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

Master of My Domain

Inadvertently humourous Czech poster for
Steve McQueen's Shame

Hi all.

After a little lie down that would do Sleeping Beauty proud, my hand has been forced into posting something here anew.

Some sort of catastrophic server trouble recently left stricken the good ship Senses of Cinema and had, in the process, left me incommunicado via email for two long weeks and unable to access any of my email from a further three or so weeks prior.

It wasn't until only just a little earlier today that Senses got up and running once again after a full fortnight's lay-off. Mind you, the spell on the sidelines has done it some appreciable good; in resurrecting the site, aspects of its design have been markedly improved, even if some elements of its facelift still need quite some fine tuning (as has been acknowledged).

All this being so, you'll now be able to access two articles I've written for Senses since last I posted here: "A Twilight Portrait: A Report on the 21st Film Festival Cottbus" in Issue 61 and "Into the Past: The Cinema of Guy Maddin by William Beard; and Playing with Memories: Essays on Guy Maddin edited by David Church" - a whopping double book review - in the current issue, # 62. Additionally, I contributed to Senses' 2011 world poll, published between these two issues.

But I have digressed.

My old sensesofcinema.com address had been my principal email address for over ten years. Seeing as a) I have not, strictly speaking, been in the employ of Senses of Cinema for some time and b) I have just now been made all too aware how compromising it can be sticking for so long with an email address which is administrated by folks who are effectively a third party, I have just seen fit to mint myself a brand new, personal domain, the better to gain complete control over my email and never again fall foul of such communications strife beyond my means to remedy personally.

Hence, cerisehoward.com has been born. On the web, a visit presently does nothing more than simply and peremptorily re-direct the curious visitor right here, to A Little Lie Down.

Well, it had to do something.

Owning an eponymous domain, I now feel the pressure to use that domain for some good beyond merely using it as an expedient for reliably sending and receiving email, so www.cerisehoward.com will likely, if not necessarily immediately, yet be stocked with content pertaining to my various activities across film, music, writing and so on. There are many projects afoot in these various fields and many worthy projects in them to have come and gone before, so it might indeed be nice to have them all documented, contained even, in a central repository.

Let's wait and see what develops there...

Meanwhile, if you're someone who's been trying to reach me via email these last few weeks and been foiled, please update your records so that you have my email address down as cerise [at] cerisehoward.com. Thanks!

*

Now, seeing as we've finally found ourselves enjoying another Little Lie Down, I think something of an update with respect to my activities in film is in order.

Aside from those aforementioned articles in recent issues of Senses of Cinema, here are some other things to have been going on:

I'm not long back from serving on a FIPRESCI jury at the 26th Fribourg International Film Festival. It was a great pleasure to serve alongside my esteemed, and altogether charming, colleagues, namely Sheila Johnston (president of the jury); Hauvick Habechian; Nina Scheu, and Katja Čičigoj. (I'm kinda tickled that the page on the FIFF website listing our jury's members has me down as representing Preston specifically rather than Melbourne!)

And the winner of the FIPRESCI Jury award is... (cue drumroll)... Countdown!

My report on the FIPRESCI jury prize winner, Huh Jong-ho's cracking genre(s) film Countdown (2011), will appear soon on the FIPRESCI website alongside reportage covering several other aspects of the 26th FIFF from my fellow jurors.

Furthermore, I will yet have a full report of my experiences at this year's festival in Fribourg in the next issue of Senses of Cinema. (I've previously also covered the FIFF for Senses in 2010 and 2011.)

What else?

Some radio I've done in recent times can be accessed online.

The kind folks at 3RRR - I'll be back on the air in my usual spot on SmartArts opposite Richard Watts a week today (Thursday 26 April) - have made accessible online a spot I did back in February when I reviewed My Week with Marilyn (d. Simon Curtis, a film rather more interesting for its dramatisation - and perhaps meta-dramatisation - of a pitting of Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh)'s old school hammy thesping against Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams)' high-maintenance Stanislavskian new school method acting, than for its more conventional biopic aspects); Steve McQueen's grim, sexually frank depiction of dysfunctional, downward spiralling siblings adrift in the big smoke, Shame (rather humorously, this film is known in the Czech Republic, after a rather unfortunate translation, as Stud! - see the poster above), and the rather misleadingly titled Leonardo Live (d. Phil Grabsky), a behind-the-scenes look at the lead-up to the Opening Night of the blockblusteriest of all blockbuster exhibitions, the National Gallery in London's "Leonardo da Vinci: Painter at the Court of Milan".

