[JUST ABOUT NOW IS A COLLECTION OF THINGS HAPPENING IN OUR SPACES & PLACES, PHYSICAL & DIGITAL, intersecting PAST, PRESENT, FUTURE, CULTURE, COMMUNITY & CREATIVITY into the NOW. STITCHED TOGETHER BY GEROME FOR WSKRA.COM]
“The Yoorrook Justice Commission, represented by the design at the centre of the logo, is central to the truth telling for injustices for First Nations people and in turn is central to making recommendations for healing, system reform and practical changes to laws, policy and education.
“The circles represent meeting and community and they are connected through the songlines of culture and understanding.”
CELEBRATION. COMMUNITY. NAIDOC Week 2024: Keep The Fire Burning! Blak, Loud And Proud. Sunday 7 July to Sunday 14 July 2024. “National NAIDOC Week celebrations are held across Australia in the first week of July each year (Sunday to Sunday), to celebrate and recognise the history, culture and achievements of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. NAIDOC Week is an opportunity for all Australians to learn about First Nations cultures and histories and participate in celebrations of the oldest, continuous living cultures on earth. You can support and get to know your local Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities through activities and events held across the country.”
NAIDOC Week 2024 | SBS On Demand
MUSIC. LIVE. Dan Sultan x MSO, Aaron Wyatt conductor, Friday 12 July 2024, Hamer Hall. NAIDOC Week celebration.
MUSIC. 2019. Paul Kelly & Dan Sultan | Every Day My Mother’s Voice (Official Video)
Classic Live: Dan Sultan x MSO | ABC Listen. “To celebrate the tenth anniversary of his ARIA-winning album Blackbird, the Arrente/Gurindji singer-songwriter and guitarist Dan Sultan has collaborated with the composer-arranger Alex Turley to present a unique concert with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.”
MUSIC. MUSIC VIDEO. 1987. Midnight Oil – Beds Are Burning (1987) (247M views since 4 October 2009)
“Midnight Oil (“The Oils”) are an Australian rock band composed of Peter Garrett, Rob Hirst, Jim Moginie and Martin Rotsey. The group was formed in Sydney in 1972 by Hirst, Moginie and original bassist Andrew James as Farm: they enlisted Garrett the following year, changed their name in 1976, and hired Rotsey a year later. Peter Gifford served as bass player from 1980 to 1987, with Bones Hillman then assuming the role until his death in 2020. Midnight Oil have sold over 20 million albums worldwide as of 2021.”–Wikipedia
FILM | ANTHOLOGY. We Are Still Here (2022). “1000 years of kinship, loss, grief and resilience. Through the eyes of eight protagonists, We Are Still Here traverses 1000 years from past, present, and future to explore stories of kinship, loss, grief, and resilience. But ultimately, it shows the strength of love and hope to overcome shared traumas that Indigenous people from Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific have continued to face.” #WeAreStillHere
MUSIC. 2023. Michael Waugh – We Are Here (Official Music Video). Aussie 100%
The Beauty & Truth of Michael Waugh (video interview) | Sunburnt Country Music | Sophie Hamley (July 2024)
CELEBRATION. COMMUNITY. So Frenchy So Chic Bastille Day Soirée, Saturday 20th July 2024, 5pm-11pm, Meat Market, Blackwood St, North Melbourne.
“So Frenchy So Chic DJs will be spinning France’s most iconic dance-floor hits from the last 40 years. Discover the best of French pop, disco, house and more.”
MUSIC. 2015. Christine and the Queens – Tilted (Official Video)
MUSIC. 2015. Thylacine – Berlingot – Live (Rock dans tous ses États 2015)
COMMUNITY PLANTING. A Port Phillip EcoCentre Initiative
Come along and celebrate National Tree Day 2024 not on one but two days: at St Kilda West Beach on Saturday 27 July, then at MO Moran Reserve Elwood on Sunday 28 July.
Join other volunteers from 10am on Saturday 27 July for a truly special opportunity to participate in a large, significant community planting at the coastal dune precinct of St Kilda West Beach. This event promises to be a rewarding and memorable experience for you, your family and friends, as your community takes the next steps in improving the resilience and beauty of your local environment by enriching its biodiversity. St Kilda West Beach is a local gem, a large coastal dune reserve that is home to many local coastal dune plants and birds among others. More info for Saturday 27 July
On Sunday 28 July, also from 10am, gather up with more volunteers at MO Moran Reserve for more community planting. It’s your second opportunity to touch the earth–to connect with the earth while connecting with other members of your community with whom you share the rewards for caring for the land. More info for Sunday 28 July, National Tree Day
MUSIC. MAGIC. OPERA. ETC. ANYTHING BIT. Your chance to talk about the weather at the EcoCentre.
