 October	Int. Panorama
Your Sister's Sister	Madman	6 September	Int. Panorama

* You might like to note that Warriors of the Rainbow – Seediq Bale is being theatrically released as one film, not two.

Of MIFF, Maddin and Max Headroom

For Melbourne's cinéphiles and their fellow travellers, the greatest show in town is shortly to commence. Of course, I speak of the Melbourne International Film Festival and its second edition under the stewardship of über-cinéphile and former Senses of Cinema colleague* of mine, the wonderful Michelle Carey.

* Michelle is still a pillar of the Senses of Cinema team, serving as its Festival Reports Editor. It is I who have left, though I continue to contribute articles. For example, the next issue (due out... surely any day now?) will feature my report on the 26th Fribourg International Film Festival, while the miraculously still current issue features a lengthy screed in which I review two fantastic recent books on Guy Maddin: Into the Past: The Cinema of Guy Maddin by William Beard and Playing with Memories: Essays on Guy Maddin, edited by David Church.

Speaking of Guy Maddin

MIFF aside, far and away the greatest film cultural event to hit Melbourne town in 2012 (notwithstanding the formal inauguration of yet another fine local film journal, Screen Machine) is still underway at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image. I speak of “Nocturnal Transmissions: The Cinema of Guy Maddin”, a really rather thorough* retrospective of Winnipeg's finest, most delirious and most exclamatory filmmaker, that great poet of Vaseline-smeared, amnesiac melodrama and recent Order of Canada awardee (!), Guy Maddin, running through to 27 July.

* But not completely thorough, even with as many as three weeks of screenings. Just below, for example, is a terrific Maddin short not screening as part of ACMI's season but which makes for an excellent companion piece to his brilliant The Heart of the World (2000) (one of my all-time favourite short films and more than just a little tinged with genius and reverence for the cinematic medium (just as, one might say, Maddin is himself tinged with irreverence for the 'medium' of the ghosts of cinema and Winnipeg's pasts, real and fabricated, that he himself bodily represents.))

The Heart of the World presents an altogether new Creation myth of the moving pictures, and so too does his under-seen 2009 short, Night Mayor. Courtesy of the National Film Board of Canada, enjoy!



Maddin devotees and novitiates alike should be flocking in droves to ACMI to get a fix of that inimitable imitator's truly astonishing body of work. Equally, both camps could do a lot worse than to tune in, using Melbourne radio stations Triple R's recently launched “Radio on Demand” facility, to a “Max Headroom” special from Thursday, 28 June, where I was joined by tremendous fellow Triple R critic, Thomas Caldwell, super-dooper ACMI programmer Kristy Matheson, co-curator (with Maddin) of ACMI's extensive Maddin season, and a pre-recorded Guy Maddin himself, from whom I had gleaned an exclusive interview and no few pearls of wisdom.

For example, the answer to the question on every cinéaste's lips: will not real Vaseline forever trump digital? Tune in and find out!

A Max Headroom Maddin-MIFF segue

You can get it live, or you'll be able to get it “on demand” all the way up to six months later – your choice. Either way, be sure to catch the Thursday, 9 August edition of “Max Headroom” on Triple R when I join Tara Judah and Josh Nelson from the fabulous Triple R film criticism podcast, Plato's Cave, as we throw an hour's worth of musings at this year's MIFF from a fine vantage point, one full week into the festival, from where we'll cast an eye over what we'll have seen and what we'll anticipate we'll still yet see at Melbourne's film festival of film festivals. All the critical scuttlebutt from the 61^st MIFF – and more!, more or less.

A time-honoured tradition: MIFF 2012 release dates

Here follows a cannibalisation of last year's edition of much this same blog post. The devil is in the details.

Caveats

Benh Zeitlin's Beasts of the Southern Wild:
a fabulous film indeed!
But can you not hold out until
it goes on general release (13 September)?