If that weren't enough, RRR's internet fairies have also put online in its raw, unedited entirety an interview I conducted with legendary avant-garde artist, progenitor of industrial music and "pandrogyne", Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, who came to Melbourne to partake in a fantastic, consciousness-raising Q&A after a screening of Marie Losier's beautiful experimental documentary, The Ballad of Genesis and Lady Jaye, as well as, it transpired, to perform with Psychic TV at a memorable "secret show" at The Toff in Town the night following.

Lastly, back on December 8 - soooo last year, I know - I had a ball filling in for Josh Nelson on 3RRR's always splendid Plato's Cave film criticism podcast during a special live-to-air summer season. I saddled up my high horse to kickstart a discussion about the parochialist failings I (continue to) perceive in Australia's film festival culture, after having first mused with Thomas Caldwell and Tara Judah over the merits of Puss in Boots (d. Chris Miller); Gus van Sant's perhaps unfairly disdained Restless and the really very stabby The Yellow Sea (d. Na Hong-jin).

If you haven't yet, now's a very good time to subscribe to Plato's Cave.

On the matter of fabulous film crit podcasts, the lovely folks at Hell Is For Hyphenates - that's Paul Anthony Nelson and Lee Zachariah - have asked me to join them as a guest on their May edition. Asked to pick a filmmaker whose work we'll ultimately come to collectively dissect, after first setting any other number of film critical matters to rights, I settled on...well, perhaps I won't spoil the surprise just yet. But suffice it to say it's someone who some recent time spent in the Czech Republic only did more to further expand my already considerable appreciation of...

If you haven't yet, now's a very good time to subscribe to Hell Is For Hyphenates. (May I especially recommend you listen to the episode where Christos Tsiolkas guests and a fabulous conversation about Pier Paolo Pasolini ensues!)

Also looking ahead, I'm to introduce a 3RRR subscribers' screening on Friday 4 May of Jean-Luc Godard's Sympathy for the Devil (1968) at ACMI, a full eight days before its official ACMI season begins (you lucky 3RRR subscribers, you! Excepting, of course, any dyed-in-the-wool Rolling Stones fans, who invariably hate the film, finding it unbearably pretentious and stingy on the Stones footage...) Here's the trailer:

Lastly, I'm still working on my review of Alexandra Heller-Nicholas' alarmingly filmographically and theoretically comprehensive Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study for Bright Lights Film Journal. The number of films of that ilk I've watched, in a few frenzies of catch-up viewing staged necessarily a few weeks apart - well, it takes a toll, I tells ya!

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I would like to finish this post by stating in pithy but no uncertain terms that if you live in Melbourne and don't get to the William Kentridge exhibition at ACMI before it closes in late May, then you'd have to have rocks in your head. That is all.

Of recent gads had about Central Europe; the near future, and points of intersection

Long-time scanners of A Little Lie Down will know that many a post hereabouts begins along the lines of “Well, gosh, it's sure been a while between drinks” before leading into some sort of lame apology.

Well, with that acknowledgement made I can dodge that particular bullet for this late November '11 stocktake instalment of ALLD and just get the hell on with it.

Yes, a stocktake

A stocktake, that is, of things to come, of things to have recently occurred, and intersections thereof.

Two reasons for my not having contributed much to my own blog lately are:

1) I have an awful lot to write before this year is over for publications other than ALLD, publications of a reputable nature which, unlike ALLD, actually and necessarily operate to deadlines.

2) I have been preoccupied by being overseas, attending festivals in Cottbus (Germany, in the old East, not far from the Polish border and where all signage is in German and in Sorbian*), and in Prague, which dovetails neatly into item 1), for one of the things I have to write is a report on the 21^st FilmFestival Cottbus for Senses of Cinema for its next edition, and another is a report on the 12^th Mezipatra, the wonderful queer film festival in the Czech Republic, which I have notions I'll be submitting to another particular esteemed film journal, though I'd be foolish to say here just which when I couldn't altogether be said to have run it past them yet.

* No, this is not a typo.

I won't go into too much detail about either of these festivals here, in the interests of dodging ultimate duplication, other than to recount a few personal highlights of Mezipatra which would not necessarily be the stuff of a more formal festival report:

Chief amongst my highlights was moderating a Q&A with Todd Haynes after a screening of Far From Heaven (2002), chased down with a few drinks at Prague's legendary Kavárna Lucerna with the highly affable, accessible director; his lovely partner; a few fellow guests, and various of the Mezipatra staff. At Mezipatra director Aleš Rumpel's behest, I found myself toasting the table as only one too deeply versed in the Australian vernacular can, with a wholehearted “up your arse!” This, happily, went down rather better than, in hindsight, it conceivably might have.

