Thursday Nights at Parkville: Lost Shorts
The New Student Precinct Project and its curatorial partner Next Wave were proud to present “Lost Shorts” – a program of expanded cinema, live music and films, and free food and drinks, to keep you smiling to the end of Semester.
For three Thursday nights over October, students were invited to enjoy the work of five University of Melbourne Students as part of the Next Wave Moving Image Mentorship Program. The students created a new series of screenings and performances which offer a preview of the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) Film and Television archive, before its official launch at the Old Quad later this month.
THE PROGRAM
All screenings are accessible events. Please contact us for further information at student-precinct@unimelb.edu.au.
SCREEN WISE: Race and representation on screen
Curated by Caleb Ribates
Venue: Melbourne School of Design, base of Leo Simon Staircase,, Parkville Campus
Date: Thursday October 17, 7:30pm
Catering provided by the Mabu Mabu, Torres Strait Islander Catering Company.
Image: Catch Fish, dir: Adam Arkapaw, 2005
Movies do not just mirror the culture of any given time; they also create it…
- bell hooks
We learn about ourselves through our reflected images. This program looks at the potential of cinema to map and represent Melbourne’s diverse geographies and cultural identities. Addressing the paucity of depictions of people of colour and their stories from the VCA Digital Archive, Curator Caleb Ribates considers the production of screen culture through the lens of privilege and access. Caleb is a 19-year-old Filipino-Australian studying VCA’s Bachelors of Fine Arts Film and TV (Directing). Born and raised in Melbourne’s northern suburbs, he has been exposed to an extensive range of different cultures, religions and belief systems. This curated selection of films depicts discrimination towards minorities on screen and celebrates the beauty and nuance of multiculturalism on the streets of Melbourne’s suburbs.
Films
- 296 Smith Street (John Evagora, 2007) 15mins
- Fighting for Air (Fatima Mawas, 2011) 8 mins
- Marco Solo (Adrian Bosich, 2004) 8 mins
- Ying and Summer (Gladys Ng, 2011) 11mins
- Catch Fish (Adam Arkapaw, 2005) 11mins
FILM ON FILM: Multi-realities on screen and beyond
Curated by Milda Valiulytė
Venue: Forum Theatre, Arts West, Parkville Campus
Date: Thursday October 24, 5pm
Free snacks and drinks
Image: Live Work, Arini Byng and Aaron Christopher Rees, featuring Megan Payne
This program of experimental film and performance explores the illusion of screen realism and its multiple spatial and temporal dimensions. A curated program of films selected from the VCA Digital Archive utilise different reflexive strategies; exposing the filmmaker and crew, jolting the imaginary reality of the film world, and deconstructing modes of representation through montage and camera techniques.
Live Work is a performance by VCA alumni Arini Byng, Aaron Christopher Rees and dancer Megan Payne. Live Work investigates the affective qualities of the screen and performance’s cohabitation through situationational live videography. Turning the gallery into an aperture for the mobile gaze, camera operators become actors and actors become framing devices. Live Work considers the transient nature of experience – individual and collective – and the multiple ways our various experiences are recorded, translated, interpreted, described, fragmented and ultimately visualised through form and material.
Sumarlinah Raden Winoto is a dancer and choreographer currently living on Wurundjeri land. They are studying geography and are especially interested in how we design and negotiate public spaces, who are they made for and who governs them. For Film on Film Sumarlinah will perform a new dance work in response to the archive.
This program invites audiences to think about the potential of film as a tool to reveal the fragmentary nature of the world, and to question the linear, narrative thinking we use to govern our everyday lives.
Films
- The First Shot (Kerrie McCure, 1997) 2mins
- Cool All At Onceness (Ian Baker, 1968) 5mins
- Movie Making: Shooting those First Few Hundred Feet (Roger De Zilwa, 1976) 2mins
- Crossing the Line (Ross Cooper, 1976) 2mins
- Light and Image (Peter Thompson, 1976) 2mins
- Alice Through the Glass Lens (Josko Petkovic, 1976) 2mins
- Move (David Atkinson, 1976) 2mins
- Under the Weather (Lyn Ashby, 1993) 6mins
- Which Craft/Witch Craft (John Gurry, 1976) 2mins
- The Perfect Negative (Rene Chandler, 2008) 4mins
- Film (Michael Kemp, 1971) 3mins
- Inspiration 1% (Maureen Kurpinsky, 1976) 2mins
- To What End? (Lynton Brown, 1976) 2mins
- Reelism (Christine Johnson, 1976) 2mins
- Set... (Vicki Molloy, 1976) 2 mins
- Anne's 27th Sense (Karen Von Bamberger, 1985) 12mins
DEVIATE: Halloween Party
Curated by Phebe Shields and Natalia Sepulveda
Venue: South Lawn, Parkville Campus
Date: Thursday October 31, 7:30pm
Free snacks and drinks
Image: False Teeth or... The Manufacture of Artificial Dentures, dir: Graeme Jackson, 1968
We’ve gone down the wormhole of the VCA Film Archive to bring you a selection of the best spooky, surreal and experimental shorts with performances and live music by Magic Steven, LST (Tarquin Manek), Christina Higham and Victoria Cotta.
Magic Steven is an artist whose work has been described at various times as autobiographical storytelling, deadpan comedy, guided meditation, group therapy and long-form beat poetry. He has performed around Australia at festivals including Dark Mofo, Camp Doogs, the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Liquid Architecture, White Night, the Inland Concert Series and Blindside Festival.
Tarquin Manek's LST project is a private wilderness that be dense and hard to navigate, pitched somewhere between folk-tale and science fiction: Manek’s psycho-acoustic landscaping culminates in puzzle-boxes of insinuating, paranormal resonances, wrought out of THC-ushered marriage of wracked bedroom psychedelia, gloopy alien concrète and dubwise, third-eye-open sound design.
The Unravelling is a collaborative audio visual music and film project composed and performed by Melbourne based artists Christina Higham and Victoria Cotta. Awarded Best Music Show at the Melbourne Fringe Festival, The Unravelling has been described as “a modern day silent movie” and “eerie fantasia”. The live performance takes the audience on a journey where the dynamics between film, music and composition are drawn into question, leading each viewer to arrive at a unique destination.
The composition explores the sonic possibilities of two pianos in a mesmerising, haunting and sometimes absurd way, challenging our preconceptions around classical music and film.
DEVIATE is a night for curious souls that aims to broaden your perspective and question reality. Find us on the University of Melbourne’s South Lawn on Halloween for Bloody Gin cocktails from 7:30pm.
Curated by Phebe Shields and Natalia Sepulveda.
Films
- Puppenhead (David Cox, 1990) 7mins
- Deep Six (Gila Fisher, 2017) 13mins
- False Teeth or... The Manufacture of Artificial Dentures (Graeme Jackson, 1968); 5mins
- Certain of Anything (Joe Guario, 1994) 3mins
- The Roof Needs Mowing (Gillian Armstrong, 1971) 8mins
- Cat’s Cradle (Liz Hughes, 1991) 12mins
Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Precinct team.