INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY 2026

On International Women’s Day 2026, here’s to the notorious Femmes Fatales of Film Noir, who never did care for the rules and weren’t afraid to break them. 

Pictured: Deborah Klein, Lady of the Camellias, 2026, acrylic on linen, from the Flowers of the Femmes Fatales series. 

THE BIG KITTY - Australian Premiere

 

Pictured above: A pre-screening toast to Tom, Lisa and THE BIG KITTY 

at Classic Cinema’s serendipitously named Copycat restaurant.

Photo credit: Shane Jones.

Last Thursday evening, April 7, saw the Australian Premiere of the Tom Alberts and Lisa Barmby debut feature, THE BIG KITTY. What a memorable night it was. I sincerely hope that all those who were keen to attend heeded the warning of fortune teller, Madame F (my role in the film - see Blog Post Saturday, April 2 - and got in early to purchase tickets, because the event was sold out.

It was a thrill to see THE BIG KITTY in a real cinema with a live, hugely enthusiastic audience, and more exciting still to experience it in the company of its makers and the vast majority of its cast and crew.

Shane Jones and our dear friend Bev Murray, who is visiting from London 

Above: Directly after the screening there was an informative and 

enlightening Q&A with Lewis Miller (actor and various technical support)

and Co-Directors Lisa Barmby and Tom Alberts.

Above: The cast and crew take a bow. Photo credit: Mick Murray.

Above L-R: Tom Alberts, Lisa Barmby and Jasmine Mahon.

Above L-R: supporting cast members Steve Cox, myself, Terry Matassoni 

and Shane Jones. Photo credit: Bev Murray.

At the lively after-screening party, which doubled as a celebration for Tom’s 60th birthday, we had the opportunity to catch up with cast members and congratulate them on their terrific performances.

Above: Paul McCluskey, who plays a shady chauffeur.

Above and following two photos: the post screening party.

Regaled by the dulcet vibes of the Jasmine Mahon Trio (of which I’m an unabashed fan) we stayed on far longer than originally planned. Jasmine, incidentally, plays nightclub singer Jane Blonde in the film, sashaying through her scenes with all the aplomb of the late, great Mae West. 

Pictured above: The Jasmine Mahon Trio

Above: Singing Happy Birthday and toasting Tom (far left). Lisa is on the far right.

If other opportunities to see the THE BIG KITTY arise - and hopefully they will - make sure you don’t miss it.

Australian Premiere of THE BIG KITTY

 

What on earth does notorious fortune teller Madame F see in her crystal ball? 🔮

She foresees the eagerly anticipated Australian premiere of THE BIG KITTY, coming to you direct from the 74th Cannes Film Festival. No wonder she’s acting more demented than ever!

THE BIG KITTY is a loving (and hilarious) pastiche of Film Noir, directed by and starring Tom Alberts and Lisa Barmby. Supporting roles are played by an assortment of shady characters plucked from the underbelly of the Melbourne Art world (including me as Madame F).

Pictured above: Tom Alberts and Lisa Barmby in 2021 at 

the 74th Cannes Film Festival 

THE BIG KITTY 🐈‍⬛ 📽🎞
A One Night Only Event
Classic Cinema

9 Gordon Street 

Elsternwick Vic
Thursday 7 April at 6.30 pm

📽The screening will be followed by a Q&A with the filmmakers and painter/thespian Lewis Miller, who plays a corrupt DA. 

🔮The all-seeing Madame F says tickets are selling fast, so make sure you don’t miss out. 

🎟 View THE BIG KITTY trailer and get your tickets HERE. 

Photos courtesy Tom Alberts and Lisa Barmby. Click on images to enlarge. 

THE BIG KITTY screens at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival

It’s been awhile since I’ve reported on Tom Alberts and Lisa Barmby’s debut indie feature, THE BIG KITTY. Along with other Melbourne artists, Shane Jones and I play supporting roles in the film. Well, here is an update worth waiting for.

THE BIG KITTY will be screened at the 74th Cannes Film Festival, as part of Seléction Cinéma des Antipodes, Cannes Cinéphiles, running from 6 - 17 July. Lisa and Tom, who are currently based in France, will be in attendance.

The screening dates and cinemas are:

Vendredi  9  jul  19.30 Le Raimu

Samedi  10 jul  18.30 Alexandre III

Dimanche  11 jul  12.00 Studio 13

Additionally, in late June, THE BIG KITTY was included in the official programme of Australia now, a cultural celebration organised by the Embassy of Australia, Paris.

