Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters by Mandy Sayer

Showing all posts about Australian film

Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters by Mandy Sayer

22 November 2022

The McDonagh Sisters, Isabel, Phyllis, and Paulette, were Australian film producers active almost one hundred years ago. Based in Sydney, the trio made six films, including two documentaries, in an age of filmmaking that saw the transition from silent features to sound, or talkies.

The youngest, Paulette, was one of only five women film directors in the world. Phyllis produced, art directed, and conducted publicity. And the eldest, Isabel, under her stage name Marie Lorraine, acted superbly in all the female leads. Together, the sisters transformed Australian cinema’s preoccupations with the outback and the bush — and what they mocked as ‘haystack movies’ — into a thrilling, urban modernity.

Their work and lives are the subject of a new book, Those Dashing McDonagh Sisters: Australia’s First Female Filmmaking Team, published by UNSW Press, by Sydney based Australian writer and novelist Mandy Sayer.

The sister’s stories are a fascinating chapter in the history of both Australian film production, and Australia itself. Sayer’s book will help introduce their now often overlooked work to a new generation of people with an interest in Australian filmmaking and its past. For a glimpse of the McDonagh’s work, have a look at this trailer for their 1930 film The Cheaters.

The 2022 Virtual Indigenous Film Festival

24 May 2022

Now in its fourth year, the 2022 Virtual Indigenous Film Festival is an event held exclusively online, showcasing Indigenous Australian film. This year’s event takes place from Thursday 26 May 2022, until Monday 30 May.

My Name is Gulpilil by Molly Reynolds, Off Country by John Harvey and Rhian Skirving, and Wash My Soul in the River’s Flow by Philippa Bateman (trailer featured above), are among titles being livestreamed during this year’s festival.

The Australian Feature Film Summit 2022

28 March 2022

The Australian Feature Film Summit (AFFS) takes place in Sydney on Thursday 12 May 2022, with the goal of bringing all involved in the feature film production process, including exhibitors, distributors, producers, and investors together for the first time.

The mission of the AFFS is to harness the current success of the Australian feature film sector and strategise how to make more commercially successful and culturally relevant films going forward.

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Australian film, film

Flicker Fest 2022, showing at Bondi Beach

4 January 2022

Flicker Fest, the world’s favourite short film festival (if I may say so…) takes place this year at Sydney’s Bondi Beach, from Friday 21 January, to Sunday 30 January 2021. This year’s event seems to have a Great Gatsby feel… dig out your glad rags, and get ready to party hard.

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Australian film, film, film festivals

Setting Sun Short Film Festival 2022

2 December 2021

Entries are open to filmmakers to submit work for the Setting Sun Short Film Festival taking place online, and hopefully onsite at the Sun Theatre, in Yarraville, Victoria, from 5 to 12 May 2022. To be eligible, films must have been made between 1 December 2019 and 31 March 2022. Submissions close on 31 January 2022.

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Australian film, film, trailer

Going Down, a 1982 film by Haydn Keenan

2 November 2021

Made in 1982 and filmed on a micro-budget over the course of a few days, Going Down, directed by Australian filmmaker Haydn Keenan is a gritty, no holds barred, slice of life glimpse of a night out on the town in Sydney. While the pacing and narrative technique reminded me a little of something like American Graffiti, Going Down is far more in your face.

Karli (Tracy Mann) is about to fly to New York. Her friends Jane (Vera Plevnik), Jackie (Julie Barry), and Ellen (Moira MacLaine-Cross), take her out for one last night of revelry before she leaves. The result is chaotic. Parties and bars are gone to, drugs are taken, sex is had, and a large sum money is lost. In the middle of it all, one of Karli’s friend’s tries to find sex work, as the girls, individually and collectively, make their way around the inner suburbs of a now barely recognisable Sydney.

Check out a snippet of the film here (NSFW: profanity, drug references).

Fighting Fear, a documentary by Macario De Souza, with Mark Mathews, Richie Vaculik

11 November 2011

Fighting Fear, trailer, a documentary, is the second feature of Sydney based Australian film director Macario De Souza, and follows his 2007 debut Bra Boys, which he co-directed with Sunny Abberton.

Here De Souza focuses on the story of two members of the Bra Boys surf gang, which is based at Sydney’s Maroubra beach. Narrated by Australian actor Joel Edgerton, Fighting Fear profiles Mark Mathews, a big wave pro-surfer, and Richie “Vas” Vaculik, also a surfer and mixed martial arts fighter, who have been friends since meeting as boys at Maroubra in the early 1990’s.

Both also appeared briefly in De Souza’s earlier Bra Boys feature.

