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IndiVision Screenings |
The IndiVision Screenings present films where imagination triumphs over money, where iconoclasm and the visionary soar over conformity, where there's space to hear characters breathe, ultimately where cinema kicks against the mundane.
Wildly divergent in style and content, these films act as stark - and original - proof that cinema can be made with limited finance. I promise they also urge Australian filmmakers and audiences to be both constantly restless and fundamentally attentive to what inspiring work can be found from often unexpected places and stolen moments.
Screenings include three Australian premieres - Close to Home (Israel, selected for Berlin film festival 2006), Allegro (Denmark, selected for Venice 2005 and Sundance 2006), and Down to the Bone (USA, winner, Director's Award Sundance 2004), as well as the powerful Keane (USA, selected for Director's Fortnight Cannes).
Special guests, US producer Andrew Fierberg (Secretary, Keane, Fur) and French producer Marc Missonnier (5 x 2, Swimming Pool), will participate in both the IndiVision Project Lab and Screenings.
Whether polemical or political, whispered or shouted, soft or hard, these films won't leave you indifferent. They will inspire.
James Hewison
Curator, IndiVision Screenings 06
**The IndiVision Screenings are supported by the Sydney Film Festival www.sydneyfilmfestival.org and the Melbourne International Film Festival www.melbournefilmfestival.com.au/.
2006 PROGRAM
MELBOURNE
Kino Dendy, 45 Collins Street, Melbourne; ph 9650 2100
Fri 24 Feb, 7pm: Allegro (18+)
Sat 25 Feb, 2.30pm: Close to Home (18+)
Sat 25 Feb, 4.30pm: Primer (M)
Sat 26 Feb, 6.30pm: Keane (18+), including post-screening discussion with the producer, Andrew Fierberg
Sun 26 Feb, 3.30pm: Forgiveness (18+)
Sun 26 Feb, 6pm: Down to the Bone (18+), including post-screening forum on low-budget cinema
Tickets available at the cinema.
$10 single session
$32 weekend pass (four films).
Booking fees may apply
HOBART
State Cinema, 375 Elizabeth Street; 6234 6318
Thurs 16 March, 6.30pm: Close to Home (18+)
Fri 17 March, 6.30pm: Down to the Bone (18+)
Sat 18 March, 8.30pm: Keane (18+)
PERTH
Film & Television Institute, 92 Adelaide Street; 9431 6721
Fri 24 March, 7:00pm: Close to Home (18+)
Sat 25 March, 2:30pm: Down to the Bone (18+)
Sat 25 March, 5:00pm: Primer (M)
Sat 25 March, 7:00pm: Keane (18+)
ADELAIDE
Media Resource Centre, 13 Morphett Street; 8410 0979
Fri 31 March 7.30pm: Down to the Bone (18+)
Sat 1 April 4.00pm: Keane (18+)
Sat 1 April 7.30pm: Close to Home (18+)
Tickets available at the cinemas.
Booking fees may apply
SYDNEY
Dendy Newtown, 261 King Street; ph 9550 5699
Fri 17 Feb, 7pm: Allegro (18+)
Sat 18 Feb, 2.30pm: Close to Home (18+)
Sat 18 Feb, 4.30pm: Primer (M)
Sat 18 Feb, 6.30pm: Keane (18+), including post-screening discussion with the producer, Andrew Fierberg
Sun 19 Feb, 3.30pm: Forgiveness (18+)
Sun 19 Feb, 6pm: Down to the Bone (18+), including post-screening forum on low-budget cinema
THE FILMS
CLOSE TO HOME
Israel 2005
Director: Vidi Bilu and Dalia Hager
Producers: Itai Tamir, Marek Rozenbaum
Budget: AUD$875,000
Shooting Format: HD Sony 950
Shoot: 21 days; 23 crew
Two 18-year-old Israeli girls, thrown together on their compulsory military service, are assigned to routinely check the identity papers of Palestinians on the streets of Jerusalem. Rebellious Smadar despises the task, but conservative Mirit insists they follow orders. They try to ignore the political reality in a city that slowly forces its way into their lives.
The buoyant Israeli film industry has had films and prizewinners at Cannes, Venice and Berlin festivals recently, with many in the low-budget range and shot on HD or DV. The prolific Marek Rozenbaum also produced the Camera D'Or winning Mon Tresor, which featured in the 2005 IndiVision Screenings.
