Winton’s words meet Mischkulnig’s pics

Posted in my inspiration on September 24th, 2009 by Rachael – Be the first to comment

Smalltown
Museum of Sydney
October 10

Against the news that filming of the six-hr pay-TV series of Tim Winton’s iconic novel Cloudstreet will go ahead in Western Australia early next year after a period of uncertainty, my favourite Australian novelist and favourite Australian photographer – Tim Winton and Martin Mischkulnig – will present in the same room with the project Smalltown.

Shot on a very large format camera, Mischkulnig took some of this series before asking Tim Winton to write for it. He said yes, which inspired Mischkulnig to shoot the rest, all around Australia over a three-year period.

Mischkulnig’s quirky composition and humour illustrate here the breathless wonder with which Miles Franklin Award winning Winton adulates his landscape.

The cinematic nature of both the images and Winton’s work itself makes me more eager than ever to know what’s going on with the film adaptation of Dirt Music?

© Martin Mischkulnig

Image taken in South Australia © Martin Mischkulnig 2005

this week at FOMM: forging film relationships

Posted in friday on my mind on September 22nd, 2009 by Rachael – Be the first to comment

Film School to Features
Forging the Director/DOP relationship

This week we talk to AFTRS alumni director Alister Grierson and DOP Jules O’Loughlin, who have maintained the creative collaboration developed at film school, on to Kokoda and now in pre-production for James Cameron’s Sanctum.

Time: 5-6pm
Date: Friday, September 25
Venue: AFTRS Theatre, Fox Entertainment Quarter

Friday On My Mind is AFTRS‘ weekly event bringing you face to face with the industry’s brightest thinkers.

Free entry. Free 2-hr parking. All welcome.

Three Moons (w.t.) (in dev.)

Posted in my films on August 13th, 2009 by Rachael – Be the first to comment

Feature Film script

Writer/Creators: Rachael Turk, Jasmin Forbes-Watson,
Sebastian Goldspink, Stephen Jenner
Producer: John Edwards

[in development with John Edwards / Southern Star]
three moons

this week at FOMM: adaptation

Posted in friday on my mind on August 13th, 2009 by Rachael – 1 Comment

The Heart of Drama
Adapting Disgrace

We look at the key challenges and solutions in adapting J.M. Koetzee’s Booker Prize-winning novel to the screen in terms of character, dialogue and the story’s emotional core.

Special guests:
• Steve Jacobs – director (Disgrace, La Spagnola)
• Anna Maria Monticelli – screenwriter (Disgrace, La Spagnola)

Time: 5-6pm
Date: Friday, Aug 14
Venue: AFTRS Theatre, Fox Entertainment Quarter
Disgrace

Friday On My Mind is AFTRS‘ weekly event bringing you face to face with the industry’s brightest thinkers.
Free entry. Free 2-hr parking. All welcome.

The September Issue

Posted in my reviews on August 4th, 2009 by Rachael – Be the first to comment

Director: R. J. Cutler
Producers: R. J. Cutler, Eliza Hindmarch, Sadia Shepard

[in Australian cinemas August 20]
The September Issue

Behind every great woman is… another great woman.

Such is certainly the case in upcoming documentary The September Issue, which I just saw today. An exposé on the life of infamous Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, The September Issue is renowned for making time with Wintour’s fictionalised character in The Devil Wears Prada look like a walk in Hyde Park.

The film’s narrative throughline is the leadup to the magazine’s annual highlight: the September issue of the magazine. And issues they have. The dramatic tension is built up between Wintour and her fashion editor Grace Coddington, the art and soul of the magazine who started at Vogue the same time as Wintour.

In this way it is very much like Matt Tyrnauer’s doco Valentino, King of Couture, which premiered at the Venice Film Festival last year and charts the similar politics and co-dependency at work between the legendary designer and long-suffering partner.