Also: a day or two prior Mezipatra held, upon the hallowed ground of FAMU*, a Todd Haynes masterclass, conducted by Variety critic Boyd van Hoeij. Now you too can enjoy, as did I, a front-row seat for this terrific discussion. Haynes is a terrific speaker, warm, erudite and generous in equal measure, and there's well over two hours' worth of his thoughts upon the cinema - his, and all that which has inspired it.

* FAMU is, rather awkwardly in English, the Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague. Read the list of notable alumni (some, like Věra Chytilová, these days serve as faculty!) on FAMU's Wikipedia page – and weep!

Here, notwithstanding my slight, doth-protest-too-much, old-school discomfort with embedding video content on my blog wholly the (recent) creation of others, is “Todd Haynes Himself” - the superb Todd Haynes masterclass given on the occasion of his retrospective at the 12^th Queer Film Festival Mezipatra in Prague.

Alas, there isn't (as far as I know) any video footage of my Q&A with Todd Haynes, but here at least are a couple of photos so I can still commemorate the occasion here. (With many thanks to Josef Rabara for the photos.)

The author (l) with Todd Haynes. This is immediately after a screening of a spanky 35mm print of Haynes' sumptuous Far From Heaven. Little does the director realise it, but deliberately pinned to my accidentally apt '50s-ish tuck shop frock - accidentally apt, that is, as I had in fact been prepared to conduct a Q&A that day after my favourite Todd Haynes film, Safe, rather than after Far From Heaven - is a badge bearing a detail of a photo, taken by the amazing Gregory Crewdson, depicting Julianne Moore in a state of terrifying domestic narcotism, bought originally in 2008 at a Crewdson exhibition held in Prague's Rudolfinum, as if to summon Todd Haynes to Zlatá Praha, celebrated alchemy capital of the world, within a matter of but three years...

(l-r) The author, Todd Haynes, festival director Aleš Rumpel (mid-translation) and programmer Lucia Kajánková. The latter two, atop all of the powers they demonstrate in abundance for Mezipatra in their respective roles, have truly formidable translation skills, taking turns in rendering into Czech some wonderfully well-considered but very, very lengthy responses from Todd Haynes to questions posed to him, whether by me or by members of a happily, highly engaged audience.

And now, especially for non-Czech readers of this blog and anyone else who wasn't at the festival and so likely hasn't seen this year's Mezipatra trailer, here then, the better to give you a sense of the festival's flavour, is this (dir: Tamara Moyzes):

Lastly on Mezipatra (for here and now), here's a photo of the beautiful, 102-year-old Kino Lucerna, taken on Mezipatra's Opening Night.

I love this place, even though the projection is occasionally a little pants.

Now, if you were to look closely, you might just spot me in the second row, covered in owls. A cautionary note: it is no longer safe to purchase a dress covered, one might have thought uniquely, in owls, in Hobart, under the unconscious presumption that its like will never, ever be seen North-si-eed, hemispherically speaking. However, the very day following the Opening Night shenanigans in Prague, I spotted the very same dress prominently on display in a groovy little Prague boutique. Globalisation, amongst its many other evils (and, granted, certain goods) has sadly increased the risk of same-garb embarrassment a hundred-thousandfold. None of us are safe from this scourge, no matter how far flung our travel destinations. None of us!

Which brings me, sans an elegant segue, to:
Critical failings of film festivals in Australia...

Chatting with the lovely Boyd van Hoeij in Kavárna Lucerna one evening, we got to talking about his role as one of four (including the delightful, impassioned and sage Tom Kalin – and hasn't Swoon (Kalin, 1992) aged brilliantly well!) adjudicating on the features jury at Mezipatra this year. While Boyd spoke of greatly enjoying his jury duty, having been on many juries previously, I had to confess that I've never served on a film festival jury, and instantly felt something a hick.

This point now dovetails neatly with a near-future engagement of mine to have just emerged. Come Thursday next week – that's December 8, at 7pm – in the absence of Josh Nelson, I'll be joining the remaining 2/3 of the fabulous Plato's Cave film criticism podcasting team – Thomas Caldwell and Tara Judah – on the second of their nine week live-to-air summer season on my beloved Triple R 102.7FM, already home to my regular fortnightly radio gig, “A Fistful of Celluloid” on Richard Watts' Thursdaily artsopotamus, SmartArts.

Per the Plato's Cave formula, I'll chew over three current releases with Tara and Thomas, with the remainder of the show turned over to discussion of some film cultural matter or other. It already having been suggested that I might like to tell a few stories from my recent European adventures, I further proposed that that

could easily be linked to a wider consideration of film festival culture and, in particular, to what I consider a major failing of film festival culture in Oz: a certain parochialism/provincialism, something which I feel has a negative trickle-down impact upon critical practice here (amongst other things).

