guerillafilmnites were screenings from 2012 - 2014.
Nov, 2014.
Approaching his mid-thirties and reluctantly engaged, bored office worker Joe, meets the outlandish job and partner swapping Vee, whose life “manifesto” emphasises being honest and impulsive.
Joe is inspired to start truly expressing himself.
He soon turns his orderly life into chaos.
Screening @ The Dan O’Connell
225 Canning St, Carlton.
Sun Dec 7th – 1pm
Monday Dec 8th – 7:30pm
Sun Dec 14th – 1pm
Mon Dec 15th – 7:30pm
(ALL TIX AT THE DOOR – $7.00)
Nov, 2013.
Screening @ Made In Melb Film Fest
Wed 4th Dec – 7pm
@ Revolt
12 Elizabeth Street Kensington VIC
Office: (03) 9376 2115
admin@revoltproductions.com
Approaching his mid-thirties and reluctantly engaged, bored office worker Joe, meets the outlandish job and partner swapping Vee, whose life “manifesto” emphasises being honest and impulsive. Joe is inspired to start truly expressing himself. He soon turns his orderly life into chaos.
AUG, 2013.
&
gfn in association with MUFF presents 2 movie events
100mins AUS
Approaching his mid-thirties and reluctantly engaged, bored office worker Joe, meets the outlandish job and partner swapping Vee, whose life manifesto inspires Joe to turn his orderly life into chaos.
screening @ MUFF 14
Fri 13th Sept – 7pm
@ Revolt
12 Elizabeth Street Kensington VIC
Office: (03) 9376 2115
admin@revoltproductions.com
JUGULAR (83mins)
Written/Directed by Jj De Ceglie
Starring Gregory Pakis
Jack is straight off the plane. He has few friends and no money.
In desperation, he accepts an apartment formerly housed by the main suspect in a serial murder case – John Ellroy.
Plagued by insomnia, Jack broods in the apartment and wanders the inner-city streets of Melbourne.
His loneliness leads him into a friendship with a teenage addict Janie, and into a bizarre obsession with Ellroy.
Jack struggles to retain his sanity as his world spirals into madness and
violence.
screening @ MUFF 14 Opening Night
Fri 6th Sept – 9pm
@ Revolt
12 Elizabeth Street Kensington VIC
Office: (03) 9376 2115
admin@revoltproductions.com
JUNE, 2013.
gfn 6
** listed in The Age’s “Top Ten” Movie Events 2012 **
DATE : Sunday July 14th – From 7pmLOCATION : The Birmingham Hotel, 333 Smith Street, (cnr Johnston Street) Fitzroy
THE guerilla SCHEDULE
7:00pm Film-maker / Actor’s Networking Hour
8:00pm Short Doco : “Who is The Sonic Manipulator” (10mins, 2005)
Remember the man in the silver spaceman suit that would busk in Bourke St. Mall? He would make all those awkward beautiful sounds from instruments looked to have been made on another planet?
Find out about the man under the suit – where he lives and where he stores all those weird instruments…
He may not have a home, but he has a tram!
Award winning local actor and comedian Ross Daniels will charm your socks off..(so to speak)..
Q & A with dir : Chris Tomkins and actor Ross Daniels
Award winning local actor and comedian Ross Daniels will charm your socks off..(so to speak)..
and sticking with the homeless theme..
Feature doco: Garth Goes Hitch-Hiking (72 mins, 2007)
**WINNER, BEST DOCO, MUFF (2007)**
“.. a great road movie/doco about Australians on the road with many candid confessions and great moments plus crazy footage of Greg/Garth ruffing it in the wild, in the rain and sleeping in the grounds of schools.” (MUFF, 2007)
TRAILER
Q & A with dir : Zev Howley
8:26pm Short Film : “There’s No Place” (7mins, 2012)
OCT, 2012.
gfn 5
A still from The Comedian.
Sick of watching run of the mill, formulaic McMovies?