Close to Home, an immediate and contemporary examination of occupationand responsibility, has just debuted at Berlin, and this will be its Australian premiere.
Awards & festivals: Berlin, Jerusalem
Screening Sydney, 2.30pm Sat 18 Feb
Melbourne 2.30pm Sat 25 Feb
Hobart 6.30pm Thurs 16 Mar
Perth 7.00pm Fri 24 Mar
Adelaide 7.30pm Sat 1 Apr.
DOWN TO THE BONE
USA 2004
Director: Debra Granik
Producers: Susan Leber, Anne Rosellini
Budget: AUD$665,000
Shooting Format: Mini DV (Sony PD 150)
Shoot: 24 days; 34 crew
Irene appears to be a loving wife and mother, but her life is precariously built around a cocaine addiction. When she finds herself trying to cash her son's birthday check to pay off her dealer, Irene determines to try to break the bonds of her addiction.
This gripping and moving story is based on nearly five years' worth of video shot by the director, Debra Granik, and her cinematographer, Michael McDonough, documenting the life of a character similar to Irene.
'Down to the Bone is the kind of movie most independent films strive in vain to be: a small, beautifully faceted gem.' - New York Times
Awards & festivals: Director's Award Sundance 2004
Special Jury Prize Performance Sundance 2004
Interviews with director and DOP
Link to trailer
Screening Sydney, 6pm Sun 19 Feb
Melbourne 6pm Sun 26 Feb
Hobart 6.30pm Fri 17 Mar
Perth 2.30pm Sat 25 Mar
Adelaide 7.30pm Fri 31 Mar.
KEANE
USA 2004
Director: Lodge Kerrigan
Producers: Andrew Fierberg, Stephen Soderbergh
Budget: AUD $1.35mil
Shooting Format: 35mm
Shoot: 33 days; 18 crew
The six-year-old daughter of William Keane (played on a razor's edge by Damien Lewis) has been abducted from the New York Port Authority Bus Terminal. Anguished, Keane returns to compulsively retrace the events of that day in an effort to find clues to her disappearance.
Shot almost doco-style, the film captures the dislocated atmosphere of the post-9/11 streets of New York. Ferociously subjective and like an express train to the skull, Keane is a deeply unsettling and utterly singular film.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the producer Andrew Fierberg, whose many credits include Secretary, and the recently shot Fur, the story of Dianne Arbus, starring Nicole Kidman and Robert Downey Jnr.
Awards & festivals: Directors' Fortnight Cannes, Telluride
Interview with director Lodge Kerrigan
Link to trailers
Screening Sydney, 6pm Sat 18 Feb
Melbourne 6pm Sat 25 Feb
Hobart 8.30pm Sat 18 Mar
Perth 7pm Sat 25 Mar
Adelaide 4pm Sat 1 Apr.
PRIMER
USA 2004
Director: Shane Carruth
Producer: Shane Carruth
Budget: AUD$10,000
Shooting Format: Super16mm
Shoot: 25 days; 4 crew
Moonlighting research geeks fluke the impossible: a garage-built and gaffer-taped time machine. The implications of their discovery are limitless but, as is so often the case, human beings achieve greatness only after they succumb to their basest instincts.
This hypnotic, universe-scrambling sci-fi thriller is by producer, writer, director, editor and star Shane Carruth. He made the film on a tiny budget through intense planning and rehearsals that enabled him to shoot the film almost entirely in first takes.
'Science fiction, but of an unusually rigorous and unassuming kind. Like Pi or Memento (speculative brain teasers to which this has an obvious kinship), Primer is the kind of movie likely to inspire both imitators and cultists.' - New York Times
Awards & festivals: Sundance 2004 Grand Jury Prize, Sundance 2004 Alfred P Sloan Feature Film Prize
Link to trailer
Interviews:
About the production
Interview with director Shane Carruth
Makingthefilm.com
Script and pre-production
Screening Sydney, 4.30pm Sat 18 Feb
Melbourne 4.30pm Sat 25 Feb
Perth 5pm Sat 25 Mar.
