BRAN NUE DAE, the documentary

at PETERSHAM BOWLING CLUB
Tuesday June 29th, 7.30 pm

BRAN NUE DAE is a documentary, directed and produced by TOM ZUBRYCKI, of the original stage production of the musical in 1989

The film interweaves the original production of the musical and the life of its creator Jimmy Chi. The film follows the early rehearsals of Bran Nue Dae in Broome through to the stage production in Perth by the Black Swan Company. Included are excerpts from the show, interviews with the actors (including Ernie Dingo and Maroochy Baranbah), as well as Jimmy Chi himself and others who were key figures in his life. We go on a road journey with Jimmy to the north of Broome to find the true source of his inspiration for the show blending in unique archival footage from the region.

More info:

http://www.tomzubrycki.com/resources_bran.html

Here’s a quick guide to what’s on offer:

Award Winners

Audience Award winner Berlinale 2010, Budrus, also selected for Tribeca and Hot Docs; winner First Appearance Award at IDFA, Colony; César winner for Best Documentary Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno; winner Best Feature-length Documentary at IDFA, Last Train Home; Academy Award nominated The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, directed by festival guest Judith Ehrlich; Grand Jury Prize winner at Sundance, Restrepo; Special Mention Berlinale 2010 for New Zealand doco, This Way of Life screening with Sundance winner Quadrangle; Waste Land – winner Amnesty Int. Prize, Panorama Award award at Berlin and Audience Award at Sundance.

Leading Documentarians

Frederick Wiseman (now in his 80^th year) continues his focus on cultural institutions in La Danse – The Paris Opera Ballet; Nicolas Philibert’s Nenette, a fascinating spin on the notion of watching and being watched; Julien Temple’s blistering doco on cult R&B band, Dr Feelgood, Oil City Confidential; Christian (War Photographer) Frei’s Sundance winner (Best Director, Documentary) Space Tourists.

Kids Docs

The festival’s first babes in arms screening and the opening film of the recent Hot Docs festival, Babies; for ages five and over, the beautifully shot story of a tiny loggerhead’s voyage across the oceans, Turtle: The Incredible Journey.

Debut

Banksy makes his documentary debut with Exit Through the Gift Shop (selling fast); standup comedian and festival guest, Ahmed Ahmed, takes a group of US comedians to the Middle East in Just Like Us; actor (Entourage) Adrian Grenier’s documentary debut Teenage Paparazzo follows a 13 year-old photographer.

Portraits

Beautiful Darling, focussing on 60s NY celeb Candy Darling, packed with clips and interviews (screens with Ira Sach’s short doc Last Address); octagenarian photojournalist Bill Cunningham still peddling the streets of the Big Apple in Bill Cunningham New York; from the director of festival hit Screaming Men (Mika Ronkainen), comes Freetime Machos; Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould directed by Peter Raymont and Michelle Hozer, features never-before-seen archive footage; Jean-Michael Basquiat: The Radiant Child directed by his close friend Tamra Davis; Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work directed by Ricky Stern and Anne Sundberg (The Devil Came on Horseback); Lemmy, a funny and revealing portrait of the legendary frontman of Motorhead; also, screening at the Playhouse, Rocksteady: The Roots of Reggae; Truffaut and Godard’s relationship and its impact on French cinema in Two in the Wave.

FOXTEL Australian Documentary Prize

Nine films compete for the $10,000 prize: Cane Toads: The Conquest directed by Mark Lewis; Drive, directed by Bronwyn Purvis and Telen Rodwell for Big hART; two from producers Polly Staniford, Tony Ayres and Michael McMahon at Big and Little Films, Eye (directed by Andy Conny and Donna McCrum) and Mind (directed by Emma Crimmings); John Hughes’ Indonesia Calling: Joris Ivens in Australia; New Beijing: Reinventing a City directed by Georgia Wallace-Crabbe and produced by Gregory Miller; Juliet Lamont’s The Snowman, produced by Rachel Landers and Dylan Blowen; Strange Birds in Paradise directed by Charlie Hill-Smith and produced by Jamie Nicolai and John Cherry; director-producer Michael Cordell’s Three Boys Dreaming.