Sadly, Monsieur Baptiste, THE BIG KITTY himself, recently passed away. What a wonderful tribute to him this film is, as it continues its amazing run.

For more about THE BIG KITTY, click HERE.

Pictured from top:

THE BIG KITTY at the 74th Festival de Cannes poster. (Pictured L-R: Jasmine Mahon, Paul McCluskey, Mariella DelConte, Tom Alberts, Lisa Barmby, Lewis Miller, myself, Shane Jones, Angela Cavalieri and Steven Kafkarisos)

Australia now poster

Tom Alberts as Private Detective Guy Boyman and Lisa Barmby as Princess Yukova Illinaditch 

Shane Jones as Police Commissioner Shadrack 

Deborah Klein as fortune teller, Madame F

Monsieur Baptiste as THE BIG KITTY, with Lisa Barmby as the Princess 

World Premiere of THE BIG KITTY

In the lead-up to Christmas comes some terrific news. Tom Alberts and Lisa Barmby’s indie film, THE BIG KITTY, a comedic Film Noir pastiche in which I play the sinister spiritualist, Madame F, has hit the international stage. 

THE BIG KITTY is proud to announce its World Premiere and selection for:

🎬 ANOTHER HOLE IN THE HEAD

The San Francisco Virtual Film Festival

11 - 27 December 2020

Click on the following links for dates & tickets (which are only $10):

The BIG KITTY

🎥 https://ahith2020.eventive.org/.../5fb6bc7a24b3220053b63cfd

The festival films are here:

🎞 https://www.ahith.com/featurefilms

For more about THE BIG KITTY, visit my blog post of 14 September:

📽 http://deborahklein.blogspot.com/search?q=The+big+kitty+

THE BIG KITTY

Official poster for THE BIG KITTY
Top right-hand corner, L-R: Lewis Miller, Deborah Klein and Gavin Brown
Far right: stars of THE BIG KITTY, Tom Alberts and Lisa Barmby

My Blog Post of August 25, Through the Eyes of Film, focused on several older works that were partly inspired by Film Noir.

It never occurred to me that soon afterwards I would again be raising the subject, but in an entirely different context. This post is about a noir-inspired film in which I actually appear.

THE BIG KITTY, an affectionate, tongue-in-cheek pastiche of Film Noir, was jointly conceived, written, designed and directed by Melbourne artist Tom Alberts with his wife and co-star, fellow artist, Lisa Barmby.

The film has yet to be released, and up until now, few, if any of us, have seen it. My own life partner, Shane Jones (under the stage name of Sean O’Connery) appears as an Irish cop, Shadrack, and in my cameo appearance, I play a bogus fortune teller, Madame F. 

At this stage, most of us have only the vaguest idea of the plot as a whole, except that it involves a kidnapped cat, played by Tom and Lisa's beloved feline, Monsieur Baptiste, and a colourful cast of supporting characters portrayed by shady inhabitants of the Melbourne art world. 

The film has had a long period of gestation - it was begun in 2008 - but if the following trailer and short promotional film are any indication, it will be well worth the wait. Both clips are gems in their own right, but for all their sense of fun, it's clear that Tom and Lisa are positively steeped in every facet of this singular period of film history.

THE BIG KITTY - TRAILER

https://vimeo.com/352624847

THE BIG KITTY - IT’S A WRAP! - PROMOTIONAL FILM

https://vimeo.com/351565274

For some background into the making of the film, visit Raymond Gill's article below:

DAILY REVIEW by RAYMOND GILL 

Published 31 July 2019

https://dailyreview.com.au/eleven-years-70-friends-60000-later-screwball-meet-noir-meets-art-world-feature-big-kitty-wraps/84803/

The good news is that we won't be kept in suspense for too much longer. On Sunday, September 20, direct from Paris where they're currently based, Tom and Lisa are streaming an official cast and crew screening, followed by an after-party via Zoom. Hopefully further screenings won't be too far behind.

I for one foresee an instant classic. They don't call me Madame F for nothing.

Through the eyes of film

Mirror, Mirror, 1996, linocut, 31 x 46 cm

For me, one of the highlights of every year (if not THE highlight) is the Melbourne International Film Festival. This year I’d planned to book myself into the same tiny, budget friendly, strategically located hotel that was my base for MIFF in 2019, the first year I no longer had a permanent base in Melbourne. 

Then came the news I’d been dreading, but expecting: MIFF 2020 was cancelled due to COVID-19.