Please be advised that none of the following can be taken as gospel, for the distribution game is the stuff of whims, vicissitudes and, some have alleged, sorcery. Furthermore, some films may not be destined for theatrical release at all but rather may go straight to TV, DVD or Blu-Ray, online streaming or download, or even to YouTube, Vimeo and their like (to speak only of outlets a film might find itself distributed to legitimately). This means that MIFF might represent your only chance to see many of these titles on a big screen in Melbourne.

Last year I observed that I had never known there to be so many films screening at MIFF to have distribution lined up at a comparably early stage in proceedings. There were, however, a mere 81 such titles this time last year, whereas this year, I make it 92 (not including retrospective titles long ago to have been released to theatres and home viewing, like Hal Ashby's legendary morose laugh riot Harold and Maude from 1971.)

Madman Entertainment, while still having secured distribution to as many as 23 of the following titles, have nowhere near so large a representation in the following table as they did in last year's; Madman titles accounted for a whopping 37% (30 out of 81) of films to have distribution lined up ahead of the 2011 festival. This has dropped in 2012 to 25% (23 out of 92).

This might help placate certain conspiracy theorists to have surmised on this blog last year that Madman's huge representation amongst last year's MIFF offerings carried with it a whiff of impropriety...

Now, while some of the films listed below may well be released very soon after MIFF, there can be incentives beyond bragging rights to attending their screenings at the festival, as, for example, when guests will be in attendance to conduct introductions, Q&As, flesh-pressings and so forth.

In the particular case of many of the Australian titles, there can be the added buzz of attending what will be hometown world premieres, which can generate a peculiarly electric atmosphere which no other viewing scenario can ever hope to match. Being at such a screening when it goes well is a particularly salutary experience. (Also, there may be a party afterwards.)

However, the converse also applies. Attending a local premiere when a film tanks, with cast and crew present, can be awkward and dispiriting, as with MIFF's 2010 curtain raiser, the yet-to-be-seen-again, may-in-fact-never-be The Wedding Party (d. Amanda Jane).

It is also true that some of these films may not be released for quite some time. Referring to last year's list, one of the 2011 MIFF's most outstanding offerings was undoubtedly Nuri Bilge Ceylan's mesmerising Once upon a Time in Anatolia, which was only granted a theatrical release within the last month or two. The wait then can be long.

Okey doke. Thems are caveats enough. On with the main attraction!

* 13.8.12 My apologies to the folks at Hi Gloss Entertainment; information published here previously pertaining to release dates for their titles was erroneous. I had DVD releases for the three titles of theirs listed here down for October but my original sources were evidently not really in the know; no DVD release date has, in fact, been scheduled yet for any of Italy: Love It or Leave It, Journal de France or The Minister. Two of these three titles (I'm not sure which two) are, furthermore, presently under discussion for theatrical release.

The table below has been adjusted to reflect this.

There are a few further updates which could yet be made to this table to reflect announcements made, and press releases issued, by various distributors and exhibitors over the last couple of weeks; time permitting, I'll get around to updating this table within the next day or two accordingly.

