Sunday Arts Magazine

Stephen talks to David all about Films

Over 50 queer films will be screened this month as part of Melbourne Queer Film

Festival’s MQFF Interrupted – streaming from 19 – 30 November 2020.

MQFF Interrupted will be the festival’s largest ever online offering, with 17 features and

40 shorts being made available to Australian viewers wanting to see some of the best

LGBTIQ content from Australian and international filmmakers.

Tickets go on general sale on Friday 6 November 2020.

For viewers in Melbourne, MQFF Interrupted will also be holding a special event

screening at the Village Drive-In in Coburg of romantic comedy Happiest Season, starring

festival favourite Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis. The Melbourne premier of the

film will mark the first in-person event since the 30th festival was cut short in March due

to coronavirus.

MQFF CEO Maxwell Gratton said MQFF Interrupted will be an opportunity for a larger

range of audiences to experience content that shares the stories of lesbian, gay, bisexual,

transgender, intersex and queer communities.

“Our online offering not only allows our audiences in Melbourne to experience some of

the best queer content, it has also made us accessible to audiences who usually were not

able to join us in cinema, such as those located in regional and rural areas of Victoria, or

those outside of the state,” said Maxwell.

MQFF is also closed captioning many features and shorts for the festival – truly making

the festival accessible to all.

Program Director Spiro Economopoulos said the program for MQFF Interrupted will

make available some new content, and content that either was not able to screened or

only had a limited run at #MQFF30 in March.

“While our program in March was interrupted due to coronavirus, this is an opportunity

to explore a range of stories that capture the diversity of queer culture right from the

comfort of your own living room.”

Viewers will be able to treat themselves to a range of film features including: Georgian

romantic drama And Then We Danced; Australian coming out comedy Ellie & Abbie

(And her dead aunt); romantic drama Lingua Franca, the first to be written and

directed by a trans woman of colour; Bit, the queer community’s answer to The Lost

Boys; and the mysterious seductive love story End of the Century.

MQFF’s popular shorts packages will also be screened during MQFF Interrupted,

including Documentary Shorts; the raunchy Hooking Up and Laws of Desire shorts;

Transformations which explores stories of our trans and gender non-binary

communities; Animation Shorts and Asia-Pacific Shorts.

The full program is available on mqff.com.au

The 3rd biennial Art & Industry Festival which is taking place taking place from 20 – 29 November with this year’s new look online program delivered via a spectacular suite of live streamed events. The Art & Industry Festival celebrates and  interrogates the intersection between work and art, craftsmanship and creativity in Melbourne’s industrial and manufacturing heartland, the historically rich and rapidly evolving Western suburbs.

Festival director is Donna Jackson.

As Donna says: The Art & Industry Festival is about celebrating the old industrial places and uncovering the stories past and present sewn into the fabric of these places – and equally about the present as artists, fashion designers and film makers take inspiration from these stories to create new works.

Opening the Festival is Industrial Fashion, a showcase spectacular of costumes set to dance and music and created especially for the Festival. Taking inspiration from local industries including Mobil and the Williamstown dockyards, 12 designers have pushed boundaries using unconventional materials such as paper, car parts and even x-rays to create wearable designs that connect art and industry

At the heart of the 2020 program is The Song Series Concert, featuring a captivating collection of new original songs inspired by local industries and the rich history of the Western region, performed by some of our finest singer songwriters including Mark Seymour (Hunters and Collectors) Rusty Berther (ex-Scared Weird Little Guys), Jane Bayly (Crying In Public Places), country and western star Sherry Rich and Peter Farnan (Boom Crash Opera). The suite of new songs, written in collaboration with four gifted musicians from Victoria University were created through a series of workshops which began with visits to iconic locations including OI Glass bottle factory (where most of Australia’s stubby bottles are created), Blunts Boats Yard (where since 1858 five generations of boat builders have been building and restoring wooden boats) and the giant bluestone Dockyard in Williamstown, as well as time spent with local historians to learn about the stories and rich history of Melbourne’s industrial and manufacturing heartland.

Wooing People In Isolation – A tale of love, loss, and

friendship.

Wooing People in Isolation is an online solo show that

follows Silvio Di Baci, an Italian Stallion from the Northern

Suburbs of Melbourne who is unlucky in love.

The plot follows Silvio’s quest in finding love from the

comfort of his (and your) home. Will he humiliate himself,

finally find his true love or reconcile with his best friend

Matteo? All we know is that the answer will be revealed live!