When last did a festival here afford local critics a chance to mix with international peers (whether in a formal capacity, say, on a jury) or just through attracting international media to our far shores? Is not film criticism in Australia largely practiced in one great, blinkered, whitebread vacuum, largely marooning Australian critics with only their own for company (little wonder they so often turn on one another), robbing them of opportunities to develop a more internationalist perspective of film (festival) culture, notwithstanding the richness, diversity and heft of the foreign big screen offerings that unspool here more and more every year?

I'd already started to write a stroppy great rant about as much for this blog but would now rather instead focus those energies on delivering the same on Plato's Cave tomorrow week, whereupon Thomas and Tara can immediately present the case for the opposition, if there is much of a one, or at least get several strong opinions of their own on the matter in edgeways.

And after that episode has gone to air, and the podcasting fairies have waved their magic wands across it, I'll be sure to post a link to it here for all whom should transpire to miss it live but wish to catch up with it later.

Another very good reason for publishing something, right here, right now

Truth is too that I needed something to hang a promo on for the Australian Film Critics Association's Film Writing Awards, lest AFCA secretary Bernard Hemingway otherwise find out where I live and pop round to break my knees in frustration at my not having let him know what I, as a card-carrying member of the illustrious AFCA, would be doing (if anything!) to promote the AFCA's awards.

And, so, lo! Behold! And: go forth and compete!

I'll hasten to add that I'll certainly submit something to these awards myself, ahead of the looming deadline of December 31. Perhaps it'll be something to have first had a run here at A Little Lie Down. Perhaps, indeed!

I'll also give the awards a plug when I return to the Triple R airwaves a little later this morning at 11.30, joining Richard Watts on SmartArts and yakking about George Clooney's The Ides of March, Megan Doneman's documentary on Asia Nobel Prize winner, Kiran Bedi, Yes Madam, Sir, and this and that else besides.

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A personal film criticism and publication diary for the remainder of 2011

Today, Thurs, Dec 1: I return to SmartArts.

Thurs, Dec 8: I fill in for Josh Nelson on Plato's Cave.

Mid-late Dec – I'll submit a report on the 21st FilmFestival Cottbus to Senses of Cinema (along with as many as two book reviews: dekalog 3: On Film Festivals (guest ed. Richard Porton) and Playing with Memories: Essays on Guy Maddin (ed. David Church)). Yikes!

Thurs, Dec 15: SmartArts – Reviews of Lars von Trier's Melancholia and Pedro Almodóvar's The Skin I Live In will be the likely order of the day.

Sat Dec 31: Deadline for submission to the Australian Film Critics Association's Film Writing Awards.

Also, then or thenabouts:

I will submit a review of Alexandra Heller-Nicholas' Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study to Bright Lights Film Journal (I must mention that I saw an absolute cracker of just such a film in Cottbus, in new Russian feature, Twilight Portrait (dir: Angelina Nikonova)).

I will submit, presuming such are once more solicited, a wrap of the year that will have been 2011, to Senses of Cinema.

And I must submit a report on Mezipatra 2011 to a certain journal as well.

Busy times! (During which I believe the 3RRR subscriber magazine, The Trip, will post a slightly premature Top 10 of mine for 2011 as well. (What? - you don't subscribe? Well, that's easily remedied – now get cracking!))

Parallel lines – of further adventures in film and the other arts

Some things to have consumed me, my time and my all-too-finite energies in recent months, keeping me distracted from blogging, include:

Tourists descend en masse
upon Bruges even on Segways!

1) A grand, month-long European jaunt undertaken back in March. It included a day spent, in tribute to Martin McDonagh's wonderful film of a few years back, lying low of an afternoon in Bruges which, as it transpired, is surely amongst the very worst places in the world one could attempt such a thing – canal-loads of tourists, even in the low season, inundate this most picturesque mediaeval theme park of a town, their cameras clicking ceaselessly all awhile. I dread to think how many times I appear in complete strangers' holiday snaps from those few hours spent in Bruges!

My trip also took in the 25^th Fribourg International Film Festival. Senses of Cinema published my report on the FIFF some weeks back; the wider issue it is filed away in (#59) has just last week gone live, so please do be checking it out. And, Melburnians, you never know – some of what I've covered in my festival report (and other writers in that same issue in theirs) just might word you up on some films destined for this year's MIFF, as was the case in several instances last year.

(Re MIFF: a little more below.)

2) Speaking of Senses of Cinema, and of the launch of its latest issue, here's word of a great weight of film cultural labour I've performed even while this blog lay completely idle.

For I have not long completed the colossal task of migrating into its new-ish Content Management System all of Senses of Cinema's archival articles, essays, dissertations, rants, thinkpieces, polemics, peer-reviewed jargonfests, buff fluff, scholarly considerations, minutiae trawling 'reconsiderations', book reviews, festival reports, interviews, annotations for the Melbourne Cinémathèque, DVD reviews, ruminations upon the rise/fall/rise/fall/rise? of Australian cinema, and so on, ever published.

