A shoutout for Matthew Victor Pastor - Bill Mousoulis unearths an emerging Australian film-maker

Editor's Note: This information comes from a recent post by Bill Mousoulis on his Facebook page. At the foot is a a link to some further thoughts on Bill's inestimable Innersense website devoted to Australian filmmakers.

Matthew Victor Pastor

For me, the discovery of Matthew Victor Pastor and his work in the last few months is like a miracle. Pastor is the most dynamic young filmmaker I've come across in 35 years of indie film watching in Australia. Because it's not about "promise". At the age of 28, he has already delivered 5 features, including 3 that are released simul-taneously this year. He is flying, and, it's so high that it's disturbingly above any "radar" that Australian film culture has in operation at the moment. If the Melbourne International Film Festival do not play one of his new features this year, it will be a crime beyond belief.

Repent or Perish! (Matthew Victor Pastor, 2018)

Probably the Asian themes and actors will limit his impact in Australia. He will probably leave these shores and go work in the Phillipines permanently and become world-renowned. And yet he's the voice of the "New Australia" - Asian, LGBT, dexterous, vibrant. But Australia is always backward, conservative, and defaults back to "White Australia" mode regularly.

Especially cinematically. Pastor's cinema is a cinema of movement and colour. It's the most dazzling Australian cinema I've seen in a while, only Saidin Salkic and Kim Miles come close to this kind of surreality and intensity in recent years. You need to go back to the '80s to find anything with the same kind of life.

My favourite of Pastor's films is MELODRAMA / RANDOM / MELBOURNE! (click on the second 'here' below for a trailer). It plays with cinematic form in all kinds of ways, with the screen size, with the music, with titles on the screen, and with the narrative of course. For me, this is breathtaking cinema that is just extraordinary. It's one of the best Australian films of this decade.

I wish Pastor well, this year as he releases these films in film festivals and beyond, and also in subsequent years. I wish for him to keep flying, as he currently is. He is a rare bird, so keep your eyes peeled!

http://www.innersense.com.au/mif/pastor.html

You can find trailers to Pastor's recent films if you click here  and here.