The show is a true ode to Italian Stallions, Greasers, and

Best Friends.

Silvio Di Baci has been a crowd favourite at Club Voltaire, Pride of Our Footscray and

Kong’s Kings.

Inspired by his background and the theatrical style of Commedia Dell’Arte Silvio started

performing in 2017. His first show ‘Silvio & Matteo’ premiered at MUST’s Cabaret Festival

and led to Silvio joining the cabaret circuit around Melbourne.

During COVID19 Silvio has produced his own radio show Wooing People in Isolation and

gained international attention performing virtually in Orlando, Seattle and Toronto.

The show Wooing People In Isolation incorporates dancing, comedy, melodramatic soapy

plots and positive vibes!

Rohan talks to David about films and he has a few surprises in this episode.

The mixed

race, gender-fluid and multi-talented Candy Bowers is launching

a new exciting podcast, Multi-Hypho with support from Arts

Centre Melbourne, Creative Victoria and bobb Creative.

The actor, comedian, writer and director has created this podcast

to embrace multiplicity both on the mic and behind the scenes,

celebrating diverse multi-hyphenates from across the creative

industries.

The idea came to Bowers last year when she was in Los Angeles

for a comedy screenwriting mentorship with Peter Saji, Black-ish

writer and co-creator of Mixed-ish. During her LA stint, she

participated in a podcast workshop.

“It dawned on me that there weren’t so many creative media

offerings regarding being mixed- raced and queer and gender-

fluid,” said Bowers. So when the pandemic derailed her Hollywood plans, Bowers turned back to her podcast idea,

feeling that “connection and community had become more important than ever.”

 

IN ALL HONESTY is a non-fiction theatrical podcast that allows people from different walks of life to share experiences which society doesn’t always find easy to discuss. Brought to life by brand new creative collective THE TWELVE, these are stories that are not heard every day. This podcast breaks down stigmas, allowing its story tellers to have a frank and honest voice about social barriers, relationships, and mental and physical health. It answers questions we are too afraid to ask and ‘in all honesty’, it’s time we changed that.

This podcast will bring the darkest parts of ourselves into the light, in order to inspire, entertain, and foster human connection. Each season will focus on real stories with real people sharing their circumstances candidly on their own terms. Original musical composition supports each of these stories, in a podcast so unique and intimate the listener feels as though they are being confided in by a close friend.

Launching today and coinciding with International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Awareness Month, season one, MEG, boldly confronts the sensitive circumstances surrounding still birth. The first two episodes are available now with subsequent episodes released biweekly. Told by Australian stage and TV actor Bert LaBonté, it tells a true and heartbreaking story of still birth, the impact on him, his relationship, and his family. Bert generously shares the story of how he lost his daughter Meg and how a little unexpected magic appeared in the darkest of times.

‘Bringing this conversation into the light is both important and necessary. For me personally it was a truly cathartic experience. I never thought this far past the event, I’d ever get, or want, a chance to relive and re-tell these moments in such detail. It’s been a surprisingly wonderful thing to do,’ said Bert.

Sharing this story inspired the musical composition by Gillian Cosgriff, which features throughout the season and creates an accessible platform for the listener. The storyteller and composer come together, to elevate and uplift this sensitive subject.

‘This has been an incredibly rewarding project that’s allowed me to work in an entirely new way. Bert would send me his recordings, and I’ve used his speaking rhythms and pitches to create all of the music in the series,’ said Gillian.

She continued, ‘Each season of IN ALL HONESTY you’ll hear about something taboo, from the person who’s lived it. There’s no interviewer, no questions, no prompts. We send our subject away with a recording device to tell their story on their own terms. Then a composer uses those recordings as the starting point to create the music.’

The series introduces a new way of storytelling where the listener is wrapped in a personal journey appreciating that out of heartbreak, we can find hope, through vulnerability, we unveil bravery. Further seasons of IN ALL HONESTY are currently in development by THE TWELVE and will look to delve deep into topics such as racial discrimination, depression,  raising children with mental illness, disability, sexuality/identity, terminal illness, physical body issues, sexual assault, addiction, behavioural disorders, female reproductive issues, parents living with dementia, abusive relationships and living with an invisible illness.