Orson Welles once described film as a ribbon of dreams. Indeed, film has long threaded its dreamlike way through just about every aspect of my life, including my imagery. Perhaps that's why, despite the postponement of several major projects that were set in place for 2020 (two solo shows, a residency and the George Collie APW Award exhibition) the cancellation of MIFF 2020 was the blow that fell the heaviest.

Later, a scaled-down online version of the film festival, MIFF 68 1/2, was announced. To me it seemed like the complete antithesis of everything that makes MIFF in particular, and cinema going in general, special. Films are made to be seen in cinemas with all the attendant highs and lows that come with the territory. We own a projector paired with a BluRay player, but not the attachments necessary for streaming, so I would be reduced to watching films on my laptop. In support of MIFF, I renewed my membership but had absolutely no desire to participate in MIFF 68 1/2.

It was a recent phone conversation with Anne Virgo, Director of the Australian Print Workshop, that changed my mind. Anne had called to discuss the George Collie APW Award exhibition, which it seems will go ahead at some point, in some form or another that's yet to be determined. (More about this in my next post). In our initial conversations about the show earlier this year, Anne had insisted on scheduling it around my MIFF dates, a gesture that was kind, flexible and empathetic beyond the call of duty. When I remarked on the irony of this, and the poor substitute I perceived MIFF 68 1/2 to be, Anne flatly pointed out that this is simply how things are now and I decided it was time to get real.

Woman on a Bridge, 1996, hand coloured linocut, 46 x 30 cm

Queen of Hearts, 1996, hand coloured linocut, 60.5 x 32.5 cm

The film festival was already a few days under way when I jumped on board, but I'm so glad I did. MIFF 2020 enabled me to travel the world while remaining safe at home. It was a wild and wondrous ride, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Even the couple of films I liked the least left their mark because they took me somewhere I'd never otherwise have been. In recent MIFFs, I've seen well over fifty films. This year, partly due to my tardiness, I saw only 16 feature length films, together with numerous short subjects. To be fair, however, one of the feature films was Mark Cousins's 14 hour documentary, Women Make Film - A New Road Movie Through Cinema, which was presented in five parts. Parts 1- 4 each ran for around 3 hours, with the 5th part clocking in at a more civilised two hours. Moreover, another film, Lara, had such an emotional impact on me, I saw it twice.

Woman on the Beach, 1995, linocut, 46 x 30 cm

Throughout MIFF 68 1/2, buoyed by the remarkable and revelatory Women Make Film, I cast an occasional backwards glance at some of my works that have drawn their inspiration from women in film, more specifically Film Noir and in some instances, the Melodrama, aka The Woman's Picture.

Several of the Film Noir-related works hang in our upstairs cinema room and small downstairs office.

Film Noir inspired linocuts in the cinema room

Installation view in the office. The painting top, second from right, is by Michael Vale and the etching top right is
by Rick Amor. All remaining works - the paintings on the left and the oil pastel drawing bottom right - are by me.

Actress, director, producer and writer, Ida Lupino

One of many extraordinary women film makers highlighted in the Mark Cousins documentary is Ida Lupino. I've seen a number of her films as director, including The Hitch Hiker and The Bigamist (both 1953) but was unfamiliar with Outrage (1950) one of her films prominently featured in the documentary. The excerpts from this film, the story of a rape and its aftermath, made for powerful viewing. I've actually managed to track it down on YouTube, pending securing a copy of my own. Directly below is a still from Outrage. I include it here because of the uncanny similarities it shares with my linocut that directly follows it, Woman at the Door, a work that was made without any prior knowledge of Lupino's film.

Mala Powers in a scene from Outrage (1950). Directed by Ida Lupino.

Woman at the Door, 1996, linocut 60.6 x 32.5 cm

The feature films that made up my personal MIFF 68 1/2 are listed below:

Women Make Film: A New Road Movie Through Cinema (2019)

Directed by Mark Cousins • Albanian, Arabic, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Chechewa, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Farsi, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Mohawk, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Thai, Turkish, Ukrainian, Urdu, with English subtitles • UK 

Two of Us (2019)

Deux

Directed by Filippo Meneghetti • France, Luxembourg, Belgium 

Lara (2019)

Directed by Jan-Ole Gerster • Germany 

The Leadership (2020)

Directed by Ili Baré • Australia 

The Go-Go's (2020)

Directed by Alison Ellwood • UK, USA 

Born to Be (2019)

Directed by Tania Cypriano • USA 

La Llorona (2019)