TITLE	DISTRIBUTOR	RELEASE INFO (where known)	SECTION
¡Vivan Las Antipodas!	Madman		Documentaries
[REC] Genesis	Vendetta Films		Night Shift
100 Bloody Acres	Hopscotch		Night Shift
11 Flowers	Palace		Next Gen
A Monster in Paris	Madman		Next Gen
A Simple Life	Dream Movie		Accent on Asia
Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry	Madman		Documentaries
Alois Nebel	Madman		Animation
Amour	Transmission		Int. Panorama
Back to Stay	Transmission		Through the Labyrinth
Barbara	Madman		Int. Panorama
Beasts of the Southern Wild	Icon	13 September	Int. Panorama
Being Venice	Curious Film		Aust. Showcase
Berberian Sound Studio	Madman		Int. Panorama
Beyond	Rialto	November	Facing North
Beyond the Hills	Madman		Int. Panorama
Bully	Roadshow	23 August	Next Gen
Caesar Must Die	Palace		Int. Panorama
Chasing Ice	Madman		Documentaries
Croker Island Exodus	ABC	TV	Aust. Showcase
Damsels in Distress	Sony	6 September	Int. Panorama
Dark Horse	Roadshow		Int. Panorama
Easy Money	Madman		Facing North
Ernest & Celestine	Rialto		Animation
Errors of the Human Body	Curious Film		Aust. Showcase
Farewell, My Queen	Transmission		Int. Panorama
First Position	Hopscotch	27 September	Next Gen
Girl Model	Aztec		Documentaries
God Bless America	Potential Films		Night Shift
Hail	Madman		Aust. Showcase
Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai	Icon	18 October	Accent on Asia
Headshot	Madman		Accent on Asia
Holy Motors	Icon	23 August	Leos Carax
I Wish	Rialto		Accent on Asia
In the Fog	Sharmill		Int. Panorama
Italy: Love It or Leave It	Hi Gloss Entertainment		Documentaries
Jack Irish: Bad Debts	ABC	TV	Aust. Showcase
Jayne Mansfield's Car	Eagle	DVD, early 2013	Int. Panorama
Journal de France	Hi Gloss Entertainment		Documentaries
Killer Joe	Roadshow		Night Shift
Last Dance	Becker Film Group		Aust. Showcase
Le Grand Soir	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
Liberal Arts	Icon	11 October	Int. Panorama
Make Hummus Not War	Antidote Films		Aust. Showcase
Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present	Madman		Documentaries
Mental	Icon	4 October	Closing Night
Metropia	SBS	n/a (has previously aired on SBS)	Facing North
Miss Bala	Transmission	DVD, 5 September	Through the Labyrinth
Monsieur Lazhar	Palace	6 September	Int. Panorama
Moonrise Kingdom	Universal	30 August	Int. Panorama
No	Rialto		Through the Labyrinth
On the Road	Icon	27 September	Int. Panorama
ParaNorman	Universal	20 September	Next Gen
Paul Kelly: Stories of Me	Madman	18 October	Backbeat
Policeman	Curious Film		Int. Panorama
Rampart	Madman		Int. Panorama
Robot and Frank	Sony	15 November	Int. Panorama
Ruby Sparks	Fox	20 September	Int. Panorama
Safety Not Guaranteed	Rialto	20 September/18 October	Int. Panorama
Save Your Legs!	Madman		Aust. Showcase
Searching for Sugar Man	Madman		Facing North
Seeking A Friend for the End of the World	Roadshow	23 August	Int. Panorama
Shadow Dancer	Potential Films	4 October	Int. Panorama
Shut up and Play the Hits	Vendetta Films		Backbeat
Sightseers	Rialto		Night Shift
Sister	Palace		Int. Panorama
Sleepless Night	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
Sound of My Voice	Fox		Night Shift
Tabu	Palace		Int. Panorama
Teddy Bear	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
The Angels’ Share	Vendetta Films		Int. Panorama
The First Fagin	Ronin Films		Aust. Showcase
The Hunt	Madman		Int. Panorama
The Imposter	Madman		Documentaries
The Intouchables	Roadshow	25 October	Int. Panorama
The King of Pigs	Madman		Animation
The Loneliest Planet	Palace		Int. Panorama
The Minister	Hi Gloss Entertainment		Int. Panorama
The Sapphires	Hopscotch	9 August	Opening Night
The Sessions	Fox	8 November	Int. Panorama
The Taste of Money	Madman		Accent on Asia
This Ain’t California	Management of Doubt		Documentaries
Undefeated	Madman		Documentaries
V/H/S	Roadshow		Night Shift
Violeta Went to Heaven	Madman		Through the Labyrinth
Vulgaria	China Lion	23 August	Accent on Asia
War Witch	Curious Film		Int. Panorama
Warriors of the Rainbow – Seediq Bale: Part 1	Monster Pictures	6 September	Accent on Asia
Warriors of the Rainbow – Seediq Bale: Part 2	Monster Pictures	6 September	Accent on Asia
Wunderkinder	Umbrella	6 September	Next Gen
Wuthering Heights	Transmission	11 October	Int. Panorama
Your Sister's Sister	Madman	6 September	Int. Panorama