CINEMA REBORN - David Noakes and Rose Murray to present HOW THE WEST WAS LOST

Cinema Reborn 2025 will feature a number of restored Australian documentaries each of them presented by the film-makers or by people closely associated with the film and it’s restoration. HOW THE WEST WAS LOST is one of those films. It was made in 1987 a collaborative film Directed and Co-Produced by David Noakes and in iits day screened theatrically across Australia, at festivals around the world and included a sale to Channel 4, in the UK, and eventually screened on the ABC but only in a cut down form.  David has now supervised the restoration of this important film along with film restoration expert, Ray Argall, and the new version will be introduced by David at its Sydney and Melbourne Premiere at Cinema Reborn 2025. The film screens at Cinema Reborn in Sydney on Tuesday 6 May and in Melbourne on Friday 8 May.   Accompanying David in the presentation of the film will be Rose Murray. Rose is a Nyangumarta woman whose family were part of the 1946 Pilbara Strike. Growing up in Melbourne, Rose became active in Koori community politics. In 1978 Rose returned her stolen generation Mum back to her family. Rose has had a wide career in health, research, art and community development.   Rose’s thoughts on the film and its place in history are now published as a program note on the Cinema Reborn website. Here is a part of her text. “This is a loved and valued film. We have always encouraged newcomers to the Pilbara to track it down. Having the strikers tell the story in their own way may not happen again. We’ve shown the film at a couple of big venues with David’s permission and it’s been just lovely. Pilbara  mob have gotten up and told the story of their family being on strike. It’s really powerful. Perth people always say, ‘How come we weren’t told?’ ”I’m part of a group helping to share the story of the 1946 Strike in WA schools this year. The Strike and the How the West was Lost film will become better known in schools. I’m going to go to Cinema Reborn and support the Marrngu and other film makers who made it happen. All Australians need to know how important the strike is for today, not just yesterday.”   To read Rose Murray's text click here: David Noakes and Rose Murray are available for interview and a screener copy of the film can be made available for those interested in the film and the people who made it and are now re-presenting it. THE STORY On 1 May 1946, 800 Aboriginal station workers walked off sheep stations in the north-west of Western Australia, marking the beginning of a carefully organised strike that was to last for at least three years, but never officially ended.   The strike was more than a demand for better wages and conditions. It was, in the words of Keith Connolly in the Melbourne Herald, 'a well-considered statement by a grievously exploited people, standing up for their rights and dignity'.   How The West Was Lost tells the story of a shameful yet still largely unknown piece of Australia’s tangled history…   Session times and links  to bookings Click Here

CINEMA REBORN 2025 - CLASSICS FROM DISTANT SHORES - Links to website program notes.

Direct from Bologna's Il Cinema Ritrovato, Cannes Classics and the New York Film Festival. Superb new restorations of films from Ukraine, Kazakhstan, The Philippines and Lebanon. Links to notes by Laleen Jamayanne, Tony Rayns and Lucia Sorbera. 

SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS (Sergei Parajanov, Ukraine,1965)

“In the temple of cinema, there are images, light, and reality. Sergei Parajanov is the master of that temple.” – Jean-Luc Godard.
“Sergei Parajanov’s extraordinary merging of myth, history, poetry, ethnography, dance and ritual remains one of the supreme works of the Soviet sound cinema, and even subsequent Parajanov features have failed to dim its intoxicating splendours.” – Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

A masterpiece of Ukrainian cinema that bursts with life and colour, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (1965) is a subtly subversive ode to folk culture characteristic of its visionary director, Sergei Parajanov.

Introduced by Nicky Hannan at Ritz Cinemas and by Amiel Courtin-Wilson at Lido Cinemas

Full program notes by film scholar Laleen Jayamanne are now posted on the Cinema Reborn website https://cinemareborn.com.au/Shadows-of-Forgotten-Ancestors

THE FALL OF OTRAR (Ardak Amirkulov, Kazakhstan, 1991

““The film restoration of the year. The new 4K restoration of Ardak Amirkulov’s intricate historical epic, … will hopefully help this monumental film to reach as many people as possible.” – Film Comment, New York

