1990
Murray Bramwell
Frames, the Media Resource Centre’s Festival of Film and Video, opens on September 7 and runs for the week through to September 14. Screenings wil be held at Hindley Cinema 3 and the Lion Theatre on North Terrace.
With 130 films programmed in just seven days it promises to be not so much a festival as a binge not only for film specialists but for innocent bystanders as well. Frames consists of a selection of international titles, a program of seminars and a large menu of Australian titles. The emphasis is on regionalism, Australia in its geographical context and South Australia within the national perspective.
Program Co-ordinator , John McConchie explains – “Film-making is an integral part of what we are but film is not recognised the way painting and theatre are. Even though we are making some of the best short films in the world there is no exhibition outlet for them. Film is not taken seriously even now.”
Frames will be seeking to remedy all that. The short films represent current work from established and student film-makers and reflect the full range of cultural and political issues current in this country. Works such as Tracy Moffatt’s Night Cries, winner of best Australian film in the Melbourne Festival, Graeme Wood’s eerie Teenage Babylon, a reconstruction of police photographic files of young suicides, and former Adelaide film-maker Kay Pavlou’s The Killing of Angelo Tsakos, a recreation of events concerning the police shooting of a sixteen year old Greek youth in Sydney, not only have integrity in their concerns but they are imaginative and accomplished technically as well.
Other films include Hang-Up by Pauline Chan and Brett Eagleton, which sardonically reverses a conventional sexual intrigue , Swimming, directed by Belinda Cheyko, a cleverly understated film of a family in crisis narrated from the viewpoint a child recording snippets of footage on the home video and Janet Parling’s A Pair of One, an extraordinary interview with the Chaplin sisters, identical twins in their mid-forties who have seemingly merged identities, becoming mirrors of each other in action, thought and speech. Also among the many animated works is Damien Ledwich’s highly original Feral Television.
The international feature films include The Black Cannon Incident, a Chinese satire on bureacratic paranoia directed by Huan Jianxin, who will attend the festival, and work from the Amber group based in Newcastle, England who specialise in naturalistic films documenting working class culture in the North. Set in the fishing town of North Shields, In Fading Light, examines a declining economy and its effects on the life of the community.
From New Zealand comes Jane Campion’s Angel At My Table based on the autobographies of the novelist Janet Frame. Originally made for television, its cinema release has attracted enthusiastic response. Campion and script-writer Laura Jones have taken Frame’s plain, precise prose and captured the profusion of associative images that distinguishes her work. Kerry Fox is splendid in the leading role in a film well worth seeing. It plays for one night only during Frames but will return for a season at the Trak on December 26.
A work of particular interest to Adelaide audiences is Ray Argall’s Return Home. Reminiscent of John Clarke’s Man and Boy, it is a nicely observed account of two brothers -one running a service station in Mitchell Park , the other living in Melbourne. The return home is a rediscovery of family ties and (sorry, Adelaide) country town values. There are fine performances from Frankie J. Holden, Dennis Coard, Micki Camilleri and Ben Mendelsohn. Mendelsohn also features in a racy thriller set in Melbourne – Aleksi Vellis’s Nirvana Street Murder, an underclass tragedy which also features some good work from Mark Little.
In addition to afternoon and evening screenings at the Lion Theatre and Bar there will a program of speakers. McConchie sees this as an important adjunct to the festival and hopes that it may prepare the way for a more integrated film culture in Adelaide. “In Melbourne the film scene is much more vital,” he notes, “because there is much more connection and contact between people in the industry, independents, academics working in film and of course with the Melbourne Film Festival. There is an amazing cross-flow and the film in Melbourne is the better for it.”
Seminar topics focus on the realities and challenges of film-making in this state. As McConchie observes, “There is a brief to have a film industry in South Australia but not a brief to have a South Australian film industry. It could just be franchise to Hollywood and we wouldn’t be making Australian films at all. ”
Speakers at the Festival include Tom O’Regan, Liz Jacka, Cathy Robinson, Ray Argall, Mario Andreacchio and Gabe Kelly. Admission to the seminars is free and evenings at the Lion Bar will kick on till late.
A full program for the Frames Festival will appear in the Advertiser or can be purchased from the Media Resource Centre. Admission prices include concessions and screenings of short films are in two hour blocks.
“When I began planning, ” says McConchie , ” I set out with a very hard curatorial line to present films that were either very important to an issue or very attractive to an audience. I had the idea that we would be repeating films. But there have been so many good films that I can’t. This is real festival programming – it’s affordable and non-stop.”
“Frames” The Adelaide Review, No.80, September, 1990, p.28.