in the loop – oct 25

Melancholia, Lars von Trier

cinema exotica from home and abroad

For its 20th manifestation, the Brisbane International Film Festival is offering a range of exciting cinema experiences including Australian and world premieres. In terms of big draw cards there’s David Cronenberg’s A Dangerous Method, exploring the relationship between Freud, Jung and patient and pupil Sabina Spielrein. Provocateur Lars von Trier’s Melancholia starring Kirsten Dunst, which supposedly left the audience gasping in Cannes, will also be screening. Direct from Venice and Toronto Film Festivals comes an adaptation of John Le Carre’s Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by Swedish director Tomas Alfredson (Let The Right One In, 2008) with Gary Oldman as George Smiley and described by one reviewer as “at its best as a study in minimalist aesthetics and cool, sombre, low-tech interiors.” The festival will conclude with Pedro Almodóvar’s much acclaimed, The Skin I Live In, about an obsessive plastic surgeon (Antonio Bandera) who imprisons the object of his experiments (Elena Anaya).

There’s also a strong horror and sci-fi flavour to this year’s festival. Starting on November 12 and finishing in the wee hours of the 13th is the Horror Marathon including Guilty of Romance (see RT’s review from SUFF) and Mannborg by Canadian Z-grade director Steven John Kostanski, about a half-man, half-cyborg who fights Nazi vampires. From Argentina comes Nicolás Goldbart’s Phase 7 described as “slacker comedy meets bio-apocalypse” (website). Also from Argentina is Penumbra, directed by “horror cinema’s answer to the Coen Brothers” Adrián and Ramiro García Bogliano.

Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same, Madeleine Olnek

The Drive-In program includes the impossible to resist Codependent Lesbian Space Alien Seeks Same directed by Madeleine Olnek as well as Trailerpalooza, a whirlwind tour of sci-fi and horror trailers from the last 50-years presented by Mark Hartley playing in a double-bill with 50 Best Kills (which needs no descriptor). Australian films include the premiere of Crawl, a feature debut by Paul and Benjamin China which channels “the tension of Hitchcock and the measured violence of the Coen Borthers’ No Country for Old Men” (website); and Kriv Stender’s Red Dog, where you are encouraged in fact to BYOD—finally the canine verdict on this runaway success!

Outback Fight Club, Paul Scott

Also featured are a range of Queensland films and documentaries including two by Hungarian-born, Brisbane-based Peter Hegedus, My America and The Trouble with St Mary’s; Janine Hosking’s portrait of Chad Morgan (The Sheik of Scrubby Creek), I’m Not Dead Yet; Paul Scott’s Outback Fight Club, documenting the final days of the only touring boxing tent left in the world; Daniel Marsden’s journey into the art of the Torres Strait Islands, So The Clouds Have Stories; and Tony Krawitz’ The Tall Man, a reconstruction of the events surrounding the death of Cameron Doomadgee on Palm Island (see RT review of Adelaide Film Festival). Brisbane International Film Festival, various venues, Brisbane, Nov 3-13; www.biff.com.au/

arts fertiliser

Emerging artists and arts workers in South Australia looking for tips on how to sustain a life in the arts should check out How Does Your Arts Career Grow?, a free panel discussion organised by the Adelaide Festival Centre and Carclew Youth Arts. The forum will bring together leaders in arts and culture in South Australia with young and emerging artist to share thoughts and advice on how to develop and manage a career and how young people can shape the future of the arts. Key industry professionals involved are Christie Anthoney (Creative Director, Adelaide College of the Arts) who will facilitate the panel, Annette Tripodi (Operations and Program Manager, WOMADelaide), Brigid Noone (independent artist/curator), Edwin Kemp Attrill (Artistic Director, University of Adelaide Theatre Guild) and Ianto Ware (Project Manager, Renew Adelaide). Space Theatre, Adelaide Festival Centre; Oct 31, free; www.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au/greenroom/how-does-your-arts-career-grow-2/

In Brisbane, Backbone Youth Arts is hosting the Future Voices Forum with a focus on “local needs and international trends” (website). Taking place in two parts the first will concentrate on Australia and the ‘Asian Century’ with panelists including Andrew Ross (Artistic Director, Brisbane Powerhouse), Cathy Hunt (Co-Founding Director, Positive Solutions) and Thom Browning (Artistic Development Coordinator, Imaginary Theatre). The second session will be an Open Spaces Dialogue led by Jim Lawson (Executive Director, Young People and the Arts Australia) taking off from provocations raised at the National Youth Theatre Summit at St Martin’s in September [http://www.stmartinsyouth.com.au/national-youth-theatre-summit/]. The Future Voices Forum is part of the 2high festival, a one-day invasion of the Brisbane Powerhouse by young and emerging performance makers and visual artists. 2high Festival, presented by Backbone Youth Arts, Oct 29, Brisbane Powerhouse; www.backbone.org.au/2high-festival/; Future Voices Forum, Visy Theatre, Oct 29, 10am www.backbone.org.au/artist/2953/