“Ardak Amirkulov’s staggering historical epic (co-written by Aleksei German) concerns the intrigues and turmoil preceding Genghis Khan’s systematic destruction of the lost East Asian civilization of Otrar. The movie that spurred the extraordinary wave of great Kazakh films in the 1990s, The Fall of Otrar is hallucinatory, visually resplendent, and ferociously energetic, packed with eye-catching (and gouging) detail and traversing an endless variety of parched, epic landscapes and ornate palaces. But this is also one of the most astute historical films ever made, its high quotient of gore grounded in the bedrock realities of realpolitik: when the Kharkhan of Otrar is finally brought before the Ruler of the World, he could be facing Stalin or, for that matter, any number of latter-day CEOs. A movie that has everything, from state-of-the-art 13th-century warfare to perfumed sex, The Fall of Otrar is truly a one-of-a-kind experience”. – New York Film Festival notes to accompany the world premiere of the 4K restoration, Lincoln Centre, NY, October 2024

Introduced by Robert Hughes at Ritz Cinemas and Lido Cinemas

Links to session times and bookings https://cinemareborn.com.au/The-Fall-of-Otrar

BONA (Lino Brocka, The Philippines, 1980)

Bona is a stark tale of a selfless middle-class Manila schoolgirl (Nora Aunor, who also produced the film) who develops a fierce, morbid attachment to a narcissistic movie extra and abandons everything to devote her life to serving the actor. No humiliation he heaps upon her deters in any way. Aunor’s performance transforms the story into a profound portrait of a woman who finally doesn’t take it anymore…

Out of sight for over forty years since it premiered at Cannes in 1981, the restoration premiered at Cannes Classics in 2024 and since then it has screened at the New York and Toronto Film Festivals.

Introduced by Russell Edwards at Ritz Cinemas and Chris Luscri at Lido Cinemas.

Full program notes by film critic, curator and film-maker Tony Rayns are now posted on the Cinema Reborn website https://cinemareborn.com.au/Bona

LEILA AND THE WOLVES (Heiny Srour, Lebanon, 1984)

“Visually, Heiny Srour’s film is a treat, combining tinted newsreel footage with memorable images and clearly loving shots of a strife-torn nation; the acts of courage she reveals, and the example she sets to other film-makers to engage their own history, are exalting.” Frances Dickinson, Time Out Film Guide

“Ignored and forgotten, the role of Arab women in the Middle East’s political history is illuminated here for the first time…Using narrative structures of the ‘mosaic’, a common device in oriental stories, Leila travels through time from the British Mandate of Palestine to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. …Acclaimed by critics for its originality and the talent of its director Leila and the Wolves was distributed worldwide but  censored in most Arab countries. Thanks to this new restoration we rediscover a work of great complexity, which even in its most imperfect moments, speaks beyond its, albeit fundamental, feminist message.” Cecilia Cenciarelli, Il Cinema Ritrovato 2023.

Introduced by Elly Carantinos at Ritz Cinemas and Samia Mikhail at Lido Cinemas. 

Full program notes by Associate Professor Lucia Sorbera, Chair of Arabic Language and Cultures, University of Sydney are now posted on the Cinema Reborn website https://cinemareborn.com.au/Leila-and-the-Wolves

CHARITABLE DONATIONS

Cinema Reborn has established a page to enable our supporters to make tax-deductible donations to support our work. Our organisation is run by a group of film industry professionals, working critics, curators and film conservation specialists. All work in an entirely voluntary capacity. Nevertheless there are significant costs, most notably our screening fees, which have to be met each year and we are always grateful for the financial support we receive that defrays these costs and charges. If you would like to make a donation you may do so via via the attached link established by the Australian Cultural Fund which enables small unincorporated organisations like ours to use a service which would otherwise not be easily accessible. To make a donation any time between now and the end of Cinema Reborn 2025 click on this link https://artists.australianculturalfund.org.au/s/project/a2EMn00000FDsl8MAD/cinema-reborn-2025

CINEMA REBORN - RESTORED EUROPEAN CLASSICS - Films by Julien Duvivier, Roberto Rossellini, Rene Clement, Carlos Saura and Robert Bresson

 