Sick of dreary old dull conversation topics?
Scared to say what you think?
Bored by average nights out, celebrating tired old milestone events?
Lets have some inspired conversation & watch some inspiring movies!!
** (listed in The Age “Top Ten Movie Events”) **
DATE : Sunday November 4th – Evening
LOCATION : The Birmingham Hotel, 333 Smith Street, (cnr Johnston Street) Fitzroy
THE guerilla SCHEDULE
6:00pm Film-maker’s Networking Hour – Are you a film-maker? Wanna meet others?
7:00pm Short Film : “A Holiday to Remember” (13mins, 2011)
(scroll down for info)
Q & A with dir : Zev Howley
7:26pm Short Film : “The Comedian” (9mins, 2011)
Think of a cross between Robert De Niro, Rupert Pupkin, Austen Tayshus and you have “The Comedian”… played brilliantly by local actor James Barr. Andrew Walsh directs this visual piece that echoes “The King of Comedy” (1983), which suprisingly the director hadn’t seen by the time he made the film. This is one of the best shorts going around in the last 2 years. I have seen a couple of Walsh’s other shorts and he is a young director to look out for.
Q & A with dir : Andrew Walsh
Short film : “A Holiday To Remember” (13mins, 2011)
8pm Feature : The Silent Mangoes (100min)
Starring Andre Jewson, Mark Leonard Winter and Shelly Lauman. Produced by Mesmer Films.
“… A twisted Suburban Fairytale… A mysterious story unfolds when a young woman, Summer, invades the home and the minds of two eccentric brothers, Julian and Poe. Envy and sabotage drive this absurdist black comedy with a surrealist sting.”
“The Silent Mangoes began as a playful post-modern exercise in fusing theatrical and cinematic techniques… part Bugs Bunny, part Beckett… It elucidates the mythic and surreal aspects of conventional narrative as fairy-tale. The tongue-in-cheek and slightly absurdist tones.. merge with the dark surrealist world of suburban banality.”
The Silent Mangoes is a strong atmospheric piece. It’s enigmatic, haunting, melancholy, sometimes long winded but then again isn’t life sometimes? The film could also be described as a weird half cousin of The Actress (2005) which was screened at GFN 1.
Lead actor, Mark Leonard Winter is magnetic in the film. He plays Poe, who is like the human unconscious wearing black leather pants in which he probably looks better than even Jim Morrison. Winter has gone on to perform in more films and television but judging by the snippets I have seen of them, I wouldn’t be surprised if The Silent Mangoes captured his best work so far.
The trailer is very catchy too!
9:51pm Sshhhh….. SECRET homework assignment …assigned!
guerilla RULE of the nite!!
Normally we don’t like rules, but during GFN 5 you have to obey your OWN rule..
guerillafilmnites are BY DONATION which goes to The Salvation Army.
July, 2012.
GFN 4
Sick of watching run of the mill, formulaic McMovies?
enter
The Garth Method (82mins)
Directed by Gregory Pakis
WINNER! Best Actor – Melbourne Underground Film Festival
WINNER! Best Director – Melbourne Underground Film Festival
WINNER! Best Actor – Oxnard Film Festival, California.
Official Selection – Woodstock Film Festival
Screening @ Stratford Courthouse, Stratford ( 20km north of Sale, Victoria)
26th July, 7:30pm
http://www.stratfordcourthouse.com.au/whatson-theatre.html
q & a with director Gregory Pakis
“One of the Best Indie Films I’ve Seen in a Long Time!” —Moviehole.net
“The Garth Method flies high… All of the performances are exceptional… A perfectly written screenplay!” —Film Threat
“entertains with its sense of the absurd… a tongue-in-cheek journey through the sorry days of an aspiring actor.” —Cinephilia
Synopsis: In 2001, unemployed actor, Garth Petridis, was imprisoned for one of the most unusual crimes in Australian history.