Climate Café in July at the EcoCentre. Saturday 20 July 2024 3pm–4.30pm
Climate Café in August at the EcoCentre. Saturday 24 August 2024 3pm–4.30pm
ART. LIVE MUSIC. FILM. COMMUNITY. ETC. Fred Negro: Hooray! Carlisle Street Art Space, Monday 24 June to Friday 12 July 2024 8.30am–5pm. “Visit cartoonist, performer and frontman of I Spit On Your Gravy, Fred Negro, in residence as he undertakes a new drawing commission produced onsite.
“Fred, admired for his graphic skills, iconoclastic humour and social commentary, will exhibit a selection of works including posters, handbills and his infamous PUB strip cartoons during his residency.”–City of Port Phillip Council
Sunday 7 July 2024 | 2pm The St Kilda Underground Music Walk hosted by Fred Negro and Rob Wellington departs from The George
Sunday 7 July 2024 | 5pm Peptides Punk at the Bowlo St Kilda Sports Club
Friday 12 July 2024 | 5.30pm Screening of Pub: The Movie at Carlisle Street Arts Space, St Kilda Town Hall | 8pm Launch of Fred Negro’s new band 3182 Etc at Pause Bar
MUSIC. LIVE. FREE. Fred Negro 3182 Etc Album Launch, Saturday 20 July 2024 8pm, St Kilda Sports Club.
“Fred Negro’s 3182 Etc. debut self-titled auto-biographical auto-erotic uninhibited unexpurgated un-expletive-deleted adjectivally-overladen love letter to St Kilda and the days when being drunk, stoned and naked on Fitzroy street was just a typical Thursday night. Featuring a crack band scraped from the soles of St Kilda’s favourite bands and a bevy of special guest stars. Supported with killer sets by the Gypsy Lovers and Walkerville.”
MUSIC. LIVE. The Stones’ Sticky Fingers | The Rolling Stones Revue with Adalita, Phil Jamieson, Tex Perkins, Tim Rogers, Friday 26 July 2024 at The Palais
MUSIC. 1971. The Rolling Stones – Sticky Fingers (Full Album).
“Sticky Fingers is widely considered one of the Rolling Stones’ best albums. It was the band’s first album to reach number one on both the UK albums and US albums charts, and has since achieved triple platinum certification in the US. Brown Sugar topped the Billboard Hot 100 in 1971. The album was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and included in Rolling Stone magazine’s “The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time” list.”–Wikipedia
MUSIC. 2013. John Mayer & Keith Urban | Don’t Let Me Down. Live Madison Square Garden New York City (12 April 2013)
MUSIC. 2007. John Mayer | Gravity. Live Nokia Theatre Los Angeles (December 2007)
MUSIC. 2016. Alicia Keys & John Mayer | If I Ain’t Got You x Gravity. Live Times Square New York (9 October 2016)
MUSIC. 2020. Alicia Keys: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert. “As she approached her piano, a bit surprised at the amount of people in the room, she smiled and remarked over her shoulder, “Gee, the Tiny Desk is tiny!” She kicked off the set with an uncanny ode to combat the darkness of this moment in American history: Show Me Love, a single she released in 2019. No one could have predicted then how much her lyrics and musical healing would be crucial during this emotionally fraught time of unprecedented political and racial unrest, heightened by three months of quarantine due to a global pandemic.”
COMMUNITY RADIO. JOY 94.9 | JOY Media. “JOY Media is Australia’s out-and-proud LGBTQIA+ community media organisation. From providing relevant, timely, and accurate news, to showcasing Australian LGBTQIA+ musicians and artists, advocating for community during times of crisis across Melbourne and Australia, JOY 94.9 is a crucial part of the country’s media landscape.”
JOY Radiothon, 1–7 June 2024. “Funds raised during JOY Radiothon help ensure the station can continue to support and uplift diverse rainbow voices not represented in other media.” Missed it? It’s never too late to donate.
$30 For 30 Years. “This year marks 30 years since JOY’s first broadcast from South Melbourne on 1 December 1993. Donate now to celebrate this amazing milestone!
Donate or Bequeath to JOY. “With your donations, JOY keeps informing, entertaining, and empowering rainbow communities across Australia and the world, with the purpose of building a more inclusive society.”
MUSIC. 2023. A Performance: Man On The Run | Keiynan | TEDxSydney. “Keiynan’s music delves into the complexities of male-to-male love, revealing the vulnerabilities, pressures, and challenges many modern men face. With heartfelt lyrics and vocals, and accompanied by his pianist brother Joseph, it’s a poignant exploration of emotion and self-reflection. Multi-hyphenate artist Keiynan was raised in a storm of energy, with relentless expression, and the fiery backdrop of Western Sydney’s North St Mary’s. Australian, Nigerian, & Irish, born in 1991, with 11 siblings, he made sense of his unique lens by embodying the language of art; first with music, then dance, & then acting. He had an extremely hard working single mother, plus an instinctive desire to tell unifying stories at a young age – this sets the tone for an empowered dreamer to break beyond social & economic barriers, to forge new realities. In 2020 Lonsdale released his debut album ‘Rainbow Boy’, catching the ears of Billboard, GQ, Rolling Stone, Vogue, Interview Mag, & gaining him the nomination for ‘Outstanding Breakthrough Music Artist’ at the 2021 GLAAD Music Awards.”