EUROPEAN CLASSICS FROM THE 30s TO THE 70s Cinema Reborn 2025 presents the Australian premieres of five restored European classics from France, Italy and Spain. The work of renowned film-makers Julien Duvivier, René Clément, Robert Bresson, Roberto Rossellini and Carlos Saura will be screened for the first time in the Cinema Reborn program PÉPÉ LE MOKO (Julien Duvivier, France, 1937) “Julien Duvivier was once considered one of the world’s great filmmakers.  He was idolised by Orson Welles and Michael Powell, while Ingmar Bergman once admitted that of all the careers that he would have liked to have had, it would be Duvivier’s. The classicism of his mise en scène, his core thematic concerns – deception, misanthropy, the fragility of the (male) group, the dangerous woman – and his ability to coax fevered or fragile performances by both established stars and new actors place Duvivier at the apex of French Classical Cinema.”  – Ben McCann, Senses of Cinema Introduced by Max Berghouse in Sydney and Kevin Cassidy in Melbourne. PAISAN (Roberto Rossellini, Italy, 1946) “…a milestone in the expressiveness of the screen. … it is not an ordinary film—neither in form nor dramatic construction nor in the things it has to say. In some ways, it is the antithesis of the classic "story film," and certainly it throws off glints of meaning which are strangely unfamiliar on the screen.” – Bosley Crowther, New York Times Introduced by Gino Moliterno in Sydney and Cristóbal Escobar in Melbourne FORBIDDEN GAMES (René Clément, France, 1952) “Over the years countless films have been made about war, its horrors and its devastations. Few, however, have been as moving and heartfelt as René Clément’s Forbidden Games. The Academy Award winner for Best Foreign Language Film in 1952, this deeply touching French drama has stirred the emotions of every moviegoer who has had the good fortune to see it… Fossey’s is quite simply one of the most uncanny pieces of acting ever attempted by a youngster. Clément’s sensitivity doubtless accounts for much of what we see here, but the rest is clearly Fossey’s own.”– David Ehrenstein Introduced by John McDonald in Sydney and Paul Harris in Melbourne CRÍA CUERVOS (Carlos Saura, Spain, 1976) Winner of the Grand Prix, Cannes Film Festival, 1976. “Still as moving and compelling as when it was made, Cría cuervos seems now not diminished but enhanced by its growing distance in time, benefiting from a retrospective perspective that, appropriately enough, is subtly explored within the film itself.” Paul Julian Smith Introduced by Geoff Gardner in Sydney and by Will Cox in Melbourne THE DEVIL, PROBABLY (Robert Bresson, France, 1977) “The Devil Probably expresses the malaise of our time more profoundly and more magnificently than any work of art in any medium.” – Andrew Sarris “This film will be more important than all the rubbish which is now considered important but which never really goes deep enough…The questions Bresson asks will never be unimportant.” – Rainer Werner Fassbinder Introduced by Megan Nash in Sydney and Emma Fajgenbaum in Melbourne For more information on all the films, full program notes, session times in Sydney and Melbourne and links to bookings https://cinemareborn.com.au/ CHARITABLE DONATIONS Cinema Reborn has established a page to enable our supporters to make tax-deductible donations to support our work. Our organisation is run by a group of film industry professionals, working critics, curators and film conservation specialists. All work in an entirely voluntary capacity. Nevertheless there are significant costs, most notably our screening fees, which have to be met each year and we are always grateful for the financial support we receive that defrays these costs and charges. If you would like to make a donation you may do so via via the attached link established by the Australian Cultural Fund which enables small unincorporated organisations like ours to use a service which would otherwise not be easily accessible. To make a donation any time between now and the end of Cinema Reborn 2025 click on this link https://artists.australianculturalfund.org.au/s/project/a2EMn00000FDsl8MAD/cinema-reborn-2025 CINEMA REBORN MAILING LIST Please forward this email to any friends who may be interested in our presentations of restored cinema classics. Invite them to join our mailing list by sending an email to cinemareborn2025@gmail.com

CINEMA REBORN - Seven newly-restored Australian films in the 2025 program.