Desperate for success he kidnapped members of the public and forced them to perform, at gunpoint, in scenes for a bizarre movie intended to make Garth a household name.
He kept a video diary of the whole process, and managed to film several scenes for his movie.
Upon his release from jail he convinced filmmaker Gregory Pakis to recreate the story of his life before his crimes, as well as the outrageous stunts he pulled on his victims of “method acting.”
The result is a disturbing satire, mixing recreation with the actual video diary of the hostages, and their acting in Garth’s movie – to create possibly the strangest comedy ever made, mixing terror and humor in the most unusual way. If it’s not the strangest comedy ever made, it is certainly the weirdest story ever told about an actor pursuing his big break.
TRAILER
May, 2012.
GFN3
“…cos life is amazing and so can films and conversation be..”
Sick of watching run of the mill, formulaic McMovies?
Sick of dreary old dull conversation topics?
Scared to say what you think?
Bored by average nights out surrounded by alcohol, drugs? …celebrating tired old milestone events?
Lets have some inspired conversation & watch some inspiring movies!!
DATE : Sunday June 3rd – evening
LOCATION : The Birmingham Hotel, 333 Smith Street, (cnr Johnston Street) Fitzroy
THE guerilla SCHEDULE
6:00pm Film maker’s Networking Hour
7:00pm Convo topic: Quick talk about practises & benefits of meditation.
7:15pm Andrew Merlino Super 8 shorts
New Girl Now (3 mins, 2012)
Privacy Park (3 mins, 2012)
A still from New Girl Now
The Age’s “Top Ten Movie Events”
For those not in the know, “The Red” is an almost revered film camera that can deliver ad-like hi-res images that somehow gets film makers crazy with excitement. Like name actors and directors, “The Red” has almost become a star in it’s own right.
Before “The RED”, DSLR’s and Mini DV, if film makers wanted to make a short film that didn’t cost the world and looked half decent they used Super 8mm. The only cheaper options were VHS or Hi 8 which looked way too..crap.. basically. Super 8 film is/was expensive to buy and develop. Discipline and craft were needed in a way that isn’t as much required today’s shooting to high quality video. Shots had to be carefully chosen and maybe timed or before long you’d find yourself running out of film and maybe money.
Who shoots on Super 8 anymore? Do you even need to?
Well film maker Andrew Merlino thinks so. When I ran into him at a recent film night and the subject arose about film cameras, he commented, “What’s so great about “The Red”? It was a relief to hear someone say that as I have always felt that better films would be made if film makers were less excited about film technology and more excited about the story they are telling.
GFN 3 will present two of Merlino’s recent Super 8 efforts that look like they could have been shot somewhere in Europe in the 60’s.
Something also novel to todays film making is that both of Merlino’s shorts were edited in-camera.
Info about Andrew Merlino..
http://www.innersense.com.au/mif/merlino.htmL
7:25pm Q & A with Andrew Merlino
7:37pm Bill Mousoulis Super 8 shorts
Ascension: The Story of Bill (14mins, 1983)
Melbourne ‘89 (13mins, 1989)
And now to The Godfather of Melbourne Super 8 film making and maybe even Melbourne independent film making; the founder of the Melbourne Super 8 Club of the 80’s and 90’s; the founder of the online film journal Senses of Cinema and creator of the web directory of Melbourne Independent Film Makers http://innersense.com.au/mif/ ….Bill Mousoulis.
Bill Mousoulis has made 8 feature films, around a hundred shorts most of which were made on Super 8.
With the two Mousoulis shorts I am screening, come and see what Melbourne looked like back in the 80’s and if you are aged upwards of about 40, don’t be surprised if you feel a sense of melancholy nostalgia creep in.
8:04pm – Come and read a short poem YOU wrote (2 min max)
8:20pm – Feature doco
Garth Lives in a Van
Directed by Gregory Pakis (62mins, 2011)
Winner of the 2011 MUFF Guerilla Film Award
Garth Lives In a Van is a comedy documentary about finding an alternative to falling victim to the rising cost of living.
