Items tagged with 'Film'

Nothing could be quite so perfect as watching an engaging Aussie film under the stars with a receptive local audience on the banks of the mighty Murray. The stars glittering overhead after a gorgeous sunset, and giant outdoor screen backed up against the heritage woolshed on the Homestead Lawns just outside Mildura.

We’ve just finished editing the new Big Screen trailer and call me a big softie but it still moves me even though I’ve sat through it probably a few hundred times. Trailer producer, director and editor Stephen Robinson has created an evocative montage of over 60 clips from new and classic Australian films, weaving together moments of love, laughter and loss … and trains. For some reason we picked up a running theme with trains. Has anyone done a thesis on this?

One of my favourite books here in the Library is Australian Etiquette, or the Rules and Usages of the Best Society in the Australasian Colonies, Together with Their Sports, Pastimes, Games, and Amusements (People’s Publishing Company, Melbourne, 1885. Facsimilie Edition by JM Dent, 1980).

Last Friday about 150 Drama and English students from nine high schools around NSW attended a Q&A with actor Aden Young and film director Ian Darling. This was School screen's most successful videoconference to date. Amid the thunderous applause there was one image that really made me smile – a handwritten sign held up to the camera that read: 'We Love You Aden’!

Monday and Tuesday (17 and 18 May) I spent at the Library of Congress, Packard Campus for Audio-Visual Conservation in Culpeper, Virginia.

The majority of this complex is hidden underground and houses 6.3 million collection items; 1.2 million moving image, 3 million recorded sound and 2.1 million supporting documents such as scripts, posters and photos. The building site was originally used by the US Federal Reserve Bank Center and after an extensive rebuild was officially opened by the Library of Congress in 2007.

The International Centre of Photography (ICP) is located at 1133 Avenue of the Americas between 43rd and 44th Street New York. The digitisation department and photographic collection is located on the 12th floor and, incidentally, has the best view from its lunchroom I have ever seen!

It was great to see so many people at the premiere screenings of the NFSA’s new 35mm prints of Love Serenade (Shirley Barrett, 1996) and The Last Days of Chez Nous (Gillian Armstrong, 1992) at the Sydney Film Festival last Saturday morning. The new 35mm prints were recently preserved as part of the NFSA’s Deluxe/Kodak Project and they looked fantastic on the big screen in the Art Gallery of New South Wales theatre.

The NFSA recently hosted intern, Laura Clarke, as part of our Research Programs.  Laura is in her final year of a Bachelor of Arts (New Media Arts) at the Australian National University , and spent 70 hours at the NFSA from March to May this year.

It was back in 1973 that Paul Simon immortalised colour photography in this song, but if he saw the writing on the wall, it was a long time coming. The last ever roll of 35mm roll of Kodachrome film will be processed, at Dwayne’s Photofinishing Lab in Kansas City, in December this year. Manufacture of the film stock was discontinued some time ago.

It was a surprising delight to revisit The Last Days of Chez Nous at the NFSA on Saturday as I hope it was for the Canberra audience.  It was an incredible privilege and a little frightening when it was selected by the NFSA for a new preservation print to be made and to be kept for posterity.

To attend a film festival in Nambucca Heads for a screening of the film adaptation of my novel Tomorrow, When the War Began seemed an attractive idea, and I felt right at home there – the weather was exactly the same as Melbourne: cold and wet, bleak and grey.

On Thursday September 16, highly-acclaimed violinist, Niki Vasilakis and producer Joanna Buggy discussed the documentary film 4 via videoconference with over 60 music and media students from around the state of South Australia, including students at the event’s location – Christies Beach High School, south of Adelaide.

It wasn’t until I sat down to attend Friday on My Mind recently at AFTRS that I discovered the crowded room of students and filmmaker professionals were here for the interview with the director and writer of the much talked-about new feature Tomorrow, When the War Began, and not the feature itself, as I had hoped.

I’ve been thinking about film preservation – not unusual for someone working in the National Film and Sound Archive (NFSA) I suppose – but my thoughts were triggered by a recent comment by NFSA’s Curator Emeritus Ray Edmondson that a particular film had 'been preserved’.

'You can’t ever say a film has 'been preserved’ he said. 'It’s an ongoing task.’

It’s the bicentennial year of independence in Argentina – a special year for celebration – and Australia will be the guest country at the 25th Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina from 13-21 November 2010.

NFSA historian Graham Shirley gave a speech at the Powerhouse Museum about the Archive’s role in finding, restoring and preserving the classic Australian film.

The NFSA has recently restored four films made by Italian/Australian filmmaker Giorgio Mangiamele (1926-2001) – Il Contratto (1953), The Spag (1962), Ninety Nine Per Cent (1963) and Clay (1965). They are to be released as a DVD box set, and three will screen at the 2011 Melbourne International Film Festival.

Rosemary Mangiamele (nee Cuming) met Giorgio Mangiamele in Melbourne in 1978. One year later, in Papua New Guinea, they were married. In the following years Giorgio made five documentaries for the PNG Office of Information, with Rosemary assisting him. Since their marriage, Rosemary has developed a substantial career as an intuitive abstract painter, citing inspiration from Giorgio among her key influences. Read her story …

Artist Rosemary Mangiamele reflects on the revival of her late husband Giorgio Mangiamele’s films The Spag, Ninety Nine Per Cent and Clay.

The NFSA exhibitions team describe the challenges and joys of curating the Collective Passions poster exhibition.

Much-loved Australian film critic John Hinde would have turned 100 today. NFSA Library manager Jan Thurling celebrates the radio and TV personality on his anniversary.

The NFSA joins the Australian film industry in mourning the loss of artist, writer and filmmaker Sarah Watt to cancer.

The everyday lives of a group of Sydney private school girls, a renowned film director and an Indigenous actress couldn’t be any more different, yet they all found some common ground through the NFSA Connects program. NFSA Education Coordinator Imelda Cooney writes.

It’s Western Australia’s time to shine as we look at a selection of films made about the sunny state from 1907-1972.