MUSIC.2019. Keiynan Lonsdale | Rainbow Dragon (Official Music Video)
MUSIC. 2020. Keiynan Lonsdale | Rainbow Boy (Billboard Pride Live)
ART. FASHION. NOW. Africa Fashion at the NGV until 6 October 2024.
“The diversity and ingenuity of the continent’s contemporary fashion industry is explored in a visually arresting display of contemporary couture, ready-to-wear and made-to-order from the many ground-breaking designers, collectives and stylists working in Africa today. From the minimal to the artisanal to the maximalist to the narrative, Africa Fashion offers a glimpse of the glamour and the politics of this globally influential scene.”–NGV
NOW. Melbourne Winter Masterpieces 2024 | NGV, 14 June to 6 October 2024. “The NGV has partnered with the British Museum to present Pharaoh, a landmark exhibition that celebrates three thousand years of ancient Egyptian art and culture. Through more than 500 objects, including monumental sculpture, architecture, temple statuary, exquisite jewellery, papyri, coffins and a rich array of funerary objects, the exhibition unpacks the phenomenon of pharaoh, those all-powerful kings claiming a divine origin.”
Experience ancient Egypt after dark when Pharaoh opens late every Friday night this winter | NGV.
MUSIC. 2019. R3HAB x A Touch Of Class – All Around The World (La La La) (Official Video).
DOCUMENTARY INTERVIEWS. 1979. Parkinson In Australia: Michael Parkinson interviews guests Mike Willesee, Ita Buttrose and Sir Robert Helpmann. “Veteran British broadcaster Michael Parkinson has died, aged 88. Look back at this selection of iconic Parkinson interviews from the 1970s and 1980s.”–ABC
“Michael Robert Willesee, AO (29 June 1942 – 1 March 2019) was an Australian television journalist, interviewer and presenter. Willesee was born the son of politician, Western Australian ALP senator and foreign minister Don Willesee, who served in the Whitlam government and his wife Gwendoline Clark Willeesee.”–Wikipedia
Mike Willesee: The life of a television trailblazer | Australian Story | ABC News
“Mike Willesee can rightly claim to have created nightly commercial television current affairs in Australia. In 1971, he designed, produced and presented A Current Affair on Channel Nine. It was still going nearly half a century later and defied several attempts by the other networks to copy or supplant the formula of nightly tabloid television news mixed with serious interviews. Willesee became the pre-eminent television interviewer for more than 20 years. Earlier, Willesee had been a reporter on the ABC’s This Day Tonight and presenter of Four Corners.“–The Australian Media Hall Of Fame
Veteran journalist Mike Willesee dead at 76 | ABC News (March 2019)
John Hewson – The GST Interview. “The birthday cake interview was a live interview on Australian television in March 1993 in which Liberal Party Opposition Leader John Hewson was unable to clearly explain to reporter Mike Willesee whether a birthday cake would cost more or less under his proposed tax reforms. It is remembered as contributing to Hewson’s unexpected failure as leader of the Coalition to win the federal election that took place ten days later.”–Wikipedia
“Ita Clare Buttrose AC, OBE (born 17 January 1942) is an Australian television and radio personality, author and former magazine editor, publishing executive, newspaper journalist and television network executive chairperson.
“She was the founding editor of Cleo, a high-circulation magazine aimed at women aged 20 to 40 that was frank about sexuality (and, in its infancy, featured nude male centrefolds) and, later, the editor of the more conventional The Australian Women’s Weekly. She was the youngest person to be appointed editor of The Weekly, which was then, per capita, the largest-selling magazine in the world.”–Wikipedia
The real story behind Cleo’s most famous male centrefolds | Mamamia | Sarah MacDonald (Jan 2016)
Cleo founding editor Ita Buttrose says closure like ‘a death in the family’ | ABC 7.30 | Sarah Whyte (Jan 2016)
ART. Anh’s Brush With Fame: Series 5 Jack Thompson. Available on ABC iView. “Jack Thompson is an icon of Australian film and TV. After a difficult start to life, Jack found his voice in Breaker Morant, The Man From Snowy River and many more iconic films.”–ABC [1972. Jack Thompson was Cleo’s first male nude centrefold.]
