News Hit

Australia’s only disability film festival, THE OTHER FILM FESTIVAL, will be held at Melbourne Museum from 25 to 29 August. 

The Festival screens contemporary cinema by, with and about people with a disability. Proudly presented by Arts Access Victoria, in association with Melbourne Museum, this compelling biennial event will screen more than 35 diverse films from Australia and as far afield as Russia, Poland, Iceland, Israel, Italy, South Korea, UK and USA. There’s also a range of topical and informative seminars and interactive panel discussions plus the vibrant atmosphere of THE OTHER CLUB, located at Fitzroy’s Charcoal Lane, where from 10pm nightly, Festival patrons can unleash their ‘inner film critic’ in the company of Festival guests and filmmakers.

Guests this year include Canadian director and cinematographer Rob Spence, who following the loss of an eye in a teenage shooting accident, has developed the world’s first prosthetic eye-camera, US stand-up Deaf comedian CJ Jones and filmmaker Hilari Scarl who will present their documentary See What I’m Saying, Australian actors with a disability and filmmaker Genevieve Clay (Be My Brother)who will participate in a panel discussion on the challenges facing actors with a disability, plus festival patron Adam Elliot, actor/director Clayton Jacobson, actor Ross Onley-Zerkel and much, much more.

2010 Festival program highlights include:

Forum: EYEBORG (Canada)

Join Canadian filmmaker Rob Spence as he introduces you to the future of filming with Eyeborg – a miniature camera and transmitter that has been fitted into his prosthetic eye. Winner of TIME Magazine’s 50 Best Inventions of 2009, Rob will present the World Premiere demonstration of the Eyeborg camera in operation!

Forum: DIRECTING DEAF ACTORS

Clayton Jacobson (Kenny), Ross Onley-Zerkel and the cast of I LOVE U, which will screen as part of the Festival, explore the processes and surprising outcomes when hearing directors choose to cast and direct Deaf actors.

Forum: ACTORS WORKSHOP

If you are a person with a disability but don’t know how to get started as an actor, then this is the workshop for you! Join actors and directors from films within the Festival who will offer a hands-on introduction to acting for film and television.

THE SUNSHINE BOY (Iceland)

Narrated by Kate Winslet with a soundtrack by Sigur Ros and Björk, this poignant documentary portrays a mother’s quest to understand the complex condition affecting her son. Her epic-journey takes her to other countries to meet with parents and leading medical experts. However, her question is always the same…How can I break down the barrier of autism that separates my son from the world?

NOBODY’S PERFECT (Germany)

Director Niko von Glasow struggles to convince 11 other fellow-Thalidomide affected people, that posing naked for a calendar would be a good idea, in this intelligent, darkly humorous and provocatively incorrect documentary.

SEE WHAT I’M SAYING (USA)

Follow the journey of the former four members of Beethoven’s Nightmare, the world’s only deaf rock band, which include, CJ a famous comedian still determined to perform to hearing audiences and Robert a brilliant actor and mime artist, battling homelessness. To be presented by Festival guests, director Hilari Scarl and comedian CJ.

BE MY BROTHER (Australia)

A young man’s charm and charisma enchants a stranger at a bus stop. But someone else’s heart is at stake.

ANNA’S SILENT STRUGGLE (Netherlands)

Concentration camps are characterized as places of horrible sounds – screaming, shooting and the cries of torture. For the Deaf, the terror was silent. As the Nazis methodically killed people with disabilities, Anna van Dam survived Auschwitz on her wits and her ability to lip-read.

ZIG ZAG LOVE (UK)

Acclaimed director Gillies MacKinnon brings us the story of Peter and Elliot, two teenagers obsessed with sex. But unlike most teens, they’re long-term hospital patients. They make a pact to lose their virginity, but when Elliot suddenly dies, Peter escapes from hospital with a new friend, terrified that he’ll die before knows what sex is like.

SHINING STARS (Israel)

On 4 March, 1996, a young woman named Maytal was seriously wounded in a suicide attack in Tel Aviv. Nine years later she has separated from her husband and commenced fertility treatments to have a baby as a single parent. A searing portrait of a powerful but damaged person, grappling her way back to intimacy, empathy and love.

OUTCASTS (UK)

A girl in love, a pop star in peril and a gang of unruly misfits on the run. The ride doesn’t stop before everyone gets what they want and someone gets what he deserves. Not quite your average road movie.

WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE MY MOTHER (Poland)

The tight bonds between Julia and her mother Monika threaten to snap or strangle them both when Julia makes a film about her mother. Monika is afraid to see herself as a woman who has lost her legs. Instead, she sees a woman who is about to lose a daughter.

THE OTHER FILM FESTIVAL is a proud initiative of Arts Access Victoria which gratefully acknowledges the financial support of Arts Victoria, Australian Council for the Arts and Department of Human Services.

FESTIVAL TICKETS CAN BE BOOKED VIA:

- Phone: 1300 130 152

* Due to high levels of demand, there may be delays when making bookings by phone

- Email: mmbookingsteam@museum.vic.gov.au

- Festival Box Office: Discovery Centre Foyer, lower ground level of Melbourne Museum

For more information, visit the Festival website at: www.otherfilmfestival.com

I've covered what not to say during a live cross before, so consider this another lesson for budding television journalists.

The lesson? If you want to vent anger at a colleague while they are on camera, make sure that you wait until after the camera cuts away from you.

It's tempting to speculate on the reason why he felt the need to put his middle finger up at his colleague in the field, but for all we know this might be commonplace in Russian newsrooms. Perhaps Russian TV reporters try to psyche one another out in Baseketballesque ways while doing live crosses for fun and this anchor just got caught out because the tech guy wasn't doing his job properly (after himself being distracted by a sound guy's psyche out).