 AUSTRALIAN FILM-MAKERS AT CINEMA REBORN 2025

Cinema Reborn 2025 will present seven films by Australian film-makers. All will be presented in the presence of the directors or in the case of the films of the late Anna Kannava, the producer. All have been restored by the film-makers themselves working in conjunction with renowned Australian director and director of photography Ray Argall and his company Piccolo Films. For information about session times, bookings and credits CLICK HERE

WHAT I HAVE WRITTEN (John Hughes, (1996) Cast: Martin Jacobs,Gillian Jones, Jacek Koman, Angie Milliken “In the hands of director John Hughes this material is transformed into a fragmented, cool film that utilises many techniques, associated with art cinema….an impressive film that provides many entry points for the viewer by supplying just enough character development and narrative motivation to engage on an emotional level.” Geoff Mayer, The Oxford Companion to Australian Film There are very few Australian films which draw their style and inspiration from European art cinema and the work of such masters as Alain Resnais and Chris Marker. What I Have Written, based on a novel by John Scott, is however such a film. It draws on those sources to present a twisting and complex narrative, intertwining two love stories – the first an erotic drama set in Australian academia, the second a story which draws on, using black and white photography and the Parisian setting, from Marker’s legendary La Jetée. John Hughes, otherwise a master documentary maker for close to fifty years, took a detour into fictional drama that resembles the literary work of Marguerite Duras and  Alain Robbe-Grillet. As such it stands almost alone in the Australian cinema. The world premiere of this 4K restoration will be both a unique experience and a reminder that the Australian cinema has occasionally been more than echoes of BBC drama, broad comedy and American genre re-treads. John Hughes will introduce his film at its Sydney and Melbourne screenings and take part in a post-film conversation HOW THE WEST WAS LOST (David Noakes, 1987) "will always be the best, most honest and most entertaining record of the 1946 Strike... It is an exhilarating, inspirational documentary that shows what people can achieve when they have vision, courage and solidarity." - Jerry Roberts, Pearls and Irritations On 1 May 1946, 800 Aboriginal station workers walked off sheep stations in the north-west of Western Australia, marking the beginning of a carefully organised strike that was to last for at least three years, but never officially ended. The strike was more than a demand for better wages and conditions. It was, in the words of Keith Connolly in the Melbourne Herald, 'a well-considered statement by a grievously exploited people, standing up for their rights and dignity'. How The West Was Lost tells the story of a shameful yet still largely unknown piece of Australia’s tangled history… David Noakes and Rose Murray will introduce this film at its Sydney and Melbourne screenings and take part in a post-film conversation. Rose Murray is a Nyangumarta woman whose family were part of the 1946 Pilbara Strike.  THE MINISKIRTED DYNAMO (Rivka Hartman, 1996) “Dora emerges as afascinating character… a very personal piece of film-making” – David Stratton “The Miniskirted Dynamo  is a lively, often hilarious, film as well asa moving personal document…This is not a film for those who believe in the mythof happy families – or perhaps it is the perfect film.” - Barbara Creed, The Age Rivka Hartman’s The Miniskirted Dynamo focuses on her mother, Dr Dora Bialestock, an extraordinary figure inMelbourne’s medical community. Dora studied Medicine at the University of Melbourne and published widely on her specialist research subjects . She became a figure of some controversy when she attacked the state government’s management of children in care. She was a public thorn in many sides of government. Hartman’s film is a remarkable autobiographical and biographical documentary about the intense and tangled relationship between the film-maker and her mother, both of whom had ambitions and goals that did not mix well. Rivka Hartman will introduce her film at its Sydney and Melbournescreenings THE BUTLER (Anna Kannava, 1997) + TEN YEARS AFTER…TEN YEARS OLDER (Anna Kannava, 1986) “I was very moved by The Butler, a portrait of Anna's brother, Nino. This film has one of those unexpected moments of grace that totally won me over – it brought tears to my eyes (not of sadness, but of happiness and liberation).” – Cristina Álvarez López “I was struck by the absolute coherence of her relatively small but impressive and enduring output.” – Adrian Martin Celebrating the filmmaking of Anna Kannava (1959-2011) with two remarkable autobiographical documentaries, recently restored in 4K. Born in Cyprus, Kannava migrated to Melbourne with her family in 1974. In the meditative Ten Years After…Ten Years Older, the director tenderly reflects on returning to her homeland after a decade away. In the deftly comedic and deeply affecting The Butler, Kannava impressionistically portrays the life she shared with her devoted younger brother Nino. These two key works reveal a gifted filmmaker deserving of widespread recognition. Anna Kannava’s films were produced by John Cruthers who has supervised their restoration. The films will be introduced by John Cruthers in Sydney.  BREAD AND DRIPPING (Vic Smith, Margot Nash, Elizabeth Schaffer,Wendy Brady and Donna Foster, 1981) Four women recount their lives during the bleak years ofthe Depression of the 1930s. Tibby Whalan, Eileen Pittman, Beryl Armstrong andMary Wright describe their struggles to survive and maintain families whenfaced with widespread unemployment, evictions and hardship. Bread and Dripping screens with How the West was Lost in Sydney and Melbourne. It will be introduced by Vic Smith and Elizabeth Schaffer in Sydney ON A FULL MOON (Lee Whitmore, 1997) This "poem to my mother", features memories of childhood and family lovingly animated frame by frame by pencil and pastel on paper.  On a Full Moon screens with The Miniskirted Dynamo  and will be introduced by Lee Whitmore in Sydney.