“Jack Thompson, AM (born John Hadley Pain; 31 August 1940) is an Australian actor and a major figure of Australian cinema, particularly Australian New Wave. He is best known as a lead actor in several acclaimed Australian films, including such classics as The Club (1980), Sunday Too Far Away (1975), The Man From Snowy River (1982) and Petersen (1974). He won Cannes and AFI acting awards for the latter film.”–Wikipedia
Australian LGBTIQ Legends: Sir Robert Helpmann | QNews | Destiny Rogers (July 2019). “Sir Robert Helpmann became an international ballet star & choreographer as well as a famed actor and director. Openly gay, he lived with partner Michael Benthall until Michael’s death in 1974.
“Astonishingly, for an openly gay man in the twentieth century, Helpmann was Australian of the Year in 1966, knighted in 1968 and given the rare honour of a state funeral when he died.”–QNews
“Sir Robert Murray Helpmann CBE (9 April 1909 – 28 September 1986) was an Australian ballet dancer, actor, director, and choreographer. After early work in Australia he moved to Britain in 1932, where he joined the Vic-Wells Ballet (now The Royal Ballet) under its creator, Ninette de Valois. He became one of the company’s leading men, partnering Alicia Markova and later Margot Fonteyn. When Frederick Ashton, the company’s chief choreographer, was called up for military service in the Second World War, Helpmann took over from him while continuing as a principal dancer.
“Helpmann died in Sydney and was given a state funeral in St Andrew’s Cathedral. The Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, gave a tribute in the Parliament of Australia, and a motion of condolence was passed – a rare tribute for a non-politician. Helpmann is commemorated in the Helpmann Awards for Australian performing arts, established in his honour in 2001.”–Wikipedia
“Peter Allen (born Peter Richard Woolnough; 10 February 1944 – 18 June 1992) was an Australian singer-songwriter, musician, and entertainer, known for his flamboyant stage persona, energetic performances, and lavish costumes. Allen’s songs were made popular by many recording artists, including Elkie Brooks, Melissa Manchester and Olivia Newton-John, including Newton-John’s first chart-topping hit “I Honestly Love You”, and the chart-topping and Academy Award-winning “Arthur’s Theme (Best That You Can Do)” by Christopher Cross. In addition to recording many albums, Allen enjoyed a cabaret and concert career, including appearances at the Radio City Music Hall riding a camel. His patriotic song “I Still Call Australia Home“, has been used extensively in advertising campaigns and was added to the National Film and Sound Archive’s Sounds Of Australia registry in 2013.
“Allen was the first husband of Liza Minnelli. They met in October 1964, were engaged on 26 November 1964, married on 3 March 1967, formally separated on 8 April 1970, and divorced on 24 July 1974. Allen had a long-term partner, model Gregory Connell. They met in 1973 and were together until Connell’s death in 1984. Allen and Connell died from AIDS-related cancer eight years apart, with Allen becoming one of the first well-known Australians to die from AIDS. Allen remained ambiguous about his sexuality in that he did not pretend to be straight after divorcing Minnelli, but never publicly came out as gay either. In a 1991 interview with the gay newspaper New York Native, he explained, “I was ‘out’ on stage years before anyone else. But I think outing is limiting. I don’t feel like I should be labeled.” Despite Allen’s outgoing persona, he was an intensely private man who shared little about his personal life even with those close to him. Few people knew Allen had HIV/AIDS, partly in fear of alienating his conservative, heterosexual fans and thinking audiences would not want to see a performer they knew was sick. In 1998, a musical about his life, The Boy from Oz, debuted in Australia. It ran on Broadway and earned Hugh Jackman a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical.”–Wikipedia
THEATRE | MUSICAL. The Boy From Oz, the musical biography and tribute to the late great Peter Allen. Sunday 7 July to Sunday 21 July 2004, The National Theatre St Kilda
MUSIC. 1977. Peter Allen “Tenterfield Saddler” from Peter Allen in Concert TV Special Sydney
“Peter Allen was born in the outback Australian town of Tenterfield in 1944. He made his entertainment debut at the age of 5 impersonating Al Jolson. As a teenager he became a pop star and then toured Asia. There he met Judy Garland who took him to London where he met and become engaged to her daughter Liza Minnelli. In the US Peter enjoyed the highs of success by winning an Oscar, selling out performances in Radio City Music Hall, and receiving adulation when he returned to Australia. There were also plenty of lows … breaking up with his wife, staging a Broadway flop, the death of his partner and his own battle with illness.”–Theatrical at The National Theatre
MUSIC. 2011. I Still Call Australia Home | Oprah Ultimate Australian Adventure | Hugh Jackman, Olivia Newton-John, Keith Urban, Nicole Kidman, Russel Crowe
ART | THEATRE. Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? Saturday 29 June to Sunday 21 July 2024, Comedy Theatre
Scene from Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf – Getting Angry, Baby?