While working as a carpet layer to fund his surfing escapades, Mathews would closely monitor Australian swell forecasts. The instant he spotted conditions conducive to the formation of big waves, such as at Shipstern Bluff, on the southeast coast of Tasmania, Matthews would, along with Vaculik, travel there as quickly as possible.

On top of his passion for surfing though, Vaculik began to develop an interest in mixed martial arts and cage fighting, where he quickly acquired a formidable reputation after a string of victories. While both worked hard, they also loved to party with the same fervour, and sometimes found themselves at odds with the law as a result.

With Vaculik facing serious assault charges, and Mathews recovering after a surfing mishap at Shipstern Bluff, incidents that presented threats to their sporting ambitions, both found themselves struggling to save their respective careers. But the pair were able to draw on their long-standing friendship to help each other through.

Fighting Fear blends interviews, archival news and video clips, reenactments, plus some spectacular surfing footage. Appearances by Kelly Slater, Steph Gilmore, Mick Fanning, and Bruce Irons among others, flesh out the story of Mathews and Vaculik, as they overcome various fears in order to reach their potential.

While soul baring and compelling, Fighting Fear isn’t quite as absorbing as Bra Boys, which I thought told more of a story. There are also references to the Bra Boys, but a lack of context might confuse audiences outside of Sydney, or those unfamiliar with the surf gang. The film is bound together by an animated soundtrack, including music by De Souza in his Kid Mac persona.

Originally published Friday 11 November 2011, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.

Margaret and David, At the Movies, Hayden Orpheum, Sydney, 2011

4 November 2011

Last Wednesday night, 2 November 2011, Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton, two of Australia’s best known film critics, spoke at the Hayden Orpheum Picture Palace, in the Sydney suburb of Cremorne. The special event was part of celebrations marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of their working partnership.

Usually referred to as Margaret and David, the pair presented The Movie Show on SBS Television from 1986 until 2004, and since then At the Movies, on the ABC.

Their association with film isn’t restricted to television work though. Stratton writes reviews for The Australian newspaper, and lectures in film history at the University of Sydney. Pomeranz, meanwhile, is known for her work with anti-censorship lobby, Watch on Censorship.

I’ve seen both at various film events in recent years. I saw Pomeranz speak with Stephen Frears, director of Tamara Drewe, earlier this year. Stratton, whom I occasionally see at some of the preview screenings I go to, interviewed Keir Dullea and Gary Lockwood, who starred in 2001: A Space Odyssey, in September 2006, also at the Hayden.

And after twenty-five years they certainly have much to say about the film industry, both in Australia and overseas. Not all of their thoughts are positive though. Both feel the rise of multiplexes have drained the movie going experience of its charm, something I agree with. That point comes into clear focus, particularly, at a place like the Hayden, which is certainly no multiplex.

Both were also critical of the work of many directors in France, Italy, and the United States, previously influential centres of filmmaking. Stratton went so far as to suggest a correlation between a society’s lack of imagination and its decline. However they had much praise for the work of Eastern filmmakers, particularly those in Japan, Korea, and China.

It’s difficult to ignore the contribution Pomeranz and Stratton have made, individually and collectively, to the Australian film industry, to say nothing of forging a successful professional partnership for so long. Despite this, I am often baffled by the ratings they accord to some of the films they review.

In my opinion, some decidedly poor efforts have received high-praise. On other occasions, their individual ratings of a film are at odds with each other. One, say, awards a film four stars (out of five), while the other offers two stars. Still, when it comes to film, it is, as Stratton says, all a matter of taste. It should be noted I still read the transcripts of their show each week regardless of my qualms.

Rounding out the evening was a preview screening of Tomas Alfredson’s new film Tinker Sailor Soldier Spy, which is scheduled for release in Australia in January 2012. This is something I will write more about at another time.

Originally published Friday 4 November 2011, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.

Jucy, a film by Louise Alston, with Francesca Gasteen and Cindy Nelson

14 March 2011

Jucy, trailer, a comedy/drama, is the second feature of Queensland filmmaker Louise Alston (All My Friends Are Leaving Brisbane). Alston teams up again with Leaving Brisbane writer Stephen Vagg to tell a story that is — coincidentally — inspired by the actual lives of its two stars, Francesca Gasteen who plays Lucy, and Cindy Nelson as Jackie.

Collectively they are Jucy, their variation possibly of the media penchant of naming celebrity couples by one-word nicknames, such as TomKat, in the case of Tom Cruise and wife Katie Holmes. Jucy screened at the Ritz Cinema, in Sydney, on Thursday 10 March 2011, as part of this year’s Australian Film Festival.