It is an attempt to find out if one can live this way, without what most believe as the necessities of a place they call home.
“There is no white picket fence here, just a white van,” says the film’s director Gregory Pakis.
Does Garth discover a way out? Could you do it?
What do his friends, family and film colleagues think of Garth’s decision? What are the logistics? How is he going to manage after 34 years of having access to all basic needs? Is he crazy?
Casting these questions and judgments aside, Garth decides to find out for himself if it is possible to live in a van.
Not only is he confronted by the difficulties of showering, cooking and the general limitations that living in a van requires, Garth has some hazardous encounters with car thieves and car park junkies.
Garth also meets other van-dwellers and shares their stories of van ethics, survival and purpose.
Garth Lives In a Van is the third installment of the GARTH series that began with the multi-award winning feature, The Garth Method (2004) followed by Garth Goes Hitch-Hiking (2007).
Garth Lives in a Van TRAILER
THE AGE article about me living in the van (2007)
9:24pm Sshhhh….. SECRET homework assignment …assigned.
guerilla RULE of the nite!!
Normally we don’t like rules, but during GFN 3 you have to state a prepared LIE..
guerillafilmnites are BY DONATION which goes to a cool new organisation with its own guerilla style of making a difference.
March, 2012.
GFN 2
Sick of watching run of the mill, formulaic McMovies?
Sick of dreary old dull conversation topics?
Scared to say what you think?
Bored by average nights out surrounded by alcohol and drugs, celebrating tired old milestone events?
Let’s have some inspired conversation and watch some inspiring movies!
THE guerilla SCHEDULE
The theme for GFN 2 is films shot in black and white in honour of the 2012 Oscar conquering “The Artist”…..nah just joking – haven’t even seen it yet.. I just like black and white movies…
5: 47pm Grab a drink from the bar..
6:00pm FILM-MAKER’S NETWORKING HOUR – Are you a film maker? Wanna meet other film makers? See you at 6.a
7.00pm Random exercise no. 1 : Come up and read your favourite excerpts from your favourite novels and tell us why you like them so much…
7:30pm – Short film
“Caffeine” (8mins)
Director – Paul Dowie – 1995, Australia, 8 mins
‘Caffeine’ was shot io reversal black and white film in the summer of 1995 by my film colleague (does that sound a bit wanky?) and co-producer of The Garth Method, Paul Dowie.
Unfortunately I had nothing to do with ‘Caffeine’ as I was 23 and hitch-hiking and losing my mind on the other side of the country.
It was shot by Anders Olson who was Director of Photography for “The Garth Method” and my soon to be finished feature “The Joe Manifesto”. The story concerns the sleep deprivation experiment of a suburban youth and is told through subjective spontaneous prose rambling pictures and narration.
Hopefully the fact that I have known Paul Dowie for over 20 years hasn’t swayed my thinking that ‘Caffeine’ is one the best shorts I have ever seen. It’s rough, its gritty, its original, it’s screening at GFN 2.
7:45pm Q & A with “Caffeine” Director, Paul Dowie
08:00pm Convo topic 1 : Tell us who your heroes are and why??
08:15pm Feature
“Burke and Wills” (72min)
Director – Oliver Torr, Matt Zeremes – 2006, Australia, 72mins.
Ever wanted to meet Robert De Niro?
Well in 2006 actor/writer/directors Oliver Torr & Matt Zeremes did, when their first feature “Burke and Wills” was accepted into De Niro’s Tribeca Film Festival. NOTE *** this is not the film of the two adventurers in the 1800′s but of two housemates in 2000 and something..
Oliver Torr & Matt Zeremes were aspiring actors who decided to pen/direct/act in their first feature instead of wait around for someone else to give them a part.
What resulted is a bold, striking, haunting, black & white film about two young housemates in the suburbs, shot in a style resembling early Jarmusch. I can’t describe what this film is about really. Alienation? I’m not very good at analyzing film intellectually but this film for me is about mood and it kept me involved and fascinated the whole way.