THE TWELVE is a group of creatives from all facets of theatre production which have come together during this strange and unsettling time in 2020 helping to produce a taskforce for the arts and new Australian work. Brought together by Liza McLean, one of Australia’s leading theatrical producers, THE TWELVE is twelve artists, twelve open minds, twelve theatrical leaders all experiencing an unprecedented and vulnerable moment differently. Some friends, some colleagues and some strangers. This newfound virtual troupe met via video conference weekly to explore thoughts, ideas, feelings and workshop new projects for an uncertain future.

Exploring some of the most globally relevant and pressing issues of our time, including isolation, representation and speculation on the future, the NGV Triennial will present a large-scale exhibition of international contemporary art, design and architecture. Featuring 86 projects by more than 100 artists, designers and collectives from more than 30 countries, the NGV Triennial will open at NGV International on 19 December 2020. The exhibition offers a visually arresting and thought-provoking view of the world at this unique moment.

 

Featuring works by Aïda Muluneh (Ethiopia) Alicja Kwade (Germany), Cerith Wyn Evans (Wales), Dhambit Mununggurr (Australia), Faye Toogood (England), Fred Wilson (USA), Hannah Brontë (Australia), Jeff Koons (USA), JR (France), Kengo Kuma (Japan), Liam Young (Australia), Misaki Kawai (Japan), Patricia Urquiola (Spain), Porky Hefer (South Africa) and Refik Anadol (Turkey), the NGV Triennial includesmore than 30 major new world-premiere works especially commissioned by the NGV for this exhibition.

Highlights include: an entire floor dedicated to works concerning light and illumination presented in dialogue with the NGV’s historical collection; a monumental video work by Refik Anadol spanning 10 metres high and wide, which uses artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and quantum computing to visualise our digitised memories of nature; and a larger-than-life mirror-polished sculpture of Venus, Roman goddess of love, by American artist Jeff Koons.

 

Further highlights include a comprehensive display of works by Yolngu woman Dhambit Mununggurr, the first Yolngu artist to depict country in her signature shades of acrylic blue paint. Comprising 15 large-scale bark paintings and nine larrakitj (hollow poles), some of which stand more than three metres high, the works have all been painted with the artist’s non-preferred left hand after an accident left her with limited mobility.

 

Kengo Kuma, one of the most respected figures in Japanese architecture, will collaborate with Melbourne artistGeoffrey Nees to create an architectural pavilion that acts as a sensorial walkway through which to approach and contemplate a newly acquired painting by South Korean artist Lee Ufan. The work will be constructed from timber harvested from trees that died during the Millennium Drought at Melbourne’s Royal Botanic Gardens, some of which pre-date European colonisation.

 

Exploring the themes of daylight, candlelight and moonlight inspired by and within the context of the NGV’s seventeenth and eighteenth century Flemish, Dutch and British collections, interior designer Faye Toogood will curate several gallery spaces creating a considered salon-style interior featuring newly commissioned furniture, lighting, scenography, sculpture and large-scale tapestries.

 

Also making its world premiere will be a work by renowned French artist JR, which brings global attention to the ecological decline of the Darling River. The work will comprise a chapel-like structure erected in the NGV Grollo Equiset Garden that features a set of large stained-glass window portraits of people he visited in the Sunraysia agricultural region of Victoria and New South Wales on a recent visit to Australia.

 

The exhibition is underpinned by four themes – Illumination, Reflection, Conservation, and Speculation – that invite audiences to embark on a journey of exploration and to discover the intersecting ideas through the works on display. The four thematic pillars have emerged from the collective work presented in the NGV Triennial, illuminating the pressing concerns that preoccupy the artists, designers and architects of our time. Drawing on intimacy and awe, sadness and beauty, ruination and inspiration, these themes present a microcosm of the current world.

The Drum Theatre will stream a production and virtual Q&A session, providing the

community with access to the critically-acclaimed theatre production, A Migrant’s

Son, from the comfort of their own home.

The production is a moving true-life musical tribute to the heart, hilarity and sheer

hard work of one man’s experience migrating from Greece to Australia.

Scheduled to be a part of our 2020 theatre season, the production conveys an

incredible true story through original music written and performed by Michaela

Burger, igniting memories of a story that is familiar to millions of Australians.

The show touches deeply on the topics of racism, intolerance, judgement and the

struggles presented by migration and pays tribute to her Greek migrant family and

hard-working, fun loving larrikin father who defied the odds.

For one night only on 14 November 2020 at 8pm, this show will be streamed directly

to attendees.