NB Anyone wishing to receive a regular email with news of Cinema Reborn 2025 and other activities related to screenings of classic cinema please send an email to cinemareborn2025@gmail.com
The February newsletter will have a first early program announcement.
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The Blood of Empire, Undercurrents
Margot Nash writes:
I am thrilled to let you know that my new film, Undercurrents: meditations on power now has a Sydney screening.
It will screen in the Antenna Documentary Film festival in the Australian Shorts Competition, Session 1 on Sat 10 Feb at Dendy Newtown at 11:30am. See: https://antennafestival.org/films/australian-shorts-competition-session-1/
See the leaflet below. Check my web site for updates https://www.margotnash.com
Hope to see you there.
Best wishes,
Margot
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| She thought about power, Undercurrents |
Some notes follow on the forthcoming Pasolini season beginning at the Randwick Ritz on Sunday 16 October at 4.00pm and every Sunday thereafter for another eight superb films by this master film-maker.
British critic Tony Rayns has sent through some thoughts on Pasolini which are shared here:
At one level, these films provide insights into Pasolini’s own life: his origins, his sexuality, his politics, his ability to recruit the likes of Maria Callas as an actor. More importantly, though, they are films which have hardly aged at all. They still engage the hearts and minds of everyone who cares about personal values, day-to-day politics and the ways we lead our lives. Pasolini’s body of work is matchless.
Jane Mills and Angelica Waite have put in some hard yards on this project and if you would like to contact them for more details or arrange any media they can be contacted at janemills01@bigpond.com or a.vidawaite@gmail.com
Book for all films in the season by clicking here
But wait there's more
6:00pm, Friday 4 November
The Co-ops nurtured Australia’s cinema renaissance and created new markets for strikingly innovate Australian content - experimental shorts, documentaries and dramas that gave voice to groups and issues that were denied expression in the mainstream media.
Here’s a link to the trailer: https://vimeo.com/730219863
Senses of Cinema will screen on October 15th at 3pm, and again on October 23 at 6.30pm
You can book via this link: https://tix.antennafestival.org/Events/Senses-of-Cinema/Sat-Oct-15-2022-15-00
[The film’s] generosity is exacting, thoughtful, a homage to those who shifted the limits of our screen culture…whose work provoked fundamental questions about Australian society, and the practice of filmmaking itself. There are trailblazers, ingenues, stalwarts, provocateurs here – an impressive cast, to be sure. Al Cossar, director of Melbourne International Film Festival
Made by two of Australia’s most important and, at times, maverick documentarians in the twilight of their careers, Senses of Cinema speaks, in every way, to the importance of collaboration and the necessary recognition and resurrection of often-forgotten parts of our film history and culture. Adrian Danks “The Conversation”
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TAX DEDUCTIBLE DONATIONS TO CINEMA REBORN 2023 VIA THE AUSTRALIAN CULTURAL FUND
In 2023 Cinema Reborn will present its fifth annual season of restored cinema classics selected from the libraries of the world's film archives and major production companies. Cinema Reborn is Sydney's only film festival devoted exclusively to screening the cinema's heritage. Next year's season will take place at the Randwick Ritz from 26-30 April.
The Co-ops nurtured Australia’s cinema renaissance and created new markets for strikingly innovate Australian content - experimental shorts, documentaries and dramas that gave voice to groups and issues that were denied expression in the mainstream media.
Here’s a link to the trailer: https://vimeo.com/730219863
Senses of Cinema will screen on October 15th at 3pm, and again on October 23 at 6.30pm
You can book via this link: https://tix.antennafestival.org/Events/Senses-of-Cinema/Sat-Oct-15-2022-15-00
[The film’s] generosity is exacting, thoughtful, a homage to those who shifted the limits of our screen culture…whose work provoked fundamental questions about Australian society, and the practice of filmmaking itself. There are trailblazers, ingenues, stalwarts, provocateurs here – an impressive cast, to be sure. Al Cossar, director of Melbourne International Film Festival
Made by two of Australia’s most important and, at times, maverick documentarians in the twilight of their careers, Senses of Cinema speaks, in every way, to the importance of collaboration and the necessary recognition and resurrection of often-forgotten parts of our film history and culture. Adrian Danks “The Conversation”
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| Charles Chaplin and Oona O'Neill |
A quick guide to what's happening:
Antenna Documentary Film Festival is currently screening and finishes next Saturday 12th. Various venues.
Two films to recommend among the more than 40 programs;
The Real Charlie Chaplin (Peter Middleton & James Spinney, UK/USA, 2021)
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| Ablaze |
Ablaze (Alec Morgan & Tiriki Onus, Australia, 2021)
Alec Morgan,renowned documentarist and a many times contributor to the NFSA's Oral History collection, and Tiriki Onus (with a big assist from producer Tom Zubrycki and others) have assembled an extraordinary story about the life (and film-making career) of Bill Onus, a leader of Australia's First Nations people. Packed house at the first screening. One more to go on Saturday 12th February
Europa! Europa! is currently screening at the Randwick Ritz. Finishes on February 27. (Also in Melbourne)
Hit the link above to explore the 43 titles that will be screened.
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| Naked |
The program includes a new 4K restoration by the BFI of Mike Leigh's searing Naked which won the Best Director and Best Actor prizes at Cannes in 1993. Also screening (once only) are a doco on the formidable British producer Jeremy Thomas The Storms of Jeremy Thomas, a re-edited version of Matteo Garrone's 2008 film Gomorrah You have already missed a feature documentary on Luis Bunuel.
Mardi Gras Film Festival starts on 17 February and runs to 3 March at various locations. Hard to work out the exact number of titles, probably well over fifty, and the festival also has online screenings which can be accessed from anywhere in Australia.
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| Distant Journey |
Jewish Film Festival from 2 March to 3 April at the Randwick Ritz and also in Melbourne. Over seventy programs including shorts, docos and three nights of standup comedy. Among the highlights is Distant Journey directed by Alfred Radok in Czechoslovakia in 1949 which will have the benefit of an introduction by long time Film Alert contributor Barrie Pattison. Described as "One of the first films to confront the horrors of the Holocaust remains one of the most powerful. Suffused with the visceral dread of a waking nightmare, Distant Journey draws from director and Holocaust survivor Alfréd Radok’s own experiences to tell the story of a Czechoslovak Jewish family—including a young doctor and her gentile husband—whose lives are torn apart by the terrors of the Nazi occupation, leading them to a grim fight for survival in the Theresienstadt concentration camp. Blending expressionistic cinematography with archival documentary footage to potent effect, this harrowing vision of human atrocity was banned in its home country for more than forty years, only to remerge as urgent and impactful as ever."
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| The Light Ahead |
Also screening is The Light Ahead made in 1939 by the prolific Edgar G Ulmer. It is described thus: "Made on the eve of WWII, this 1939 Yiddish film classic by Edgar G. Ulmer—adapted from a Mendele Mokher Sforim tale—is a sweetly romantic part-comedy, part-satire. David Opatoshu and Helen Beverley, stars from New York’s Artef and Yiddish Art Theaters, are magnetising as two passionate but impoverished lovers who dream of a better life in Odessa. They want to get married, and they dream of a future that transcends their own limitations.
"Offering a meditation on hope, love, and the Jewish faith, The Light Ahead also reflects a painful awareness of the events that will soon overcome European Jewry".
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| Maigret |
Let's hope that the crowds venture out and by the time you have seen at least some of the more than 200 films and programs you get yourselves all prepped for restored cinema classics at Cinema Reborn at the Ritz from 27 April to 1 May.
