Bundeena-Maianbar Film Society


Convener, David Gosden, 4 Short Avenue, Bundeena 2230.                                              Phone/fax 9544-4983
A working group of the Bundeena-Maianbar Art of Living Festival Inc.                           Member, Federation of NSW and Associated Film Societies         

Film Society Membership

Welcome to the Bundeena-Maianbar Film Society Summer Films. Our Film Society is fairly young and we invite you to join our membership so that we can screen more films for your enjoyment.

You will notice a Questionnaire on the back page. We ask you to take a few minutes to fill it in and return it to one of the people with Film Society name tags. Alternatively, you can return it to the address shown within the next week. If you include your name and address, we’ll put you on our mailing list. In our next mailout we’ll send you a program for the forthcoming Winter Season (April - September, 2001) together with a membership form inviting you to join if you like the program.

Our agreement with the Film Society Federation and the National Film Library from which we borrow prevents us from charging an entry fee for individual screenings. We can admit guests on an infrequent basis, free of charge, but we depend on membership subscriptions to cover our costs if we are to survive. So please consider joining for future screenings when membership forms become available in a few weeks.

On Saturday 24 March, 2001, we bring you an "Australian Made" evening in conjunction with the Art of Living Festival. A special part of this program will commence at 8.30pm when we screen films made by people living in the region. This session highlights one of the important objectives of the Film Society which is to provide an environment in which young filmmakers can be helped along with their projects . . . more of that later.

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Session 1 (6pm)

They’re a Weird Mob (112 min)

Made in 1969, when modern local film culture was emerging, this film is a classic piece of Australiana.

Like all Australian films of the era it had to have a foreign star! And of course there were the cameos from established local stars like Graham Kennedy.

The Weird Mob has a special significance for several local people who have either been involved with the cast or have been influenced by the film’s story. At a time when immigration from Europe was still strong, the film conveyed a message of acceptance of newcomers by the locals.

The cast includes Clare Dunne, Ed Devereaux, John Mellion and Anne Haddy, all of whom were well known at the time for other film and television performances. We also see the veteran of Australian movies, Chips Rafferty exercising his authority as the father of Kay (Clare Dunne) whom the Italian migrant, Nino (Walter Chiari) wants to marry.

The film was very popular with Australian audiences of the time but made virtually no impression overseas - perhaps because the Aussie culture was not understood!

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Session 2 (8.30pm) Local Filmmakers

This session has been programmed to highlight the wide range of artistically talented people living in the Bundeena-Maianbar region.

Before showing the works of local filmmakers, a short film portraying local artists talking about their work will be presented. Two of the artists involved, Garry Shead and George Gittoes have also made films appearing in this program tonight.

One of several objectives of the Film Society is to facilitate the development of filmmaking skills, with particular emphasis on helping young people to get started. We are aiming towards this goal in several ways. Firstly, we are developing a database of contacts where assistance, both in terms of advice and resources can be sought. Secondly, we propose introducing regular screenings to present the work of filmmakers new to the field. The frequency of these sessions will depend on the level of interest and extent of material available. We also hope to be able to accumulate technical resources (equipment, etc.) to assist new filmmakers.


Bundeena Artists at Work

Bundeena is home to about 100 artists. In 1998 AAP sponsored the first exhibition by Bundeena artists in the city of Sydney. This film portrays, in order of appearance, the following artists discussing their working day.

George Gittoes
Garry Shead
Judith Englert-Shead
Bob Marchant
Inger Marchant
Jaiwei Shen
Lan Wang
Robert Wilson
Doris Kaminski
Laurence Anderson

A percentage of funds raised through the sale of paintings exhibited was donated to the Bundeena-Maianbar Youth and Cultural Activities Foundation


Films by local filmmakers will be shown in the following order:

Initiation (20 min, Garry Shead - Director)

This film protrays a man who has recently learned he is dying of cancer. In broad daylight he has an encounter with a beautiful ghost who brings him to the edge of the spiritual world.