ART | FILM. 1966. Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? Official Trailer. “Who’s Afraid Of Virginia Woolf? is a 1966 American drama film directed by Mike Nichols in his directorial debut. The screenplay by Ernest Lehman is an adaptation of Edward Albee’s 1962 play of the same name. It stars Elizabeth Taylor as Martha, Richard Burton as George, George Segal as Nick, and Sandy Dennis as Honey. The film depicts a late-night gathering at the home of a college professor and his wife.
“The film was nominated for 13 Academy Awards, including Best Picture and Best Director for Mike Nichols. It is one of only two films to be nominated in every eligible category at the Academy Awards (the other is Cimarron). All four main actors were nominated in their respective acting categories, the first time a film’s entire credited cast was nominated.
“The film won five Oscars: a second Academy Award for Best Actress for Taylor, Best Supporting Actress for Dennis, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction and Best Costume Design.”–Wikipedia
ART | FILM. 2017. The Third Murder directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda, Available on SBS On Demand. “Kôji Yakusho (13 Assassins) stars in this Japanese murder mystery from Palme d’Or-winning filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda. Nominated for Best Film at Venice.”
ART | FILM. 2023. Perfect Days directed by Wim Wenders. “Hirayama seems utterly content with his simple life as a cleaner of toilets in Tokyo. Outside of his very structured everyday routine he enjoys his passion for music and for books. And he loves trees and takes photos of them. A series of unexpected encounters gradually reveal more of his past. A deeply moving and poetic reflection on finding beauty in the everyday world around us.”–The Perfect Match
ART | FILM. 2010. 13 Assassins directed by Takeshi Miike. “Cult director Takeshi Miike delivers a bravado period action film set at the end of Japan’s feudal era in which a group of unemployed samurai are enlisted to bring down a sadistic lord and prevent him from ascending to the throne and plunging the country into a war-torn future.”–Magnolia Pictures & Magnet Releasing
Kōji Yakusho on finding happiness in simplicity, Perfect Days, and working with Wim Wenders | Q With Tom Power (March 2024)
ART | FILM. 2018. Shoplifters (Japan) directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda. “In 2018, his film, titled Shoplifters, about a young girl who is welcomed in by a family of shoplifters, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d’Or. It was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.
ART | FILM. 2023. Monster (Japan) directed by Hirokazu Kore-eda. Queer Palm and the Best Screenplay Award at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. “When her young son Minato starts to behave strangely, his mother feels that there is something wrong. Discovering that a teacher is responsible, she storms into the school demanding to know what’s going on. But as the story unfolds through the eyes of the mother, teacher and child, the truth gradually emerges.”
Monster: Meet Director Hirokazu Kore-eda | Dorkaholics. “Hirokazu Kore-eda (是枝 裕和, born 6 June 1962) is a Japanese film director, producer, screenwriter, and editor. He began his career in television and has since directed more than a dozen feature films, including Nobody Knows (2004), Still Walking (2008), After The Storm (2016) and Shoplifters (2018).”
ART | FILM. 2017. The Square, written and directed by Ruben Östlund. “The film was entered into the 2017 Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Palme d’Or. It was subsequently selected for the 2017 Toronto International Film Festival. It went on to win six European Film Awards, including Best Film; two Guldbagge Awards, including Best Director; and other honours. It was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film at the 90th Academy Awards.”
ART | FILM. 2022. Triangle Of Sadness directed by Ruben Östlund. “In Ruben Östlund’s wickedly funny Palme d’Or winner, social hierarchy is turned upside down, revealing the tawdry relationship between power and beauty. Celebrity model couple, Carl (Harris Dickinson) and Yaya (Charlbi Dean), are invited on a luxury cruise for the uber-rich, helmed by an unhinged boat captain (Woody Harrelson). What first appeared instagrammable ends catastrophically, leaving the survivors stranded on a desert island and fighting for survival.”–Neon
What is the triangle of sadness?
“Ruben Östlund (born 13 April 1974) is a Swedish filmmaker best known for his black comedic and satirical films Force Majeure (2014), The Square (2017) and Triangle of Sadness (2022). He is the recipient of various accolades, including two Palmes d’Or, four European Film Awards and nominations for three Academy Awards.”–Wikipedia
Ruben Östlund on Triangle of Sadness and why he wanted to look at “beauty as a currency” | Q with Tom Power. “Few filmmakers can eviscerate social norms like Ruben Östlund. In his latest Palme d’Or-winning film, Triangle of Sadness, he brings his sharpest tool yet for the job. The Swedish director sat down with Q’s Tom Power at the Toronto International Film Festival to discuss the film, his fascination with social hierarchies and the economic value of beauty.”
Triangle of Sadness – Full Press Conference Cannes 2022
ART | FILM. 1987. Babette’s Feast directed by Gabriel Axel. “Babette’s Feast (Danish: Babettes Gæstebud) is a Danish drama film directed by Gabriel Axel. The screenplay, written by Axel, was based on the 1958 story of the same name by Isak Dinesen (Karen Blixen). It stars Stéphane Audran, Birgitte Federspiel, and Bodil Kjer. Babette’s Feast was met with widespread critical acclaim and became the first Danish film to win the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. It was also the first Danish cinema film of a Blixen story. The film premiered in the Un Certain Regard section of the 1987 Cannes Film Festival.”