FORGIVENESS
South Africa 2004
Director: Ian Gabriel
Producers: Jeremy Nathan, Joel Phiri, Cindy Gabriel
Budget: AUD$1.3mil
Shooting Format: HD
Shoot: 30 days; 30 crew
A searing and timely debut feature underlining the ongoing problems caused by South Africa's apartheid past. Former policeman Coetzee is haunted by the violent crimes he committed in the past. Granted amnesty by the Truth Commission but torn apart within, he seeks forgiveness from his victim's family. Unsurprisingly, he's greeted with mixed response and gains a growing awareness of the complexity of coping and forgiving: rage, sadness, resignation and a desire for revenge are the inevitable emotions along the road to community acceptance.
Produced under South Africa's low-budget digital initiative DV8, the film creates a striking and poetic look from the HD format.
Forgiveness is an urgent and moving portrait of human catharsis, and a film of real cultural significance - perhaps not just limited to South Africa...
Awards & festivals: Toronto, Rotterdam, Locarno, Vancouver, Durban, Pusan
Official website
Link to Trailer
Production company's site
Screening Sydney, 3.30pm Sun 19 Feb
Melbourne 3.30pm Sun 26 Feb.
ALLEGRO
Denmark 2005
Director: Christoffer Boe
Producer: Tine Grew Pfeiffer
Budget: AUD$2.1m (TBC)
Shooting Formats: DV, Super 16, and 35mm
Shoot: 35 days; 35 crew
Introverted pianist Zetterstrøm has effectively shut himself off from the world. A chance encounter (with Danish supermodel Helena Christensen) gives him a shot at love, but he is unable to acknowledge his feelings. Ten years later, his feelings and memories, set adrift, have taken up independent residence in The Zone, a curious space in Copenhagen which Zetterstrøm must penetrate if he is ever to become whole again.
The second feature after his Camera d'Or winning Reconstruction, Danish stylist Christoffer Boe's Allegro is an adventurous hybrid of forms, mixing live action and animation, digital and film.
In dealing with the abstraction of emotions and identity, Boe has crafted a unique filmic universe, reminiscent of Bergman.
The screening will be followed by a discussion on indie filmmaking with US producer Andrew Fierberg (Secretary, Fur) and French producer Marc Missonnier (Swimming Pool, 8 Women).
Awards & festivals: Venice, Sundance
Interview with director Christoffer Boe
Screening Sydney, 7pm Fri 17 Feb
Melbourne 7pm Fri 24 Feb.
Click here for further information on the AFC's IndiVision Project Lab. |
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 IndiVision Screenings 2006 brochure
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Film Development
Practitioner support, drama, documentary, animation, interactive digital media, television, workshops and other initiatives such as SPARK Script Development Program and AFC/ABC Documentary Online. |
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Co-productions
Advice on official international co-productions. |
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Travel Grants
Assistance for filmmakers to attend major international festivals, markets, digital media events and pitching competitions. |
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Industry & Cultural Development
Support for events and activities, national touring projects, new projects and interactive media. |
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Indigenous Branch
Film development, travel grants, attachments and workshops for Indigenous filmmakers. |
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Deadlines
Closing dates of the AFC's funding programs. |
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Approvals
Successful applicants to AFC funding programs. |
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How to Reproduce the AFC Logo
For use in the credits of AFC-funded projects. |
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Close to Home - Australian premiere
Two18-year-old Israeli girls, thrown together on their compulsory military service, are assigned to check the identity papers of Palestinians. An immediate and contemporary examination of occupation and responsibility, Selected for Berlin Film Festival 2006.
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Down to the Bone - Australian premiere
Irene appears to be a loving wife and mother, but her life is precariously built around a cocaine addiction. Winner of the Director's Award at Sundance 2004. |
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Keane
The 6-year-old daughter of William Keane has been abducted and an anguished Keane returns compulsively to retrace the events of that day. Selected for Director's Fortnight Cannes, Toronto and Telluride.
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Primer
Moonlighting research geeks fluke the impossible: a garage-built and gaffer-taped time machine. Awarded the Sundance 2004 Grand Jury Prize. |
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Allegro - Australian premiere
When introverted pianist Zetterstrom denies his love (for Danish supermodel Helena Christensen), his feelings take up independent residence in a mysterious part of the city called The Zone. Selected for Venice 2005 and Sundance 2006. |
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Forgiveness
A searing and timely debut feature revealing the ongoing problems caused by South Africa's apartheid past. Selected for Toronto, Rotterdam, and Locarno. |
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