On the morning after the Melbourne International Film Festival ended, Alice can’t control her excitement, as our attention will once again be focused completely on her. We find her attitude very shallow, while in her turn, she thinks we’re philistines for viewing all the MIFF 69 films on my iPad. But needs must - we couldn’t figure out how to stream them via our projector or even through our TV. After a few futile attempts came to nothing, rather than fight a war with technology we knew we couldn’t win, we decided to work with what we had.
Shane and I enjoyed our annual MIFF experience immensely, small screen notwithstanding. We saw 32 films by the festival’s end. There were many standouts, high among them, Hopper/Welles, 2020, Orson Welles (see above), a cineaste’s dream come true and a wonderful potential companion piece to Welles’s The Other Side of the Wind, 2018, which we were fortunate to see at a private screening a couple of years ago.
Meanwhile, in my temporary studio in our adjoining dining room, progress gradually continues on the two paintings I’ve been developing between MIFF screenings. (See above). The vintage needlework on the left is by my late Aunt Eileen and will form the basis for the bottom panels in the diptychs.
Here are our 32 films:
Bodies in Motion - Movement on Screen: As One, Bonanza!, Multiply, Poleng, The Prelude - Michelle (Short Films, Dance)
Hopper/Welles (2020, Orson Welles)
Sisters With Transistors (2020, Lisa Rovner)
The Most Beautiful Boy in the World (2021, Kristina Lindstrom, Kristian Petri)
Set! (2021, Scott Gawlick)
The Village Detective: A Song Cycle (2021, Bill Morrison)
Come Back Anytime (2021, John Daschbach)
Girls I Museum (2020, Shelly Silver)
Topside (2020, Celine Held, Logan George)
Bandaranaike Band (2021, Manijey Hekmat)
Wojnarowicz (2020, Chris McKim)
The Gig is Up (2021, Shannon Walsh)
The Hill Where Lionesses Roar (2021, Luana Bajrami)
Sabaya (2021, Hogir Hirori)
Nudo Mixteco (2021, Angeles Cruz)
Riders of Justice (2020, Anders Thomas Jensen)
Chess of the Wind (1976, Mohammad Reza Aslani)
The Night (2019, Kourosh Ahari)
Palazzo di Cozzo (2021, Madeleine Martiniello)
Wife of a Spy (2020, Kiyoshi Kurosawa)
Gaza Mon Amour (2020, Arab Nasser, Tarzan Nasser)
Coda (2020, Sian Heder)
Queen of Glory (2021, Nanah Mensah)
Celts (2021, Milica Tomovic)
My Name is Pauli Murray (2021, Betsy West, Julie Cohen).
What We See When We Look at the the Sky (2021, Alexandre Koberidze)
Wasteland (2020, Ahmad Bahrami)
Dear Comrades (2021, Andrei Konchalovsky, Alisher Usmanov)
Woodlands Dark and Days Bewitched: a History of Folk Horror (2021, Kier-La Janisse)
Night of the Kings (2021, Philippe Lacôte)
Karen Dalton: In My Own Time (2020, Richard Peete, Robert Yapkowitz)
James and Isey (2021, Florian Habicht)