Out Takes

This week on Out Takes, we celebrated the release of CINDERELLA on Amazon Prime. From director Kay Cannon, CINDERELLA is a new juke box musical starring Camila Cabello, Idina Menzel and Billy Porter. It’s also the latest film in a rich pantheon of CINDERELLA adaptations and rags to riches stories.

We took this opportunity to look back at the rich tradition of CINDERELLA story telling, including the new film MISS from director Ruben Alves. MISS stars Alexandre Wetter and tells the story of a young man who pursues his dream of competing in the Miss France Beauty Pageant.

This week on Out Takes, we spoke with two Australian content creators, Julie Kalceff & Oliver Ross.

Both Julie and Oliver have recently had stories featured in Screen Australia’s Authentic Storytelling series, spotlighting the importance of not only telling authentic trans stories, but also supporting trans and gender diverse creatives to create their own.

First up, we hear from Oliver Ross who has worked on over 100 creative projects across film, theatre and advocacy as a production, costume & lighting designer, writer, festival screener and producer. Oliver’s article captured the pressures of visibility, and his hopes to open up discussions around the experiences of trans and gender diverse creatives.

We are then joined by writer, director and producer Julie Kalceff who is busily working in post on Season 2 of television series First Day. Julie’s an award-winning Australian writer, director, and producer – well known for online lesbian drama series Starting From Now which has amassed more than 170 million views in 230 countries. Julie joins us to discuss the origins of First Day and the learnings from this ground-breaking television series.

Read their articles here:

FIRST DAY: A CASE STUDY by Julie Kalceff

Writer, director and producer Julie Kalceff on authentic casting, working with communities and learnings from First Day.

https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/screen-news/2021/05-12-authentic-storytelling-first-day

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR TRANS CREATIVES by Oliver Ross

From casting to the pressures of visibility, Oliver Ross hopes to open up discussions around the experiences of trans and gender diverse creatives.

https://www.screenaustralia.gov.au/sa/screen-news/2021/08-03-authentic-storytelling-oliver-ross

Read more: 

In Screen Australia’s Authentic Storytelling series, members of the Australian screen sector share their thoughts on why authenticity is important, challenges they have faced, and how the industry can do better. Subscribe to Screen Australia’s newsletter for additions to the series.

In this episode of Out Takes, we looked back at the Melbourne International Film Festival. The Festival had initially planned to take viewers back into cinemas, but last minute lockdown measures across Victoria forced the Festival back online for a second year. The Festival streamed on MIFF Play, the Festival’s online streaming platform, from 5 to 22 August 2021, offering movie lovers across the country some welcome escapism and entertainment. In this episode, we reviewed some of our favorite films and queer highlights from the offerings on MIFF Play. We also spoke with Mia Falstein-Rush, MIFF Shorts Programmer, about about this years incredibly diverse selection of shorts on offer and the 2021 MIFF short film Award winners.

This week we spoke with two Australian content creators who are taking the traditional model of making films and turning it on its head, making it more inclusive and accessible to get more diverse films made and on our screens.

First up, we hear from one of our favourite guests on Out Takes, the one and only Kylie Eddy. She’s a writer, director, producer and filmmaker and she can now add published author to her long list of achievements with her new book ‘The Art of Lean Filmmaking –  An unconventional guide to creating independent feature films’ which she has co-written with her collaborator and brother David. The book is out now and available to purchase as an e-book and in paperback; for full details visit leanfilmmaking.com and on Instagram.

Then when we heard from Sophie Mathison, the Executive director and founder of For Films Sake, Australia’s flagship film organisation providing opportunity for marginalised filmmakers in production, distribution and cultural exhibition. We hear all about this fantastic initiative and also about Attagirl, a first-of-its-kind film lab supporting Australian and international female and non-binary filmmaking teams getting their feature films made.

 

We continued our coverage of the Melbourne International Film Festival on Out Takes this week by speaking with the Festival’s Artistic Director, Al Cossar. Catch up on the program and hear about some of the many great LGBTIQ films screening at this year’s Festival and find out how how you can access the festival from your own home with MIFF Play.

This week on Out Takes, we dive in and take a look at one of our favourite film festivals and some of the many LGBTIQA+ films they have on offer for 2021. Melbourne International Film Festival has been continuously running since 1952 (happy 69 years MIFF!), making it the leading film festival in Australia and one of the world’s oldest film festivals. This year, MIFF returns from August 5 – 22 to cinemas & online featuring a showcase of 199 feature films, 84 shorts, 10 XR experiences, talks porgram and MIFF Play. Streaming Australia-wide, MIFF Play offers a selection of 60 titles to chose from, available to view right from your couch.

We were joined for this program by Australian writer and director Cloudy Rhodes to discuss their fantatsic short film ‘Beautiful They’ which is screening at MIFF 2021 in the Accelerator Shorts 2 package.  We also heard from Aussie director Christopher Amos about his insightful and engaging documentary ‘Hating Peter Tactchell’ which takes an indepth look at the Melbourne-born activist who has literally challenged and changed the world through his campaigning for gay liberation, the environment and against war. All that plus we pick out a few of the films and events on at MIFF 2021 that we can’t wait to check out in cinema and online.

We maybe in lockdown but we’ve still managed to find some great new documentaries for you to stream from the comfort and safety of your home. We took a look at ‘Steelers’, an incredibly personal, heartwarming and engaging film that takes us into the world of gay rugby, plus have an exclusive chat with its director Eammon Ashton-Atkinson. We also checked out some of the fantastic queer titles on offer at the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival and spoke with Seattle based director Aaron Bear about his fascinating and thought provoking film ‘Yes I Am – The Ric Weiland Story’.

This week on Out Takes, we recognised the tenth anniversary of WE WERE HERE. From director David Weissman, WE WERE HERE recalls the early years of the HIV/AIDS crisis in San Francisco. WE WERE HERE is a powerful testament to our collective history and an affirmation of our shared humanity. We spoke in depth with David Weissman about the power of WE WERE HERE and why it continues to maintain its resonance some ten years after its premiere at Sundance in 2011.

‘Dating Amber’ is the second feature film from the very talented London-based Irish writer / director David Freyne.

With the film now hitting cinema screens in Australia and available to watch online around the world, we were delighted to speak with David about this fantastic film and hear how this semi-autobiographical tale went from the page to the screen, how he pulled together such an incredible cast to tell it and why we still need these LGBTIQ stories more than ever in 2021.

Set in Kildare, Ireland during the mid-90s, ‘Dating Amber’ is a heartwarming and hilarious coming out and coming of age story which follows Eddie and Amber as they decide to stage a relationship to stop everyone speculating about their sexuality. The closeted teenagers reluctantly agree to be each other’s beards. Eddie is keen to follow his Dad into the military, while Amber dreams of moving to the liberal hub of London. Their parallel journeys dispense with a one-size-fits-all coming-out narrative and remind us all that becoming who you are meant to be is never easy but ultimately it is the most important thing you can do in life. Oh, and having great friends to help you get there is fundamental.

This week on Out Takes, we turned our attention to the small screen and the rapidly changing world of short form storytelling. In particular, we looked at some of the best new homegrown LGBTQ webseries and how they’re redefining the landscape of short form story telling.

Our guests were Logan Mucha, the co-creator of Scattered, and Kelsie Adelaide, the star of Flunk. Both Flunk and Scattered are great new queer and homegrown webseries.

We also revisited Sydney based webseries Ding Dong I’m Gay, which found itself in the center of a censorship scandal last month when it was taken off YouTube with no warning. The series is now back online so we took a closer look at the series and why accessible queer short form story telling is so important.