BTW, the film had no script – was entirely improvised – gutsy when your shooting on 16mm film with a small budget.
Come to GFN 2 and you’ll hear about the two director’s interesting method for settling creative disputes beween them.
“One of the best Australian films I’ve seen in years…” Megan Spencer *
“A cutting, highly entertaining and ultimately shocking debut from two young filmmakers with talent to burn. An early certainty to be one of the best Australian films this year …” Erin Free, FILMINK Magazine *
“Zeremes and Torr’s assured, complex film demands to be seen.”
New York Magazine
09:30pm Sshhhh…..SECRET homework assignment …assigned.
guerilla RULE OF THE NITE
Normally, we don’t like rules, but if you’re heard asking anyone what they do for a living,..
.. it’s another donation to our guerilla cause!!
These monthly nights are always free, although we do ask for a donation which goes to a cool new organisation with its own guerilla style of making a difference.
Feb, 2012.
GFN 1
Sick of watching run of the mill, formulaic McMovies?
Sick of dreary old dull conversation topics?
Scared to say what you think?
Bored by average nights out surrounded by alcohol and drugs, celebrating tired old milestone events?
Let’s have some inspired conversation and watch some inspiring movies!
THE guerilla SCHEDULE
5:47pm Grab a drink from the bar and welcome on in.
6.00pm Convo topic 1: Tell us what you’re in the Top Ten of the world for…
6:30pm Kim Miles’ shorts
The World Really is W (6 mins, 2004, AUS)
The Top Speed of a Rabbit – 72 kph (10 mins, 2004, AUS)
REVIEWS, LINKS AND TRAILERS
Francis Coppola once said the worst thing a film can be is “pretentious.”
Kim Miles’s shorts can make you feel creeped out and uncomfortable. Her films don’t TRY TO BE anything – they just ARE. You could be in a dream watching a Kim Miles film because they’re as much contrived. They’re unforgettable and the first shorts we wanted to program for GFN 1.
“There is a lot to amuse and admire in Miles’ films, which combine genuine experimental edge with a wicked, satirical eye.”
Andrew Shaw, MCV Magazine
“GREAT FILMS – really enjoyed the way you film with no boundaries. Seriously liberating.”
Dee McLachlan, Writer/Director of ‘The Jammed’
“If we are not risking , experimenting, trying to rise above the mediocre, why bother?”
Kim Miles, Film maker
http://www.innersense.com.au/mif/miles.html
07:30pm Feature
The Actress (2005)
Director – Zak Hilditch
Feature – 2005, Australia, 90mins
A twenty-something household is manipulated by the cunning sexuality of a new female housemate.
This film is better than every Australian film put together! Ok not really, but you get the idea. It was made for diddly squat, but who needs money when you have this much acting talent, an intriguing script, one location, and a director that is now making a fully funded feature.
The Actress actually looks better than bigger budgeted productions even though it was shot with mostly natural and available light. A kitchen in this film actually looks like a real kitchen, a lounge like a lounge. No glossy hi-end ad type images that detract from the story here!
In 2006, The Actress was selected for the biggest indie film fest in the USA – Slamdance, which receives 1000 features a year and only selects 11 or so.
“Entertaining no-budget black comedy ..”– Dennis Harvey, Variety
“Director Zak Hilditch is an amazing new talent…” – Movielist
Anyway..come see for yourself..
08:45pm Convo topic 2: Tell us if you have lived with anyone weird?
09:00pm Sshhhh…..SECRET homework assignment …assigned.
guerilla RULE OF THE NITE
Normally, we don’t like rules, but tonight, if you’re heard asking anyone what they do for a living… it’s another donation to our guerilla cause!!
These monthly nights are always free, although we do ask for a donation which goes to a cool new organisation with its own guerilla style of making a difference.
See you there!