ART | FILM. ANIMATED. DOCUMENTARY. 2021. Flee by Jonas Poher Rasmussen. Available on SBS On Demand. “Flee is a 2021 independent adult animated documentary film directed by Jonas Poher Rasmussen [Denmark]. It follows the story of a man under the alias Amin Nawabi, who shares his hidden past of fleeing his home country of Afghanistan to Denmark for the first time. The world premiere of the film was at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize in the World Cinema Documentary section.”–Wikipedia
ART | FILM. 2017. Okja directed by Bong Joon-ho. “A gentle giant and the girl who raised her are caught in the crossfire between animal activism, corporate greed and scientific ethics. Starring: Tilda Swinton, Jake Gyllenhaal, An Seo-hyun.”
ART | FILM. 2019. Parasite directed by Bong Joon-ho, co-written and co-produced with Han Jin-won. “Parasite premiered at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival on 21 May 2019, where it became the first Korean film to win its top prize, the Palme d’Or. Parasite won the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 92nd Academy Awards, becoming the first non-English-language film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. It won an additional three Oscars, for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, and Best International Feature Film.”
“Bong Joon-ho (born September 14, 1969) is a South Korean film director, producer and screenwriter, recipient of three Academy Awards, his filmography is characterised by emphasis on social and class themes, genre-mixing, black humor, and sudden tone shifts. He first became known to audiences and achieved a cult following with his directorial debut film, the black comedy Barking Dogs Never Bite (2000), before achieving both critical and commercial success with his subsequent films: the crime thriller Memories Of Murder (2003), the monster film The Host (2006), the science fiction action film Snowpiercer (2013), which served as Bong’s English language debut, and the near-universally acclaimed black comedy thriller Parasite (2019).”–Wikipedia
Bong Joon Ho | 2019 Extended Interview on Parasite | Alamo Drafthouse
ART | FILM. 2023. Anatomy Of A Fall directed by Justine Triet from a screenplay she co-wrote with Arthur Harare. 2023 Cannes Palme d’Or and Palm Dog Award. “For the past year, Sandra, her husband Samuel, and their eleven-year-old son Daniel have lived a secluded life in a remote town in the French Alps. When Samuel is found dead in the snow below their chalet, the police question whether he was murdered or committed suicide. Samuel’s suspicious death is presumed murder, and Sandra becomes the main suspect. What follows is not just an investigation into the circumstances of Samuel’s death but an unsettling psychological journey into the depths of Sandra and Samuel’s conflicted relationship.”
ART | FILM. 2023. The Taste Of Things directed by Trần Anh Hùng, 2023 Cannes Best Director award. “Set in 1889, it depicts a romance between a cook and the gourmet she works for. The character of the gourmet is based on Dodin-Bouffant, created by Swiss author Marcel Rouff in his 1924 novel La Vie et la passion de Dodin-Bouffant, gourmet (The Passionate Epicure).”
“Trần Anh Hùng (born December 23, 1962) is a Vietnamese-born French filmmaker. Trần Anh Hùng was born in Da Nang, South Vietnam. Following the fall of Saigon at the end of the Vietnam War in 1975, he immigrated to France at age 12. Hung’s style of filmmaking is expressed through the claim: “Art is the truth wearing a mask”. He denies the conventional story-telling style and pursues making films with a new language: “to challenge the audiences’ feelings, making them enjoy the films not with the critical reasoning but the language of the body”.”–Wikipedia
Trân Anh Hùng on The Taste of Things | NYFF61 Film at Lincoln Center
ART | FILM. 1994. Muriel’s Wedding written and directed by P. J. Hogan. “The film, which stars Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths, Jeanie Drynan, Sophie Lee, and Bill Hunter, focuses on the socially awkward Muriel whose ambition is to have a glamorous wedding and improve her personal life by moving from her dead-end hometown, the fictional Porpoise Spit, to Sydney.”–Wikipedia
Muriel’s Wedding – 27 Years On | Screen Australia
ART | FILM. 1994. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, written and directed by Stephan Elliott. “The plot follows two drag queens, played by Hugo Weaving and Guy Pearce, and a trans-gender woman played by Terence Stamp, as they journey across the Australian Outback from Sydney to Alice Springs in a tour bus that they have named “Priscilla”, along the way encountering various groups and individuals.”–Wikipedia
Celebrating Rainbow Screen Stories | Screen Australia
ART | FILM. 2001. Lantana directed by Ray Lawrence.. “Lantana is a 2001 Australian-German drama film, directed by Ray Lawrence and starring Anthony LaPaglia, Kerry Armstrong, Geoffrey Rush, and Barbara Hershey. It is based on the play Speaking In Tongues by Andrew Bovell, which premiered at Sydney’s Griffin Theatre Company. The film won seven Australian Academy Awards including Best Film and Best Adapted Screenplay.”–Wiipedia
Lantana – 20 Years On… | Screen Australia
ART | FILM. 1998. Head On directed by Ana Kokkinos, “who wrote the screenplay with Andrew Bovell and Mira Robertson. The film is based on the 1995 novel Loaded by Christos Tsiolkas. The film stars Alex Dimitriades, Paul Capsis, Julian Garner and Tony Nikolakopoulos. The film tells the story of Ari.”–Wikipedia
ART | FILM. 2010. Animal Kingdom, written and directed by David Michôd, stars Ben Mendelsohn, Joel Edgerton, Guy Pearce, James Frecheville, Luke Ford, Jacki Weaver and Sullivan Stapleton. “Welcome to the Melbourne underworld, where tensions are building between dangerous criminals and equally dangerous police. The Wild West played out on the city’s streets.”