It took quite some doing. But I'm better now.

3) A fair period has just passed of living between fixed abodes, which made it difficult to get into any sort of relaxed groove, the better to diligently attend to the rigours of blogging. (I am in fact not completely out of the proverbial woods yet but matters have significantly improved.)

4) There has most welcomely emerged a wonderful reinvigoration of my love of music with respect to both its appreciation and its creation, in and out of conjunction with the staging of an almost imminent theatrical extravaganza. (For more about which, see below.)

5) Then there's the matter of my own disposition towards inertia when uninspired. Not for nothing have I declared myself here a “procrastinateuse extraordinaire”. I am never more so than when snowed under with workaday worries and considerations which, not being the stuff of riveting blogging, shall not further be dwelt upon here.

Here endeth the apologia. And beginneth anew A Little Lie Down!

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This Thursday (today!), I'll be back on 3RRR's SmartArts after four weeks in the (proverbial) wilderness. I'll be reviewing Michael Winterbottom's The Trip and Terrence Malick's The Tree of Life.

Now, notwithstanding sometime sudden onsets of mild performance anxiety, I always look forward to letting loose a little film crit across the airwaves, especially when, as with today's show, I've been able to discern some sort of serendipitous link between films I'll be covering, the better to more firmly cohere my segment's contents and to bestow upon “A Fistful of Celluloid” a greater fluidity. (Well, one can always hope.)

My today's consideration of The Trip and The Tree of Life will then riff on that old warhorse, “the personal is the universal”, a philosophy – and a mantra evangelised by many a writer and teacher of writing – I feel to be at the core of both films, if manifest in completely different fashions.

In The Trip, it's manifest through the very particularity of its casting. Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon play versions of themselves, with select aspects of their personal lives (and Coogan's in particular) fictionalised to some humourously unknowable, but telling extent, as with these same actors' casting in the same director's recent Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story.* "Coogan" and "Brydon"'s respective lots in life, ** and the one-upmanship-driven dynamic between them are milked not only for much of The Trip's abundant comedy but also for the considerable pathos the film surprisingly generates.

* Note to self: be sure to take on the mandatory-for-all-critics-at-some-point challenge of a consideration of that great shibboleth, the “unfilmable novel”, in a future post.

** By "Coogan" and "Brydon" I am referring to the gestalt entities derived from conflating the real, off-screen Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon with their fictionalised counterparts in The Trip, and in Tristram Shandy before it.

That pathos is a function of the protagonists' differing levels of success achieved relative to the levels aspired to; of the differing weights of importance they ascribe to one-upping one another, and, most profoundly come the dénouement, of their differing approaches to and appreciations of family and interpersonal relationships. In offering Coogan and Brydon as dialectical opponents, The Trip tells us much about these two gestalt entities 'individually' and specifically, but, in opposing one man (“Coogan”)'s lonely, insecure, insatiable quest for fame and fortune against another (“Brydon”)'s simpler, non-aspirational, domestically-centred contentment with his more modest lot in life, it also speaks to something universal. And that something is that great chimera, happiness, and that to which people will resort in its pursuit.

The Tree of Life parlays an absolutely extraordinary gambit in its equating of the personal with the universal. Why, the film has barely started before it unfurls an astonishing, extended representation of the coming into being of life, the universe and, oh, just everything. It's Terrence Malick's way of putting into perspective a very personal tragedy, an incident infinitesimally tiny and insignificant in the greater scheme of things, but universal in its impact. For who wouldn't, even many years into a life of comfort and of accomplishment in, say, the corporate world (or anything at all, really), having evidently risen far above humble beginnings (for example), still pause nonetheless, time to time, a la The Tree of Life's Jack (Sean Penn), to seek answers of the cosmos, of a universe which may or may not be part of some grand design (the film wisely hedges its bets on this matter), for, say, the incomprehensibly cruel loss of a beloved sibling, way back when.

The Tree of Life goes to great and spectacular lengths to position the personal and the universal as one and the same, even aestheticising equally Jack's flashbacks into his childhood and his consciousness' into the dawn of time. The latter is to 2011 as 2001 no doubt was to 1968; the former is tantamount to the most stunningly beautiful home movie ever made. I can't wait to see it again on the big screen, and it's very rare I feel that way about something I've only just seen for the very first time. The Tree of Life is glorious cinema writ not merely large but universal!