evolving fictions

Adam Cruickshank, The Half Asleep Pilgrim, work space

courtesy the artist

Adam Cruickshank, The Half Asleep Pilgrim, work space

Over three weeks, multi-disciplinary artist Adam Cruickshank will reside in West Space writing and designing The Half Asleep Pilgrim. A collage of written and visual material will be drawn from conversations with visitors and from the vast range of books that will also adorn the Back Space, borrowed from libraries and collections of the artists’ friends. At the end of three weeks the book will be finished, determined by the activity of that day rather than a pre-determined narrative. Cruickshank’s residency is one of 14 projects presented by West Space across 2011-2012 under the title Today Your Love which seeks to find ways artists might inhabit their new venue (twice the size of the old gallery) with a focus on process and experimentation over outcomes. Projects yet to come include Then & Now—the office of fixed deferrals (Back in 5) by the ever-intriguing Patrick Pound featuring an archive of photos, before and after shots, postcards of floral clocks showing each hour and other photographic ephemera which form an “index not only of time’s relentless melt, but of chance connections in the shuffle of things” (artist statement). Starting in development in 2011 for presentation in March 2012 will be a networked performance, Stay Home Sakoku: The Hikikomori Project, by Eugenia Lim, Dan West, Yumi Umiumare and David Wolf. Adam Cruickshank, The Half Asleep Pilgrim, West Space, part of Today Your Love; Oct 17-Nov 5; http://westspace.org.au

creative non-fictions

Tashmadada, the organisation which recently brought ex-La Fura Dels Baus performer Younes Bashir (see Underbelly Arts review) to Australia, is run by director-producer Deborah Leiser-Moore. She’s teaming up with US quarterly publication Creative Non-Fiction to create an Australian issue. They’re calling for essays across all forms with the only stipulations being that the stories be true and the articles unpublished. Two prizes are on offer, with the best essay (regardless of country of origin) winning AUS$6500 and an extra prize for the Best Essay by an Australian Writer winning AUS$2500. The edition will be launched as part of the 2012 Melbourne Writers’ Festival. Deadline Jan 31, 2012; each essay requires a $20 reading fee. See Tashmadada for more info: http://www.tashmadada.com; www.creativenonfiction.org

at the end of the journey

Homelands

photos James Brown

Homelands

Belgian director Hans Van den Broek (Compagnie SOIT) has returned for the third and final instalment of his collaboration with some of Sydney’s most interesting dancers and performance makers. In Settlement (2007) the group left civilisation to inhabit Track 8 in Performance Space/Carriageworks exploring ideas around utopia, communality and individuality creating a truly invigorating piece of dance-based performance. Nomads (2009), also in Track 8 focused on Diasporas, the group wandering away from one home in search of another. The final instalment, developed during an off-site Performance Space residency will be delivered as a video screening at FraserStudios and depicts the characters “held, floating like driftwood in time. They have found a fictional escape into life, hiding in a fantasy of fragmented theatre” (press release). Featuring Kathy Cogill, Nikki Heywood, Manu Louw, Clara Louw, Tony Osborne, Kirk Page, Anuschka von Oppen, Nalina Wait and Van den Broek with video by James Brown and Sam James. Homeland, video showing, October 27, 5pm, FraserStudios, 10-14 Kensington Street, Chippendale

Also nearing its end is the run of FraserStudios. Since 2008 Sam Chester and James Wynter and their team from Queen Street have done an amazing job managing these artists studios and rehearsal spaces in Chippendale, temporarily made available by the Fraser Property development group. The venture has had an immeasurable impact on the vibrancy of contemporary culture in Sydney (read about the studios in RT91). Running for longer than originally anticipated, it is now time to close the doors, but there will be one last open day on October 30 where you can see the artists at work, along with talks, demonstrations of digital fabrication technology by Assemblage Studio next door, and a barbeque. While it’s the end of an era, the impact of the initiative is tangible, not only as the Queen Street team have now taken on Heffron Hall in Surry Hills, but also as the range of commercial and government spaces now open to cultural activity is on the increase (see below). FraserStudios Open Day, October 30, 1-5pm, 10-14 Kensington Street, Chippendale; www.queenstreetstudio.com/fraserstudios.html

Breaking News: From 9 January-30 June 2012, Queen Street Studio and Frasers Property will offer NSW-based Visual Artists a “bonus round” of six-month open studio residencies. For more details go to www.queenstreetstudio.com/vis-arts-residency.html. Deadline Nov 18, 2011. Details of Performing Arts residencies will be announced shortly.

pop-up oxford street

Rocks Pop-Up Projects, Perran Costi’s Personal Space: a living artwork, interactive exhibition, artists’ studio, bric-a-brac shop, teahouse and native garden

photos courtesy the artist

Rocks Pop-Up Projects, Perran Costi’s Personal Space: a living artwork, interactive exhibition, artists’ studio, bric-a-brac shop, teahouse and native garden

The range of ‘Renew’ ventures started by Marcus Westbury, kicking off in Newcastle and virally spreading to include Townsville, Adelaide and Geelong, has now been amalgamated under the Renew Australia moniker overseen by the Australian Centre for Social Innovation. In Sydney there’s Pop-Up-Parramatta and in the last six months The Rocks Pop-Up project has seen four heritage buildings turned over to artists studios and creative spaces for six months. (See image, Costi’s collaborative work Case Study was reviewed at Underbelly Arts.)

Now the City of Sydney is calling for tenders from artists, creatives and collectives interested in the short-term inhabitation of two retail shops and 14 office suites on Oxford Street—a unique opportunity to infiltrate the heart of the city! Deadline Nov 9, 11am, advertisements EOI 0811 and EOI 0911 can be viewed at http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/Business/TendersEOIQuotes/CurrentListing.asp