Directed by Jayro Bustamante • Mexico, Guatemala

Sunless Shadows (2019)

Directed by Mehrdad Oskouei • Iran, Norway 

Rebuilding Paradise (2020) 

Directed by Ron Howard • USA 

The Plastic House (2019)

Directed by Allison Chhorn • Australia

Prayer for a Lost Mitten (2020)

Prière pour une Mitaine Perdue

Directed by Jean-François Lesage • Canada 

Bombay Rose (2019)

Directed by Gitanjali Rao • India, Qatar, France, UK 

Anne at 13,000 Ft (2019)

Directed by Kazik Radwanski • Canada, United States 

Just 6.5 (2019)

Metri Shisho Nim

Directed by Saeed Roustayi • Iran 

Shirley (2020)

Directed by Josephine Decker • USA

Some Kind of Heaven (2020)

Directed by Lance Oppenheim • USA 

A cinema in waiting

The cinema on the first floor of our house is as close to resolved as it will ever be, except for one crucial element. It lacks a projector.* Pictured above is the stage as viewed from the rear of the cinema. We grew tired of staring at an empty screen, so retrieved Shane's painting, Untitled #67, from storage and placed it on the stage. I never tire of looking at it.

Our friend Ross, whose generosity and technical knowledge know no bounds, is gifting us his old projector. It took nothing less than a pandemic for us to place this final stage of our cinema’s development on hold.

I took these photographs several weeks ago to send to Ross, who is based in Melbourne and never had the opportunity to visit before lockdown was introduced.

Even as things cautiously began to open up again here in Victoria, there has been a dramatic spike in new cases, so it will be awhile yet before we can welcome him here. In the meantime, I realised that copies of the photos I sent to Ross were still in a folder on my desktop, and thought I'd share them here.

The Art Deco lounge suite shown above and in other views is our pride and joy. We bought it on Gumtree last year during the long lead-up to our move. It was originally intended for the downstairs living area, but proved to be too chunky for the long, narrow room. I'll be forever grateful to the furniture delivery men who managed to get it up our fairly narrow staircase with boundless skill, patience and good humour. I can't imagine a more ideal setting for it. Alice, our Groucho Marx-lookalike cat, photobombed this shot just as I pressed the shutter.

The view from the stage is pictured above. We had a ball collecting furniture and other items especially for this room. The small Art Deco table, foreground centre, was purchased from a local Ballarat shop, Antique Effects. Sadly, the shop is in the process of closing its doors, but will continue operating online. 

The mirrored fire screen directly below was also purchased locally, at Rocket and Belle, a source of several of our treasures.

To the left of the fireplace is a trompe l’oeil painting by Shane Jones. Above the mantelpiece
are a selection of my Film Noir-inspired linocuts from the 1990s.

The entrance to my studio is to the left of the stage (see below). The framed ‘DVD covers’ on the right of the doorway are paintings by Shane, based on (from top) Picnic at Hanging Rock, Orson Welles’s F for Fake, and Phar Lap. 

To the right of the stage, directly below, are three trompe l’oeil paintings by Shane. I’ve renamed the middle work Stage Door. Also in this view are four treasured photos of the Marx Brothers, purchased many years ago in London. 

In recent weeks, we've introduced rituals of meeting here for afternoon tea and a quiet drink at the end of the day. It’s a world unto itself, a comforting a refuge in these tumultuous times.

*An update on our cinema room will feature in my next post. 

The Ghost of Artworks Past

Many moons ago, when my work was hovering uncertainly at a major crossroads, my Postgraduate Supervisor Euan Heng was both encouraging and perceptive. At this stage the new ideas were still mainly in my head; he also cautioned me that if I didn’t bring off what would be a radical change of direction, "Old work can come back to haunt you". For one who frequently suffers the torments of hell when an old work is exhumed, his warning hit home. But I knew I’d come as far as I could with the current imagery. I believed in my new ideas and change was inevitable, no matter what misgivings I might also have.

In fact what eventuated, namely the Pirate Jenny Prints suite of linocuts (1987) became a significant turning point, setting me on the path that, aside from the odd detour (and inevitable dead end) I tread with varying degrees of assurance to this day. I’m still rather proud of them.

 1 Pirate Jenny at Luna Park, 1987

 2 Pirate Jenny and Mack the Knife, 1987

3 Pirate Jenny in a Kimono, 1987

Admittedly there are other instances when I don’t feel like crawling under the covers when the Ghost of Artworks Past pays an unsolicited call. But occasionally I’m confronted with some abomination that in some cases would have been better off being humanely destroyed.  I see nothing but glaring imperfections and think how much better the work would be had I made it today.