Doco-Polemic

Christophe Nick’s documentary which stirred up the French press, The Game of Life; GasLand, winner of Special Jury Prize at Sundance, screens with IDFA competitor The Shutdown ; Mugabe and the White African, winner of the British Independent Film Award for Best Documentary; The Oath, cinematography award winners at Sundance, directed by Laura Poitras (My Country My Country) – screens with Hot Docs short doco winner Tussilago; Hot Docs and IDFA selection, The RainbowWarriors of Waiheke Island – 25 years after the sinking of the Greenpeace vessel ­ – screens with Plastic Bag, narrated by Werner Herzog.

Daily Doc Pick

Wed 2 June: Beautiful Darling 6pm Event Cinemas George St

Thu 3 June: Gasland 6.30pm Event Cinemas George St

Fri 4 June: The Rainbow Warriors of Waiheke Island 2.30pm State Theatre

Sat 5 June: La Danse 1.35pm State Theatre

Sun 6 June: The Oath 2.15pm Dendy OQ followed by 4.30pm Last Train Home

Mon 7 June: Space Tourists 4.45pm Dendy OQ

Tue 8 June: Colony 5.00pm State Theatre

Wed 9 June: This Way of Life 12pm State Theatre

Thu 10 June: The Most Dangerous Man in America 2.05pm State Theatre

Fri 11 June: Genius Within: The Inner Life of Glenn Gould 2.30pm Dendy OQ

Sat 12 June: Bill Cunningham New York 12pm Event Cinemas George St

Sun 13 June: The Game of Death 5pm Event Cinemas George St

Sun 14 June: Mugabe and the White African 12pm Dendy OQ

Tickets are now on sale for all sessions at this year’s festival. Tickets can be purchased online at www.sff.org.au, via the SFF2010 iPhone App or by phone on (02) 9690 5390. To keep up-to-date with all the latest news from the festival sign up to our eNews (via the website) or visit our blog at www.sydneyfilmfestivalblog.blogspot.com.

Date: 6pm for 6:30pm, Wednesday 2 June Theatrette Parliament House Sydney
Entry: $20 – proceeds to ZIC (supporting the Democracy Movement in Zimbabwe)
RSVP: Laurena – staff1@search.org

Fairweather Man

Fairweather Man, directed by Aviva Ziegler, is a finalist in the soon to be announced Premier’s Literary Awards.

The documentary will also be screened on Ovation on Wednesday April 21st at 9.30pm. Ovation is SBS’s new Arts & Entertainment channel on Foxtel and Austar.

Fairweather Man Info

An intimate portrait of the life and work of one of Australia’s greatest painters. When Ian Fairweather died in 1974, Australia not only lost an extraordinary artist but one of its greatest eccentrics. However, the reclusive, driven artist left behind a wonderful legacy – a body of marvellous paintings that today are highly collectible and hang on the walls of galleries around the world.

The film embarks on two journeys: one is the story of Fairweather’s life and travels; the other a journey deep into the heart and soul of the man and his work.

Scottish-born Fairweather was abandoned as a child, setting him on a lifelong path of self-sought solitude. After active service in World War I, contrary to his conservative family’s wishes, he chose art as his vocation. When he arrived in China, the first stop in a lifetime of wandering, he found a culture that would have an overriding and lifelong influence on his art.

At 60 years of age, Fairweather experienced a turning point in his work. He built himself a flimsy raft and set sail from Darwin on a foolhardy, death-defying trip across the Timor Sea. For 16 days he drifted in a semi-conscious and hallucinogenic state. It is said that before that journey he was an extremely talented artist, but afterwards he became an extraordinary one.

For the last 20 years of his life Fairweather stopped travelling and made himself a home on Bribie Island, off the coast of Queensland. There he lived a hermit-like existence in a primitive grass hut devoid of any creature comforts. And it was there that he created his greatest work.

Fairweather Man was a finalist at the 2008 AFI Awards.

My Survival as an Aboriginal

Screening & Discussion presented by filmmakers Martha Ansara and Sharon Coffey

Essie Coffey

Where: Petersham Bowling Club, 77 Brighton St. Petersham, NSW

When: Tuesday 30 March 7:30 pm

Have things changed for the better today?
In 1978, the ground-breaking documentary My Survival as an Aboriginal (1978) rocked Australia and the world with its presentation of atrocities and hardships committed against Aboriginal people. Winning prizes around the world, the film was broadcast overseas, shown on the ABC and used widely in Australian education. Today it is featured on the Australian Screen website which describes the film as challenging, and says,

“Though a call to justice, it is also tempered with beauty, and the audience is allowed to glimpse the private world of the Essie Coffey and the people of Brewarrina, N.S.W. Country and Western songs performed by Coffey are also a rich element of the documentary.”