Garry Shead tries in INITIATION to relate the fear of death in the man to the mystical rites of the Australian Aboriginies, and to develop through this and the "ghost" who hitch hikes a ride in his car, a broader attitude to life and death. Shead chose Sue Doring, herself a filmmaker, for the role of the ghost and the quality of her face with its unusual mixture of vagueness and sensuousness which haunts the film.

Rainbow Way (11 min, George Gittoes - Director)

This was George's first 16mm film, which he shot entirely on Horderns and Gunyah Beaches, Bundeena, using a wind up Beaulieu camera in an underwater housing. He researched and shot the entire film himself, on a shoestring budget, including the wave dissolve titles, and going under water to record the sound track with a hydrophone. All the special effects were created in camera, and resulted from Gittoes still photographic and holographic experiments of the previous years - where he was deeply involved in the physics of light and natural phenomenon of prismatic reflections through the sea, which he described as "a giant moving lens". The film was road showed by the Filmmakers Co-op, as a short to the Noyce short drama, Love Letters From Talbara Road, and it set George on a path of filmmaking which led to making 10 other films 1979-87.

RAINBOW WAY won Best Experimental Film in the 1977 AFI Awards and Melbourne Film Festival.


FTO
Young Filmmakers Fund

The NSW Government Film and Television Office provides financial assistance for young filmmakers through its Young Filmmakers Fund.

For further information check the FTO website on www.fto.nsw.gov.au or phone 9264-6400


Jump (6 min, Chris Grocott - Director)

Chris made JUMP for his major work in the High School Certificate Art course in which he was introduced to video making and editing. The film shows Chris and his friends; Jim and Ben Crumlin, Danny Goody, Chris Greaves and Phillip Reeks. jumping and diving from the various locations in Port Hacking, starting off at the Bundeena wharf and progressing to more daring jumps from ledges at the Basin and Audley.

The film was shot using a simple home Sony video camera and edited using computer editing software at De La Salle, Cronulla.

In 2000, JUMP was entered and displayed at the Cronulla Short Film Festival at which it won an award as an experimental film highlighting community activities. It is currently showing at the Hazelhurst Art Gallery in an exhibition displaying the HSC Art works from the Sutherland Shire Schools.

In 2001, Chris started a multi media course at Charles Sturt University at Wagga Wagga and hopes to continue on to a career in either film making or editing.

Trans-Bordertown (15 min, Ema Mulholland -

Co-Writer / Director)

A late night truckstop brings closure and clarity to Carla’s searching . . . . But who exactly is she searching for? And what exactly has she stumbled upon?

HURT (55 min, Scott Rankin - Artistic Director, Phillip Crawford - Director)

HURT is a docu-drama like no other. 250 young Australians from rural areas and small towns have been given the opportunity to tell their own stories, with their images, in their words. Challenging, haunting and ultimately uplifting, HURT recounts episodes in the lives of these young people whose faces have been marked with the lines of experiences beyond their years.

Yet while the images portray graphically the despair of the young people, their involvement in making HURT brought out a hope for the future. One youth who appears on camera singing a song tellingly called No Hope was transformed, moving on to perform in the Adelaide Festival and a domestic-violence conference. Other youths felt it was the first time anybody had taken any notice of them. Being given the responsibility of handling filming equipment and then seeing themselves on screen was a very uplifting experience.

HURT was produced by Big hART, a non-profit organisation that pilots arts projects for people experiencing the effects of marginalisation to help them re-engage with their communities. Making the film involved 200 camera operators, 93 sound recordists and 85 key cast. During the past year HURT was nominated for several awards including two AFI’s, winning the Australian Film Institute Open Craft Award for Concept. HURT has been invited to many International and National film festivals, receiving numerous special mentions and awards.

Scott Rankin was the joint winner of the 1999 NSW Premier’s Literary Award for Drama, and the 2000 Queensland Premier’s Award for Drama.