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The discernment and appreciation of chance parallels, motifs and themes running across multiple films is far more than something I'm occasionally drawn to ahead of doing a spot of radio; it's also (and much, much more so) a hallmark of film festival-going. It's something which considerably and unpredictably enriches the greater festival-going experience (even if sometimes also serving to render indistinct narratives, aesthetics, polemics, etc., to have graced any given individual film amongst a mass of others with which it might be found to have commonalities, blurring them all together in the memory).

Which thought brings me to the Melbourne International Film Festival, now looming large on the Melbourne calendar – its 60^th anniversary edition begins in just a shade over three weeks' time!

There could scarcely be a better time, then, to re-boot this blog than when Melbourne's film culture is about to experience its peak two-and-a-half weeks for the year. I hereby pledge to do as I did last year and cover the festival from go through to whoa...

You might, meanwhile, like to be kind, rewind, and cast a glance over my last year's coverage as an appetiser.

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What else is afoot?

In film:

I have committed to writing book reviews for various journals for publication later in the year. Book titles include, but are not limited to, Dekalog 3: On Film Festivals and Alexandra Heller-Nicholas' Rape-Revenge Films: A Critical Study.

And a collaboration is under way with a European festival with respect to some programming sourced from 'round these 'ere parts destined to be taken to 'round thems, and about which too much more right now would be premature to say beyond stating that it's all very exciting! And that I have some wonderful support from a few local bodies too.

In music and theatre:

Coming to you later this year at North Melbourne's Czech Club, where it'll be running throughout the Fringe Festival, Dirty Nicola and the Cheap, Filthy, Pre-loved, Shop-soiled Spud Hussies (myself on bass; Katrina Wilson on keys; Nicola Bell on drums; the three of us altogether on foley) will provide live, original musical accompaniment to a rather more polished and wonderful vaudevillian theatrical production of Wilhelm Busch's Max and Moritz: A Juvenile History in Seven Tricks, replete with marionette and human cast members, than already went down a treat at last year's Village festival in North Fitzroy's Edinburgh Gardens. Stay tuned for more about this in coming weeks as well as for details of further Max and Moritz action to follow at other festivals later in the year!

And in words:

My novel is resolutely not writing itself but we'll be setting that small matter to rights later in the year (one hopes). Meanwhile, my research for this project, already gestating overlong, carries on apace...

On which note, I'd love to hear from anyone who knows of any novels wherein a caricaturist features as the protagonist. Anyone know of any? Anyone? Any?

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More from me soon,

x Cerise

Cabbage Patch Kids: Women Make Movies!

Two nights ago it was my privilege to sit on a panel at a Fringe Festival edition of Cherchez la Femme, an ever lively, informal, monthly feminist salon presided over by the formidable Karen Pickering.

Along with my wonderful fellow panellists Namila Benson, Lou Sanz and Megan Evans, we discussed, at Karen and our audience's goading, matters pertaining to feminism and the arts.

Being the sort of person who is always sure to research matters extensively before daring to let loose any sort of commentary into the public sphere, I prepared several pages of notes for Cherchez la Femme, accounting for many of the major players and developments in “women's cinema” from the very dawn of the seventh art through to the current day.

My fear of public humiliation no doubt to some extent fuels my thoroughness in these matters and so, naturally, I made note of so many more women filmmakers and theorists, and pertinent moments in time, than I was remotely called upon to wax knowledgeable about. Of course, while it is generally best that any error on these occasions be on the side of being over-prepared rather than the opposite, I feel it is even better still to put to some use all of that extra, otherwise redundant preparation. And hence, this blog post.

A text I referred to extensively ahead of last Tuesday's forum was Alison Butler's Women's Cinema: The Contested Screen, part of Wallflower Press' “Short Cuts” series and which, atop giving a readily digestible guide to key developments and shifts in feminist film theory, offers a historical guide to women-made cinema, at least in so much as that might encompass films directed by women and, furthermore, films perceptibly bearing some sort of discernible authorial imprint, which is to say, its focus is on auteur films directed by women.

Running to just 144 pages, Women's Cinema is a great primer in the contributions women directors have made to the cinema across its 115 years... and counting. Indeed, it plays a vital part in the necessary rehabilitation of some very major figures in film history who still haven't received their fair due, none more so than Alice Guy, whose 1896 minute-long film The Cabbage Patch Fairy looks certain now to have been the first narrative fiction film ever made, and who even ran an American studio in the early 1910s. But that's not all, folks; she made early experiments with synchronised sound around 1905 (!), and many are now arguing that she, and not D.W. Griffith, was the first to use the close-up, on which cinematographic device hangs the whole of the subsequent Hollywood star system! (For better or for worse...)

She also had women playing men in films, the narratives of which, while often very brief, were wont to espouse highly progressive views. The list of her firsts could go on and on and on. And yet it wasn't long ago at all that hers was a name barely even mentioned in accounts of film history.