My Survival as an Aboriginal directed by Essie Coffey, was one of the first Australian films where an Indigenous Australian was able to decide how she and her community would be represented. It was also the first Australian film directed by an Indigenous woman. Through her films, Essie Coffey’s voice reaches across time to continue the ongoing fight for the rights of Indigenous peoples.

My Survival as an Aboriginal

Film Info: 49 mins, Rated G, 1978
Director: Essie Coffey
Photography: Martha Ansara

Awards include:
Sydney Film Festival – Winner Best Documentary & Rouben Mamoulian Award

Cinema du Reel, Paris – First Prize, Red Ribbon – American Film Festival

As screened on:
ABC Television, NITV, the BBC and many other countries

The other film being screened on the night is:

Always Was Always Will Be

Synopsis:
In 1989 a dispute over the redevelopment of the Old Swan Brewery on the Sacred Grounds of the Waugul, Kings Park, Perth, convulsed the politics of Western Australia. Its lessons are important for all who are concerned about Aboriginal rights and culture, the environment, the progressive role of Trade Unions, the integrity of the Labor Party and the social/spiritual activities of the Churches. Made as a campaign film, Always Was Always Will Be is a visually rich account of this historically important struggle over a sacred site and gives an insight into the living culture and beliefs of urban Aboriginal people in Western Australia.

Runtime: 33 mins
Year: 1989
Produced by: Jequerity Pty Ltd and the Fringe Dwellers of the Swan Valley

http://www.balladfilms.com.au

Inge King 1968. Photo by Mark Strizic

Vibrant, articulate and passionate – Inge King is one of Australia’s foremost sculptors whose work has always been on a grand scale. A pioneer of the avant-garde in 1950’s and 60’s Australia, she continues to work to this day.

Sculpture is drawing from a thousand different angles. It is to be looked at, walked around and felt with the eye.

Inge King 1995

Made by OzDox member, Amanda King, A Thousand Different Angles will be broadcast on ABC TV1 on Artscape on Tuesday March 30th at 10.05pm, and on ABC TV2 on Sunday April 4th at 6.30pm.

On this page on the ABC website, you can leave your comments about the film after it is broadcast. Look for the ‘Have Your Say’ section.
http://www.abc.net.au/arts/tv_radio/artscape/

Burma VJ – the Oscar nominated documentary – will be screened this Thursday (March 4th) at the Footbridge Theatre, University of Sydney (on Parramatta Rd.)

Burma VJ is a powerful documentary about Burma’s Saffron Revolution, where the monks led the people in peaceful protest, and the under-cover journalists who risked their safety and freedom to tell this story.

The film screening will be followed by a Q&A.

To reserve seats and for more information, please visit http://www.aucampaignforburma.org/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=79546

See one of the best documentaries made in recent years THE ENGLISH SURGEON, the winner of 2008 Hotdocs and Silver Docs, and made by UK director Geoffrey Smith fresh from the recent AIDC in Adelaide.

What is it like to have power over life and death, and yet to struggle with your own humanity? This is the story of acclaimed British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh, who has traveled to Ukraine for 15 years to treat patients who have been left to die; of his friend and medical colleague in Kyiv who carries on the fight despite official hostility and archaic surgical conditions; and of a young patient who hopes that Henry can save his life.

Geoffrey Smith was nominated by the Director’s Guild of America for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Documentary in 2009.

Geoffrey will talk about the making of the film and the increasing popularity of these types of character-driven feature documentaries for European and North American distributors and broadcasters.

Enthralling, astonishing, and agonizingly human
- New York Times

“There are very, very few films I love quite as much as this one.”
- Nick Fraser, BBC.

“An exceptional documentary …heart-breaking pathos, scenes not for the squeamish, pertinent mortal dilemmas, a fair amount of humour, and a score composed by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis”
- London Film Festival catalogue.

Preview clip:
http://www.theenglishsurgeon.com/popup.html

More info:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_English_Surgeon_(film)