Jackie and Lucy have been best friends forever (BFF) since they met at school as teenagers. Now in their mid-twenties, they have — on an emotional level at least — changed little since those days. Although they don’t live together, they otherwise live out of each other’s pockets, and work together at Trash Videos, which Jackie manages.

Lucy lives in the family’s opulent harbourside apartment. Her mother has taken off to Tuscany indefinitely with a new boyfriend, leaving Lucy with younger sister Fleur (Nelle Lee). Fluer is somewhat of a control freak, who appears to have her life in order, and has taken it upon herself to sort out Lucy. This by way of ultimatum: “get a real job, or finish your degree, or move out of home!”

Tired also of the taunts served up by the people they socialise with, where they are variously referred to as “straight lesbians” or “friends with emotional benefits”, Jackie and Lucy decide things need to change. Each sets a goal in order to prove themselves to their peers. Jackie will find a boyfriend, while Lucy will seek out the job of her dreams.

And the stage production of Charlotte Bronte’s novel Jane Eyre, being planned by the amateur theatre group they belong to, looks like the way both can realise their goals. Should the show succeed, Lucy believes an acting career awaits, while Jackie has a soft spot for the play’s star, Alex (Ryan Johnson), and thinks the feeling is mutual.

Jucy lifts the lid on co-dependent relationships, platonic or otherwise, and peers inside. Here are often murky situations — to say the least — where reality is distorted — to say the least — to the point that nothing else matters. Career ambitions, relationships with other people, and any semblance of a normal life, go out the window in the name of remaining faithful to the “other half”.

Jucy ventures into some heady territory, yet keeps the tone light, and for the most part upbeat. This through the on, and off, stage antics of the Jane Eyre production, and Lee’s comedic carry on as Lucy’s domineering sister. Here’s a story that demonstrates even super close BFF’s can — sometimes — remain best friends without appearing “creepy” to the outside world.

Originally published Monday 14 March 2011, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.

Summer Coda, a film by Richard Gray, with Rachael Taylor, Alex Dimitriades

19 October 2010

Summer Coda, trailer, is the debut feature of Melbourne born filmmaker Richard Gray, and something he’s been working on since 2004. Gray lives and breathes film, working part time in cinemas while at school, and later studying the medium at the Victorian College of The Arts.

Set predominantly in the Mildura fruit growing region of the Australian state of Victoria, Summer Coda is the story of two people, Heidi (Rachael Taylor), and Michael (Alex Dimitriades). The two become drawn to each other, but are initially reluctant to reveal too much of themselves.

The Sydney premiere of Summer Coda took place on Monday, 18 October, 2010 at the Dendy Opera Quays, Circular Quay. This followed its Australian, and International, premiere at the Melbourne International Film Festival on 4 August 2010.

Although born in Mildura, Heidi’s lived in the American state of Nevada with her mother since age seven, after her father moved in with another woman. Now in her late twenties, news about him — the first she’s heard of her father in many years — prompts her return to Australia.

Travelling on a budget, Heidi takes to hitch-hiking to reach Mildura after flying into Melbourne, and eventually thumbs a ride with Michael, an apparently easy-going and happy orange grower. Their first exchanges are tense and guarded, but after a somewhat eventful evening in a pub, they begin opening up to each other.

Heidi soon reaches her father’s home and meets Angela (Susie Porter), the woman he abandoned her mother for. Angela, meanwhile, is wary of Heidi, believing she’s only after money. Heidi also learns she has a half-brother, Lachlan (Reef Ireland), who’s ten years younger than her.

Feeling less than welcome at her father’s home, Heidi goes to Michael’s orange orchid, and takes a job helping with the summer harvest. After bonding with the regular, and sometimes rumbustious, gang of fruit pickers who help out on the orchard each year, she learns of a tragic event in Michael’s past that he’s kept from her.

Summer Coda is a drama that may burn a little too slowly for some viewers. An action film this is not. Instead the storytelling is meticulous and deliberate, preferring to leave engaged watchers to piece together what is happening. There is little to fault in the performances, especially of the leads, Taylor, and Dimitriades, who here is worlds removed from the hotheaded Nick Poulos of Heartbreak High.

It was Gray’s intention to focus on the cinematography and soundtrack, something the beautifully filmed sequences from across the film’s settings in Melbourne, Mildura, and Reno, Nevada, attest to. But this might frustrate some viewers, who could perhaps walk away from Summer Coda believing it sacrifices substance for style.

Originally published Tuesday 19 October 2010, with subsequent revisions, updates to lapsed URLs, etc.

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