Clearly, a necessary part of the feminist “project” in film must be to excavate and celebrate the accomplishments of pioneering women in the industry whose achievements have been left in the margins for much too long.

On which note, I wish to devote much of the rest of this post to a major shortcoming I perceive in Butler's generally very worthy book. Of course, 144 pages can only be expected to encompass so much, and it is clear that the achievements of key players in areas of the production of “women's cinema” other than direction – actors such as Katherine Hepburn or Marlene Dietrich, or current-day producers like the estimable Christine Vachon, or male directors like George Cukor or Douglas Sirk, known for being “women's directors” – fall beyond the scope of this book.

So, sure, Women's Cinema is not meant as a comprehensive account of all those who can be said to have contributed to a women's cinema, just those who have made a directorial contribution, especially wherever that intersects with feminist film theory.

But this doesn't excuse what I perceive to be a terrible absence from Butler's book, an absence all the more glaring because it corresponds to a field of cinematic production and directorial/authorial practice where women have been pioneers many times over.

Here then, as a small corrective, is a shout-out to a few major women animators, without whom this most protean subset of film production – and, by extension, all of the cinema – would be immeasurably the poorer.

Lotte Reiniger

The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) is the oldest surviving animated feature film and features a technique indisputably the invention of its director: silhouette animation, a cinematic analogue to shadow puppetry.

Three years in production – Reiniger had to pose and re-pose her silhouette figures something along the order of 300,000 times! – The Adventures of Prince Achmed has lost none of its charm in the succeeding 80-odd years, and I can't recommend highly enough tracking down the British Film Institute's DVD release of it, especially as it features a terrific documentary on Reiniger.

Mary Ellen Bute

A highly influential animator, yet little-known today, Mary Ellen Bute was a pioneering synaesthetic animator, which is to say, she was one of a number of animators/experimental filmmakers around from the late 1920s/early 1930s onwards endeavouring to visualise sound.

Apparently her work was often seen in cinemas back in those halcyon days when cinemas ran shorts – even experimental work – ahead of feature film presentations. Were that we would see the likes of those days again.

Claire Parker (and Alexandra Grinevsky)

Alongside Alexandre Alexeïeff, in the early '30s Parker pioneered (with contributions in the prototyping from Alexeïeff's first wife, Alexandra Grinevsky) what is surely the most meticulous animation method ever devised, that of pin-screen animation, which achieves a beautiful, monochrome chiaroscuro effect derived from the shadows cast by the meticulous frame-by-frame arrangement of literally hundreds of thousands of headless pins embedded to varying depths within a screen.

Alexeïeff and Parker made a few stunning shorts employing this unbelievably painstaking method, but their best known film work is probably the beautiful still pin-screen images that accompany the opening voice-over narration in Orson Welles' The Trial. Don't though let that put you off tracking down their incredible 1933 short horror film, Night on Bald Mountain, just for starters!

Caroline Leaf

In the late 1960s, Leaf pioneered sand animation, a technique profiled at last year's Melbourne International Animation Festival, in which sand, or other grains or powdery substances, is poured upon a lightbox and, frame-by-frame, rearranged. It can make for beautifully fluid, texturally rich animations, whether of an abstract or narrative bent. Certainly, that most ubiquitous of cinematic transition devices, the dissolve (from one scene into the next), achieves new levels of poetry when done with sand... which leads me to...

Kseniya Simonova

You might not know her name, but perhaps you've already seen her work. Has not everybody in fact already seen viral clips of this extraordinary young woman's work as demonstrated on Ukraine's Got Talent?

Simonova is not just a sand animator; she's a performance sand animator. Her work is like a behind-the-scenes, making-of production of itself, a performance where the act of animation and the animation itself are inseparable, and where the whole concept of a frame, as a measurable, consistent, discrete unit of time, completely breaks down, is completely dissolved, for Simonova's frames are both frames-in-the-making and transitions from one frame to the next within themselves!

Deleuze would have loved this.

I'm reminded too a little of Jan Švankmajer's privileging of the visibly palpated animated object in his films. Not for Švankmajer concerns about wanting to remove fingerprints from moulded clay, erasing evidence of the human manipulation of marionettes or any other perceivable traces of the animator's artistry in the interests of a greater “suspension of disbelief” – quite the contrary! (All the better for nonsensing any suggestion that the realms of “reality” and “the imagination” might be entirely discrete constructions, never prone to slippage from one to the other, nor back again.)

I mention this because Simonova's work clearly only gains from seeing her perform her beautiful – and emotive – animations.

It's animation, but not as we hitherto had known it. Surely animation festivals the world over ought be clamouring to have her grace their events?