ART | FILM. 2009. Samson and Delilah directed by Warwick Thornton, starring Rowan McNamara and Marissa Gibson, both young first-time actors. The film depicts two Indigenous Australian 14-year-olds living in a remote Aboriginal community who steal a car and escape their difficult lives by going to Alice Springs. Camera d’Or at Cannes for best first feature.”–Wikipedia
“Warwick Thornton is an Australian film director, screenwriter and cinemato-grapher. His debut feature film Samson and Delilah won the Caméra d’Or at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival, and the award for Best Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards. He also won the Asia Pacific Screen Award for Best Film in 2017 for Sweet Country.”–Wikipedia
Camera d’Or winner Warwick Thornton on Samson & Delilah | Prime Video
ART | FILM. 2009. Blessed directed by Ana Kokkinos, “starring Miranda Otto and Frances O’Connor. It is a film adaptation of the play Who’s Afraid Of The Working Class? The film was written by Andrew Bovell, Patricia Cornelius, Melissa Reeves and Christos Tsiolkas, as was the play. The film is 113 minutes in length and was filmed in Melbourne.”–Wikipedia
“Ana Kokkinos (born in Melbourne) is an Australian film and television director and screenwriter of Greek descent. She is known for her breakthrough feature film Head On (1998), and has directed television shows such as The Secret Life of Us, The Time of Our Lives and Ten Pound Poms. The Guardian wrote: “Kokkinos’s cinematic oeuvre is among the most hard-hitting bodies of work in Australian cinema.”–Wikipedia
ENCORE. Blessed directed by Ana Kokkinos. “During the course of 24 hours, seven children wander the streets in an urban odyssey. Dawn breaks, and it’s the same day but now we experience the viewpoint of the five mothers. Blessed is a film about mothers and children, about love and beauty, about being lost and finding your way home.”
Ana Kokkinos interview by Aaron Darc | FameWithoutPurpose.
“We had all these amazing characters but nothing was binding them together. At some point I went back to the writers and we took a bit of a step back, and I thought about it more deeply, and thought: what was the emotional connection I had to that original play? What was the thing that drew me in? And the thing that got me was the Rhonda or the Stacey story. The idea that this mother talks about her children as blessings. The idea that every child is a mother’s blessing. And so once we’ve thought about that more deeply, it was like, that became the overriding theme. We’ve thought, my god, we’re actually telling a story about mothers and children. And so we’ve reconstructed the whole play around that central idea: the core idea that no matter what shit’s going down, the primal, powerful connection between mothers and children is kinda undeniable, sort of unbreakable.”–Ana Kokkinos [Transcription G Villarete]
The Case Against Children | Harper’s Magazine | Elizabeth Barber (March 2024)
“One way to tell the story of antinatalism is to say that it begins with the beginning of the world, or with the beginning as it is described by most major belief systems– with the creation of a universal that contains misery, and whose inhabitants eagerly await their chance to be released from it, to rest in the arms of the divine, to transcend the cycle of life, death, and rebirth. Pratima Naik, one of the founders of Childfree India, a support group of sorts for antinatalists in the country, told me that she was drawn to antinatalism in part by the Hindu and Buddhist satsangs she heard as a child, which suggested that “the main purpose of life is not to be happy” and “to come out of the cycle of birth and death.” (Schopenhauer was notably moved by both faiths, which he found told the story of existence not unlike he did.)
““I do not think that one should have children; I observe in the acquisition of children many risks and many griefs, whereas a harvest is rare, and even when it exists, it is thin and poor,” the Greek philosopher Democritus is supposed to have said. He thought people should adopt, as “one can take one child out of many who is according to one’s liking.” In The Childfree Christ, published in 2021, the Belgian antinatalist Théophile de Giraud argues that the Bible is an antinatalist text, a view emphatically held by Kierkegaard, who found it obvious that the Bible instructs the Christlike not to have kids. Jesus gave his followers lots of examples of how to be good in the world, but one thing he did not do was start a nuclear family. Instead, he collected a spiritual family, like that replicated in nunneries and monasteries.
