Anna Helme

NATO DUCK (35 sec, 2001) is a promo for the Northern Arts Tactical Offensive (NATO). From NATO’s website: ” NATO is a Manchester-based grassroots art collective. Our work as a collective, or through collaborative projects, aims to bring grassroots and underground art dealing with current social and environmental issues out of the confines of its more typical contexts, exposing it to a more diverse and mainstream audience.”

Free Jazz (1min 31sec, 2009) is a short film about how far you can push music beyond its boundaries, before it breaks. Emile Ouiseau is an experimental saxophonist who plays such free music that his notes literally escape him. Can he re-capture his errant quavers in time?

Revolting in Prague (26mins 23sec, 2000). Riots, pink fairies, corporate men and money. An insight into the IMF/World Bank summit which activists shut down in 2000. 50,000 people traveled to Prague to stop the money men destroying our planet. Produced and Directed by Paul O’Connor of Undercurrents Productions.

Climate On The Line (1min 53sec, 2008) is a brief clip showing brave young protestors laying themselves on the line (literally – the train line), as part of a series of peaceful direct action blocking the coal trains in Newcastle. Many groups of activists prevented the coal trains from running all day, in one of Australia’s biggest displays of direct action against the destructive export of coal which is fueling climate change.

Subvertising at the OK Cafe (4 mins 53 sec, 2002) is a short D.I.Y. video about subvertising and stencilling, which shows you how to create stencils from ordinary materials you can find at home. Produced from a workshop at the OK Cafe squat in Manchester.

Fervid Flipbook (10sec, 2008) pokes fun at the stereotypical imagery and predictable body-fascism found in a pile of old gay porn magazines of the 80s. Pornography is often somewhat lacking in humour itself, though there’s plenty of humour to be found. Produced/directed by Robbie McEwan and myself for the Tape Projects Locked Groove / Flipbook project.

CHEAP (6 mins, 1995) is an off-kilter short about consumerism and desire. Two teens on a sugar-rush and a hormone-high, ache for each other across aisles of groceries, in a strange supermarket which is a hotbed of queers and shoplifters. They wanna know what love is – is romance real, or just a fantasy of manufactured appetites?

Sex Wars: The Musical Workshop (3 min 15 sec, 2007) documentation of the workshop at Cloud City in Melbourne for Camp Betty (a weekend of radical sex and politics) . We were given an exclusive sneak preview of the musical – this is a clip of Sammy’s impromptu performance of “Nancy”.

Sister Mary Clancy Of The Overflow Does Vagina Dentata (6mins 37sec, 2007) is a performance by Gaylourdes, evoking the film-theory spectre of the Vagina Dentata, at the Camp Betty Cinema in Melbourne, 2007. This clip formed the first footage for a new collaborative film project exploring the themes of the double, the film within the film, the contamination of reality by dreams and the voyage in time.

Mostar Trek (10mins, 2001) is an experimental/documentary of the PirateTV CAN-DU tour of the former Yugoslavia in 2001, produced for the Mixmasters series (Addictive TV) screened on ITV and internationally.

Glitch Western (2min 9 sec, 2003) is a snippet from an audiovisual performance by Spoole (Anna Helme aka Spanna, Sean Healy aka Jean Poole, Andrew Sargent aka FutureEater) at Electrofringe 2003. The Glitch Western show was like a remix of the cinematic motifs and techniques of the Western, but also an examination of man and nature, and the impact of the pioneering (colonising) spirit on the environment – in the wild west, but also here in Australia.

Electric Dreams – Act 1 (1 min 40 sec, 2004) is a clip from the Artesian AV Arkestra’s performance of “Electric Dreams” for Nextwave 2004. The Artesian AV Arkestra was Anna Helme, Louise Terry, Paul Bourke and Michael Prior. “Electric Dreams” was a colourful genre-hopping hybrid theatre / audiovisual performance piece commissioned for the Nextwave festival.

Snap! (1 min, 2004). Two ladies playing cards find their cards come to life, leading to a diva-off between the two pairs of femme Queens. Features the marvellous marker-pen portraits of unique women un-dressed-up in their own private environs by Arlene Textaqueen. Snap was commissioned for ARTV, an ACMI/SBS co-production.