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Women's Cinema: in a cinema in Melbourne near you!

I'll wind this post up by noting that there are several films directed by women in Australian cinemas presently, and another, one of the very best films of the year in fact, due to be released here very shortly.

I was asked early on during Cherchez la Femme, apropos of a woman, Kathryn Bigelow, winning a Best Director Oscar for the very first time only this year, why it is that so few women are presently making films, or having their films distributed, and latterly, acclaimed.

Of course, the reasons that so few films made by women receive widespread distribution and/or are of the Hollywood big-budget blockbusting ilk are many and complex, but it is certainly not the case that women are making very few films at all, or that they are being altogether ghettoised and denied distribution. Things ain't totally bleak, as the following list of women-helmed feature films in distribution in Australia will illustrate.

The Tree (d. Julie Bertucelli)

In release now. Screened at MIFF. A beautifully lensed tale set in a south Queensland everytown in which Charlotte Gainsbourg's French migrant character loses her Aussie husband after he dies at the wheel, ploughing into the massive Moreton Bay Fig Tree that looms large – and then larger and larger – on their property. Perhaps her husband's spirit is then infused with the tree, as his favourite daughter, who frequently communes with it, believes, and perhaps not...

It's a lovely film, graced with superb performances all round, but I have to say it's somehow not as magical as I had hoped. I don't think it quite played up the supernatural-cum-magic realist elements of the narrative to the degree it ought to have; it feels like Bertucelli hedged her bets a little, making for a last act that is ultimately a little underwhelming, notwithstanding that it features a ferocious cinematic storm ripe for the likes of a Peter Tscherkassky to plunder.

The Kids are All Right (d. Lisa Cholodenko)

In release now. Screened at MIFF. I haven't seen it. I have heard some very good things but also note that it has infuriated several lesbian friends of mine.

Please Give (d. Nicole Holofcener)

In release now. Screened at MIFF. I haven't seen it either but note the presence in it of Catherine Keener, for whom I will always have time!

Sagan (d. Diane Kurys)

In release now. A biopic on French writer Françoise Sagan whose first novel, Bonjour tristesse, was adapted for the big screen in 1958 with Jean Seberg in the lead (d. Otto Preminger). Alas, I haven't seen Sagan.

South Solitary (d. Shirley Barrett)

In release now. Was the Opening Night Film of this year's Sydney Film Festival. Again, I regret to say I'm yet to see it.

The Waiting City (d. Claire McCarthy)

In release now. I've not seen it. Whereas...

Winter's Bone (d. Debra Granik)

Screened at MIFF. Will be released here 28 October. One of the films of the year! A great slice of Social Realist Ozark Gothic (if you will), a wonderfully atmospheric and really rather chilling descent into a desperate backwoods underworld where Southern hospitality is stretched to breaking point when it comes to matters surrounding methamphetamines and their production.

There are unfailingly terrific performances from the whole cast, most of whom are lumbered with extremely unattractive characters and made up to look like they really ought to grace Faces of Meth scare posters. I'll be sure to rave a little more in-depth about Winter's Bone a little closer to its release.

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Now, it might well be the case that most of these films are independent, narrow release productions, but with the relatively limited exposure to a public that that signifies, a happy flipside exists too; you can be sure that these films represent much less compromise on the parts of their makers than invariably occurs when almost anybody, man, woman or beast, is entrusted with the big BIG dollars that are the stuff of Hollywood blockbuster production.

Something else to note: four of the films listed just above got an airing at Melbourne's flagship film festival ahead of a cinema release, while another opened the Sydney film festival. Let's pause then to consider the salutary influence of our major film festivals upon the exhibition and distribution prospects of films from women (and indeed, from all less enfranchised) filmmakers, and pause also to note, and to trumpet the fact, that the Artistic Directors of the Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide Film Festivals are presently all women (Michelle Carey, Clare Stewart and Katrina Sedgwick, respectively), not forgetting that Anne Démy-Geroe oversaw the Brisbane International Film Festival from its birth in 1991 all the way through to just last year as well!

I don't know if that has much been commented on elsewhere, but that sure strikes me as a victory for female representation in the upper echelons of Australian film culture. The incumbency of women in programming films for the major festivals, as well as for other events, and within cultural institutions (like ACMI) is not in any way to be underestimated when it comes to getting more women filmmakers' work projected onto the umpteens of big screens around these parts, whereupon, it falls to us, to give them an audience...

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Lastly, it would be remiss of me not to plug “Voice of the Grain: Films by Arthur and Corinne Cantrill” at ACMI over the coming weeks, beginning this Sunday. Jake Wilson has curated four programs, each a Sunday apart, spanning 50 years of the practice of the godparents of Australian experimental cinema. Go see!