“Some Christian sects—most famously, the Cathars, who were sentenced to death by Pope Innocent III in the thirteenth century—later found cause to conclude that the Christly thing to do was not to procreate. “Better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun,” writes the author of Ecclesiastes. “May the day of my birth perish, and the night that said, ‘A boy is conceived,’ ” says the miserable Job. Likewise, the Talmud has it that “it would have been preferable had man not been created than to have been created.””:–Harper’s
The Case for Not Being Born | The New Yorker | Joahua Rothman (November 2017)
“The knee-jerk response to observations like these is, “If life is so bad, why don’t you just kill yourself?” Benatar devotes a forty-three-page chapter to proving that death only exacerbates our problems. “Life is bad, but so is death,” he concludes. “Of course, life is not bad in every way. Neither is death bad in every way. However, both life and death are, in crucial respects, awful. Together, they constitute an existential vise—the wretched grip that enforces our predicament.” It’s better, he argues, not to enter into the predicament in the first place. People sometimes ask themselves whether life is worth living. Benatar thinks that it’s better to ask sub-questions: Is life worth continuing? (Yes, because death is bad.) Is life worth starting? (No.)”:–The New Yorker
COMMUNITY. FILM. 72nd Melbourne International Film Festival, Thursday 8 August to Sunday 25 August 2024. “MIFF is a not-for-profit organisation that has been continuously running since 1952, making it the leading film festival in Australia and one of the world’s oldest film festivals, alongside Cannes and Berlin. Presenting a curated global program of innovative screen experiences and the world’s largest showcase of exceptional Australian filmmaking, MIFF is an accessible, iconic cultural event that provides transformative experiences for audiences and filmmakers alike.”–MIFF
Our Australian Stories | Screen Australia
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COMMUNITY. DOCUMENTARY FILM. Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, 1–31 July 2024, online and in cinemas.
“The Melbourne Doc Fest is one of the world newest documentary film festivals and one of the most fun and interesting stopovers on the international documentary film festival circuit. Our mission is to discover and promote independent Australian documentaries, and to showcase the best international documentaries to Melbourne audiences. The Melbourne Documentary Film Festival provides a public forum and supportive platform to allow emerging filmmakers to showcase their work.”–MDFF
DOCUMENTARY FILM. 2024. Planet Wind: The Global Story Of Offshore Wind by Andy Evans. “Join Andy Evans, Australian renewable energy pioneer, as he follows the story of Offshore Wind across the globe, exploring our relationship to this immense planetary force. Filmed in thirteen countries and featuring over twenty offshore wind experts, Planet Wind delves into humanity’s relationship with the wind throughout history and cultures. This global journey reveals the real story behind the development of offshore wind as an energy source, how this ever-present planetary force is being harnessed, and its transformative potential for our future. Beyond just power, it offers the world’s nations a path to energy independence, revitalises regions hit hard by industrial decline, and presents a crucial solution to reduce harmful emissions.” Cinema Nova, Friday 26 July and Saturday 27 July 2024
POST-SCRIPTUM:
MUSIC. Meshell Ndegeocello | Tiny Desk Concert June 2024 | NPR. “Experiencing all of the Tiny Desks this Black Music Month has made many of my dreams come true, and Meshell Ndegeocello’s performance was no exception. For 30 years the Grammy-winning artist’s music has cast an unflinching gaze on love, race, sexuality and religion. Her new album out in August, No More Water: The Gospel of James Baldwin, zooms out to focus on the love of humanity as inspired by the writer and civil rights activist.”–Nikki Birch (18 June 2024)
MUSIC. Clear Water by Meshell Ndegeocello. “Don’t be fooled by the myth of control / be at peace / within the chaos / and constant rebirth of the creative mind / to be in the now of creation / to push past one’s knowledge and understanding / into the chaos / push past the predictability / and comfort / into the unknown / find peace / in the now of creation / find solace there / get comfortable / stay awhile”
Find peace in the now of creation. Click Now or Never know.
Gerome Villarete, Secretary
Art Saves Lives
IDEAS. LANGUAGE. MORALS. Everything changes, nothing remains the same. The Ever-Changing Nature of Now | John Astin. From the series The Nature of Now | John Astin | Waking Up
ART. LANGUAGE. MORALS. Ambition by David Whyte | Waking Up. From
Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment And Underlying Meaning Of Everyday Words. “Poet and author David Whyte explores and unpacks the rich meaning and complexity of everyday words. Each piece is a provocative meditation on meaning, context, and paradox—and serves as an invitation to broaden our perspective.”