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Session 3 (11pm)

The Cars that Ate Paris (91 min)

The plot commences with a couple driving across the Australian hinterland when unexpectedly they lose a wheel and topple over the end of a cliff.

This scene is followed by one with two rather hard luck characters, George and Arthur Waldo, travelling around with their small camper-trailer. While Arthur is sleeping in the passenger seat, George suddenly sees lights ahead while negotiating a mountain road. He swerves, ending up at the bottom of the cliff. George dies, but Arthur is taken to the hospital of the town of Paris (Sofala, NSW), where a single doctor runs a hospital with a full upper floor of mental patients -- all accident victims.

Arthur survives but his fear of cars is full-blown. We now see what Paris is all about. Accidents around here are more common than coincidence would allow, and just leaving the town becomes a problem all of its own.

As the first of Peter Weir’s full length features the film gives little away in terms of what he directed in the following years. Picnic at Hanging Rock which followed a year after the Cars that Ate Paris is totally different. There are characters in Picnic that we feel quite comfortable identifying with but we get the feeling that we want to get as far away from Paris as quickly as possible.


We need your
16 mm Projectors

We need to run two projectors so that we can show full length features without breaking for reel changes.
If you have a spare 16 mm projector in the woodshed which is of no further use to you, we can give it a good home.

Please contact David Gosden on 9544-4983


Late News

Whilst the most important factor in developing and operating a successful film society is community involvement and membership, it is also beneficial to develop contact with outside expertise. To this end, David Gosden is planning visits to two conferences in May. The first is the AGM of the Australian Council of Film Societies in Melbourne. This will be invaluable for tapping into the policies of the umbrella body. It will also involve a visit to the National Film Library distributor, Cinemedia. The second conference, "Flicks in the Sticks" in Manildra brings together people involved in operating film societies and the like in country areas. Information from these conferences will be disseminated in later Newsletters.

Acknowledgements

My thanks to my working group colleagues; Kathy Grattan, Alan Jones, Ema Mulholland, Maria Peterson and Garry Shead for spending long nights watching films and deciding what should be in, what should be out and what should be in again for the 24 March sessions.

David Gosden
Convener, Bundeena-Maianbar Film Society
Web address: www.bundeena.com/filmsociety


Questionnaire

Please print this page and mark the squares in ORDER OF PREFERENCE (1, 2, 3. . .). Examples of some films for each category are shown. Don’t mark any item that would not be of any interest. Send the completed form to David Gosden, 4 Short Avenue, Bundeena 2230.

Film Genre

Classic Australian (Strictly Ballroom, Oscar & Lucinda, Man from Snowy River, Newsfront . . . )
 Classic American (Casablanca, West Side Story, mark of Zorro [original], Night to Remember [Titanic]. . . . )
 Classic British (Ladykillers, The Lavender Hill Mob, Secrets and Lies, Great Expectations . . . . )
 Arthouse / foreign language (Allegro Non Troppo, Kunden . . . )
Documentary, doco-drama (one full length, several short . . . . . )
 Silent - with live keyboard accompaniment if possible (Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton . . . . . )
Family - suitable for children & adults of all ages
Animated
Other . . . . . . . . . . . .

Day

Friday
Saturday
Other . . . . . . . . . . . .

Start Time

7.30 pm
8.00 pm
Other . . . . . . . . . . . .

Program Format

Main feature only with no break (90 - 120 minutes), maybe tea/coffee after show
Up to 1 hour of short films (documentaries, experimental, etc.) with main feature after tea/coffe break
Other . . . . . . . . . . . .

Venue

RSL Club lower auditorium, perhaps with option for food and drinks
Community Hall
School Hall
Other . . . . . . . . . . . .

Comments, any preferred film titles? (Add list if needed) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Would you like to help with running the Film Society?

Background planning and administration
At film screenings

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Email (preferred method of contact - saves stamps) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Please return to David Gosden, Convener BMFS, 4 Short Avenue, Bundeena 2230


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