The politics between the mantis and her prey are cruel and at any moment in The September Issue, we can’t predict whether Coddington will resign, be fired or save the day – and one of these is indeed the film’s outcome.

this week at FOMM: Robert Connolly

Posted in Uncategorized on August 3rd, 2009 by Rachael – Be the first to comment

In the Line of Fire
Robert Connolly

From The Boys to The Bank to Three Dollars, Robert Connolly’s films have always had a political dimension. In Balibo, he turns his eye to the international arena with his depiction of the death of six journalists in events surrounding Indonesia’s invasion of East Timor in 1975.

See my review of the film here.

Time: 5-6pm
Date: Friday, August 7
Venue: AFTRS Theatre, Fox Entertainment Quarter

Friday On My Mind is AFTRS‘ weekly event bringing you face to face with the industry’s brightest thinkers.

Free entry. Free 2-hr parking. All welcome.

this week at FOMM: Liz Ann Macgregor

Posted in Uncategorized on July 28th, 2009 by Rachael – Be the first to comment

Making Art Accessible
MCA’s Liz Ann Macgregor

The director of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Liz Ann Macgregor talks to us about the state of contemporary installation and the importance of integrating art within the public, urban experience.

Time: 5-6pm
Date: Friday, July 31
Venue: AFTRS Theatre, Fox Entertainment Quarter

Friday On My Mind is AFTRS‘ weekly event bringing you face to face with the industry’s brightest thinkers.

Free entry. Free 2-hr parking. All welcome.

this week at FOMM: Chip Rolley

Posted in friday on my mind on July 15th, 2009 by Rachael – Be the first to comment

Novel Ideas
Chip Rolley

What is the relationship between books and films? What makes manga and the graphic novel so ripe for adapting and what genres will be next? How is technology changing the way we read forever, as publishing has its “iPod moment”?

All this and more when we speak to the Sydney Writers’ Festival’s incoming Artistic Director Chip Rolley this week at Friday On My Mind.

Time: 5-6pm
Date: Friday, July 17
Venue: AFTRS Theatre, Fox Entertainment Quarter
Chip Rolley

Friday On My Mind is AFTRS‘ weekly event bringing you face to face with the industry’s brightest thinkers.

Free entry. Free 2-hr parking. All welcome.

this week at FOMM: Rowan Woods

Posted in friday on my mind on July 1st, 2009 by Rachael – Be the first to comment

Creature Features
Rowan Woods

From The Boys to the fantstical Farscape to Little Fish, we look at the essence of Rowan Woods’ dramatic style and take a sneak peek at clips from his upcoming Hollywood feature, Winged Creatures.

Date: Friday, July 3
Time: 5-6pm
Entry: Free (2-hr free parking)

* includes a clip from the upcoming Winged Creatures
winged creatures

Friday On My Mind is AFTRS‘ weekly event bringing you face to face with the industry’s brightest thinkers.

long live Lumina!

Posted in Uncategorized on July 1st, 2009 by Rachael – 2 Comments

The Australian Film Television and Radio School has continued its “rethink” of the screen sector with the launch of its new film journal Lumina.

lumina1

David Stratton cut the tape on what is a dedicated space for examination and rumination on the current state of the Australian screen sector – in particular, as the cover implies, the nexis between art and industry.

Lumina‘s editorial team comprises AFTRS CEO Sandra Levy, Head of Business Studies David Court, Head of Screen Studies Karen Pearlman and yours truly. The leading essay is by Baz Luhrmann.

Other contributions to the 180-page publication include select transcripts from Friday on My Mind, as well as from Andrew Urban’s The Knowledge, genre essays including David Stratton’s ‘Origins of Horror’, and Vincent Sheehan’s argument for ‘Why Australian Producers Should Think More Like Distributors’.

Stratton welcomed Lumina as a “journal that is provocative, insightful and entertaining.”

Lumina will be sold at selected bookshops. Issue 2 is already underway – may there be many more.