The producers of Son Of Babylon have this morning asked that their film be removed from the MIFF lineup after learning that the festival is partly sponsored by the State of Israel.

According to Crikey's Cinetology:

Son of Babylon explores the aftermath of Saddam Hussein’s downfall in Iraq. It is the second festival-selected film to attract controversy this year, following the ACMI’s decision earlier this month to ban director Bruce LaBruce’s LA Zombie.

MIFF director Richard Moore is refusing to pull the film.

Crikey also have the leaked emails. Full story here.

The critically acclaimed Australian crime drama Animal Kingdom will be released in the USA on August 13th, 2010 distributed by Sony Pictures Classics. 

Winner of the prestigious World Cinema Jury Prize at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Animal Kingdom will open to audiences in New York and Los Angeles expanding throughout the country over a number of weeks to around 120 cities. On the same date, Canadians in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal will also be able to see the year’s most talked about film.

Animal Kingdom will also premiere in mainland Europe at the Rome Film Festival on October 29th, 2010 with a full UK release through Optimum Releasing later in the year.

National and international reviews have been glowing, in the US, the August edition of Film Comment claimed, “Not since Peter Weir broke through in the late seventies has an Australian filmmaker shown as much promise as Michôd” whilst the New York Times listed Jacki Weaver in their summer line-up article, “Breakthrough Performances”. In the UK, The Daily Mirror will award it 4 stars, calling the film “mean, moody and magnificent”.

Producer Liz Watts says “The critical acclaim and audience reaction to Animal Kingdom have both been overwhelmingly positive. As the film embarks on its rollout in such important territories as the US, Italy, France and the UK, we are hoping that audiences across the world will respond with the same level of enthusiasm that the Australian public has shown.”  

Released nationally in Australia through Madman Entertainment on 3rd June 2010, Animal Kingdom is still holding strong sessions after eight weeks and has earned over $4.5 million to date, as well as holding within the Top Ten of the Australian Box Office.

Image: Courtesy of Apple.

Apple launched their latest add-on product today, the Magic Trackpad, for use with Apple's desktop line of computers. On their site they've asked the question "Why should notebooks have all the fun?"

Finally there is hope for Mac users who want to use a trackpad but don't own a Macbook or a Macbook Pro. The Magic Trackpad communicates with an Apple system via bluetooth and runs on a pair of AA batteries, rechargeable versions of which will come as part of the $99AUD package along with the expected product documentation. The Magic Trackpad can replace your mouse or run alongside it. It also supports all the multi-touch and gesture functions that the later versions of Apple notebooks are capable of.

A great option for owners of previous Macbooks and Macbook Pros without multitouch capabilities, if a Macbook has bluetooth connectivity it too can now have multitouch, fancy settings to fine tune the way you might want to use the trackpad.

As of now, it is unclear if the trackpad will readily work with any operating system other than Apple's own OSX, but that's one for the bookies to seek the best bet on. My tip is that if you're not on a mac you may just have lucked out. Atleast for now.

For a film with a tagline like "Alice in Wonderland with Machine guns" this film is like a mirage in the desert after the recent spate of not-so-great fantasy action films we've had off late. Will Zack Snyder, the director of 300 and Watchmen pull off a super awesome film once again? 

Here are trailers/promos for mega-budget sequel Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, more vampire drama with Let Me In, even more vampire action with Priest, and BBC's modern reimagining of the Baker Street detective with Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch (Atonement) and Martin Freeman (The Office) and created by Doctor Who maestro Steven Moffat.

Here are the latest trailers for David Fincher's Facebook movie The Social Network, Richard Linklater's Me and Orson Welles, Zac Efron-vehicle Charlie St. Cloud and Danny Trejo-vehicle Machete.

News trailers for the Robert De Niro-Edward Norton drama Stone, down-sizing drama The Company Men and John Madden-thriller The Debt.

For a look at the similarity to the 2007 Israeli version of the story, check out this trailer.

We also have glimpses of the latest promos from Comic-Con- Disney sequel Tron Legacy, the Ryan Reynolds-thriller Buried and graphic novel adaptation Red, starring Bruce Willis and Helen Mirren.

Tron

After just 1 day of release Christopher Nolan's Inception has gone straight to the top of the weekend box office in Australia. The film has earned just over $1.3 million on 413 screens!

M. Night Shyamalan's latest production, Devil, is causing mass outbursts of hilarity at otherwise somber Inception screenings, New York Daily News has reported.

The embattled auteur and "Last Airbender" director is getting jeers rather than cheers for "Devil," the latest sci-fi effort to bear his name. A YouTube video posted by Perez Hilton this week showed audience members laughing out loud at the trailer during a screening of "Inception." The offending moment came when audiences caught a glimpse of the words "From the Mind of M. Night Shyamalan."

Luckily, NBC know how to contain what smells suspiciously like a public relations disaster without calling attention to it:

NBC responded by swiftly blocking the video, stating it breeched copyright issues.

M. Night Shyamalan has come across hard times as of late, with his most recent film The Last Airbender garnering reviews so bad it makes I Love You Too look like Citizen Kane, but with the news that he is shopping around a feature starring Bruce Willis, News Hit remains confident that his career will remain zombie-like, lumbering from cinema to cinema feasting on delicious brains, for years to come.

The 7th annual AICE Israeli Film Festival will take place in Melbourne (17-22 August) and Sydney (31 Aug–5 Sept) at select Palace cinema locations.  

Showcasing the very best contemporary Israeli films and documentaries, the Festival has assembled its finest line-up to date including A Matter of Size, Phobidilia and will open with the Academy Award nominated drama, Ajami.

And keep checking the Festival’s official website for full program and screening details: http://www.aice.com.au/