When I became a Master of Arts candidate in 1995 (once again under Euan Heng’s judicious supervision) my drawing style changed markedly. It was undoubtedly directed by my thesis, namely women in Film Noir and the Woman’s Picture. By mid 1996 the work had become less mannered and stylized as I gradually moved away from previous influences, including German Expressionism. As a result, it is mainly (although not exclusively) the pre-Film Noir and some early works from the series that have, for me at least, ‘dated’ and which have caused me the most grief. But I think it’s also fair to say that rather than existing solely as eternal testaments to my ineptitude, a few of these works have their good points, whether it’s the ideas behind them, or even isolated areas of technical competence.

Above left: 4 The Letter, 1995
Above right: 5 Mildred Pierce on St. Kilda Pier, 1995

A selection of my old pictures, including several from that vexed pre-1996 period, now grace the walls of the house at Ballarat, thus creating some sorely needed space in our storage area in Melbourne. Some deserved to once again see the light of day far more than others, and these were hung soon after we moved in. But those I felt more ambivalent about remained stacked against a wall for nearly a year.  We finally hung them over the Christmas break. Several are in my studio. We are gradually learning to coexist and I realize that I might actually be able to learn something from them. It's starting to feel like it could be a positive place from which to begin a new year and a new body of work.

 6 Studio view, January 2012

7 Studio view 2, January 2012

Pictured above (from top):

1 Pirate Jenny at Luna Park, 1987, linocut, 61.5 x 45.5 cm

2 Pirate Jenny and Mack the Knife, 1987, linocut, 61.5 x 45.5 cm

3 Pirate Jenny in a Kimono, 1987, linocut 61.5 x 46 cm
Pirate Jenny is a character in The Threepenny Opera, by Kurt Weill (music) and Bertolt Brecht (book and lyrics). Ostensibly set in London, its spiritual home was Berlin, where it premiered in 1928. I transplanted its original location to scruffy, pre-gentrified St. Kilda in Melbourne, where I was then living and working. The Pirate Jenny Prints were published by Port Jackson Press, Melbourne and subsequently toured nationally. Euan Heng wrote the introduction to the catalogue that accompanied the tour.

4 and 5 (see below)

6 Studio view, Ballarat, January 2012
Pictures from left:

Untitled, (c 1994) oil pastel, 76 x 56 cm
Unlike most of my work, this image is not connected to a thematically linked series.  This sad but spirited wallflower was inspired by a poignant group of photographs from the 1950s, taken at a high school dance when American film legend James Dean paid a return visit to the small town where he was raised.

Mildred Pierce on St. Kilda Pier*, 1995, oil on canvas, 61 x 51 cm
The Letter, 1995, oil on canvas, 61 x 51 cm
These are linked to the Film Noir series of the mid 90s. They are two of the few surviving paintings from that period. As the series progressed, I found that the nocturnal world of film noir was best served by the linocut medium. In fact both images were subsequently developed into linocuts. They were included, along with the linocuts, in my second solo exhibition at Australian Galleries, Melbourne, in 1996. (*For more on Mildred Pierce, see Blog Post February 12, 2011.)

The Red Dress and the White Dress, 1992, oil pastel, 74.5 x 54.5 cm
This drawing takes its points of departure from two of Dorothy Parker’s poems. It was originally part of a 1992 solo exhibition, my first at Australian Galleries in Melbourne. The exhibition focused on the lives and work of writers Dorothy Parker, Zelda Fitzgerald and Virginia Woolf. The series was also exhibited at Solander Gallery in Canberra.

7 Studio View 2, January 2012
Pictures from left:

Snake Charmer, 1996, linocut, 36 x 37.5 cm
Fairgrounds and circuses often feature in Film Noir. This is one work I’ve always had a certain fondness for.

Night Drivers, 1996, oil pastel, 55 x 75 cm
The danger inherent when anyone gets behind of the wheel of a car was exploited regularly in Film Noir. When researching this work, I derived particular inspiration from the superb Nicholas Ray film In a Lonely Place (1950) and the Bette Davis camp classic Beyond the Forest (dir. King Vidor, 1949, in which she utters the celebrated line, long beloved by Davis impersonators, "What a Dump!") This drawing was transposed into a linocut, which in my opinion worked much better.  Both versions also debuted at Australian Galleries, Melbourne in 1996.