Anna Helme

Ghoulbert Taking His Lessons - photo by Mariana Jocic

I finished writing and directing my first film of the year last week. Just got the rushes back, they look great! After working for 15 years with (mostly SD) video, shooting on film (16mm) is a revelation. The Kodak 500T we used looks grainy but gorgeous. I took the opportunity to be a bit more creative directing the camera than I have previously, using more moving shots, creating a very constructed, yet hopefully dynamic, comic feel.

Big thanks to all the cast and crew, who were a joy. A special shout-out goes to Kathy and Matt, who were involved for many weeks prior to the shoot, and had so much great input on so many levels. Big thanks to Paul, for his character whom the film was based upon (which morphed somewhat through the screenwriting process) and to Marian for her original inspiration and ongoing support.

But I’ll save the full credits for the end of the film, when I’ve finished editing it For now, here’s some production stills from the shoot, taken by the lovely and talented photographer and filmmaker Mariana Jocic.

Stephen (Zac Gower) and Elliott (Kevin Newman)

Stephen (Zac Gower) & Goat - Photo by Mariana Jocic

Slasher Kitty - Photo by Mariana Jocic

Director Checks Frame on Bag Cam - Photo by Mariana Jocic

Ghoulbert's Goat - photo by Mariana Jocic

Shadows of Menace - Photo by Mariana Jocic

Featured Clips on Critical Commons

I recently finished another iteration of development on the Critical Commons website, with Andy Nicholson of Infinite Recursion. Critical Commons is an online resource for film educators that pushes the boundaries of fair use (copyright) legislation by making clips from films available with academic commentaries, in both text and audio format. The site, devised by the USC School of Cinematic Arts Institute for Multimedia Literacy, enables lecturers to organise collections of clips and commentaries as lectures for classroom delivery (such as this one on Deleuze and cinema). The website is built on the Plumi software, originally created by EngageMedia, a free open source software project to create a video sharing web application based on the Plone content management system. (more…)

The session Kelli Jean and I have been curating for the Bangalore Queer Film Festival 2010 is finally finished! The festival in on this weekend, wish I could be there in India to see it… maybe next year! Here is a blurb and list of the great films which made it into the program. Hopefully we’ll be able to announce screenings for Melbourne and Sydney soon.

This program is a survey of recent radical gender/queer and trans video from Australia, curated by Anna Helme and Kelli Jean Drinkwater. “Galactic Sex Wars” rockets us into a futuristic sci-fi world where homos and heteros face off across time and space. “Jorey Corson”, “Ultimate! Dance! Video!” and “Drag Acts” address the performativity of gender, featuring queer and transgender bodies in motion, in masks and moustaches, camping it up in the streets of Berlin, tumbling across an empty sports field at night, inhabiting both the intimate and theatrical. “M.C. G.F.C.” addresses the global fashion crisis, evoking Ru Paul’s “we’re born naked, and the rest is drag”. “With Him of All People” takes a relationship drama into parallel universes of alternate gender. “Procession” is a slice of reality, albeit from a bent perspective, from the Camp Betty weekend of radical sex and politics in 2007, featuring a performative “protest”, aiming to dislocate commonplace demonstration cliches, and generally disrupt the suburbs of Melbourne.

• Galactic Sex Wars (13:54) – Robbie McEwan
• Jorey Corson (4:10) – Corey coda & Jackson monsternighttimepower
• M.C. G.F.C. (4:21) – Anna Helme
• Procession (6:51)- Anna Helme
• Ultimate! Dance! Video! (3:31)- Sarakaka and Holly Fluxx
• With Him of All People (6:24)- Kt spit and Cyd Nova
• Flipbook (0:10)- Robbie McEwan & Anna Helme
• Drag Acts (13:32)- Frances Barrett, Kate Blackmore & Anastasia Zaravinos

"Galactic Sex Wars" - Robbie McEwan

"Jorey Corson" - Corey & Jackson

"Procession" - Anna Helme

"With Him of All People" - Kt Spit & Cyd Nova

"Ultimate! Dance! Video!" - Sara Kaka Harro & Holly Fluxx

"Drag Acts" - Frances Barrett, Kate Blackmore & Anastasia Zaravinos

"M.C. G.F.C." - Anna Helme

"Flipbook" - Robbie McEwan & Anna Helme