Streaming on Disney+ - Rod Bishop finds much to admire in the film-making of Alice Rohrwacher, including the recent LE PUPILLE (2022, Italy/USA)

  

Alice Rohrwacher and Alfonso Cuarón

After the magic realism and rural working-class exploitation of her third feature Happy as Lazzaro (2018), Alice Rohrwacher returned to the children and female adolescents of her first two features.

Le Pupille (2022), a 38-minute short produced by Alfonso Cuarón, set in a Catholic orphanage during World War Two was nominated for an Oscar in 2023.

The orphan girls in Le Pupille just wanna have fun, but are subjected to a religiously inspired disciplinary regime led by a particularly nasty nun (Alba Rohrwacher). She labels one girl as “wicked” and the softly spoken student responds by inspiring her classmates to rebel. 

Le Pupille

Children’s stories are, by and large, disguised lessons in morality. But here, there’s a deliberate avoidance of any moral teaching and if the audience is missing this intention, the girls are happy to burst into song, singing straight to camera to tell us the film has no moral perspective. 

It takes only a couple of minutes with Rohrwacher’s first feature Heavenly Bodies (2011) to realize her filmmaking talents were fully-formed from the very start of her career. 

As was her view of Italian Catholicism, and she follows the 13-year-old Marta, living in rural poverty and suffering through her training for Communion – both as a supplicant raising her head for a blessing and as a prisoner transitioning from the wonders and innocence of her childhood to the expectations of her gender role in adult life.

Heavenly Bodies

In The Wonders (2014), the 14-year-old Gelsomina resolutely struggles with the love and responsibilities she feels for her rural working-class bee-keeper family, yet experiences a desire to outgrow this narrow world and experience ‘the beyond’. She transgresses by secretly joining her family up as contestants in a reality TV show based around peasants who still live like Etruscans, those mysterious peoples whose civilization and language disappeared into the formation of the Roman Empire. 

The Etruscans are even more central to Rohrwacher’s fourth feature La Chimera, based around the tombaroli, contemporary Italian graverobbers who fall into conflict with the capitalistic, international art market. In both films, Etruscan art is presented as wondrous, spell-binding, enriching - indicating a world of marvel beyond the confines of rural poverty.

The girls and female adolescents are replaced by the man-child Lazzaro in Happy as Lazzaro (2018). Perhaps ‘somewhere on the spectrum’, Lazzaro lives in an impoverished rural community of indentured labourers growing tobacco for down-at-heel, titled nobility. They are out of time and place, but discovered by an astonished carabinieri. 

Josh O'Connor, La Chimera

Used as a compliant slave by his community, Lazzaro’s childlike innocence and sense of pragmatic wonder at the natural world belies his true age. Accidently dying, but woken by a wolf, Lazzaro resurrects decades later and searches for what’s left of his community, some of whom kneel down and venerate him like a saint.

It’s the same religious divinity, magical realism and ancient worlds that her girls and female adolescents reach out for in Heavenly Bodies, The Wonders and Le Pupille.

It’s Rohrwacher’s distinctive world where she focuses on her main characters as they transition from their wondrous childhoods into the rigors and disappointments of adult life.

My viewing partner describes Rohrwacher as “a visionary with a courageous sense of conviction, her films all delivered with a light-handed exultation”.