"Floating Life" (1996) restoration world premiere at Hong Kong International Film Festival

Newly restored by the NFSA, “Floating Life” will premiere at the 45th Hong Kong International Film Festival, screening 4th & 9th April 2021.

A signpost in Australian cinema for navigating the experiences of migrant Hong Kong Chinese, Clara Law’s “Floating Life” is a poignant exploration of home and identity. The tale of a Hong Kong family who emigrates to Australia to join their daughter, contrasted with the deceptively cosy life of the elder daughter in Germany, and the lustful empty soul of the son who stayed behind. Ironically, its profound reflection of family disintegration before the handover transmigrates into a vision of our city today.

William Yang trilogy screening at QAGOMA

The major survey of William Yang’s work, Seeing and Being Seen, will feature the three adaptations of William’s performances, produced by Felix Media; “William Yang: My Generation”, “William Yang: Friends of Dorothy” and “William Yang: Blood Links”.

The free exhibition runs from 27th March - 22 August 2021 at QAGOMA.

"Gudirr Gudirr" and "Darling Darling" on display at The National: New Australian Art 2021

Two works produced by Felix Media’s Bridget Ikin will screen as part of 2021 iteration of The National: New Australian Art, open today. The third in a series of biennial survey exhibitions, The National is a partnership between the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Carriageworks and the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA).

“Gudirr Gudirr” will be on display at Carriageworks until 20th June and “Darling Darling” will be on display at The Art Gallery of NSW until 5th September.

"Daring Darling" (2021) - Gabriella Hirst, premieres at ACMI

“Darling Darling” is a two channel video installation exploring hierarchies of care, romanticism and the enduring colonial gaze upon the Australian landscape and the devastation of Australia’s third largest waterway, the Barka Darling River.

Opening today, the 2020 recipient of the The Ian Potter Cultural Trust will have its world premiere and will be the first solo art exhibition in the newly redeveloped ACMI.

More information here.

"Gudirr Gudirr" (2020) - Vernon Ah Kee and Dalisa Pigram with Marrugeku, premieres at Shinju Matsuiri 2020

This immersive three channel video and sound installation was developed from Dalisa Pigram’s solo performance of the same name. It was first realised in 2013 with Marrugeku – the intercultural
dance company based between Sydney and Broome – where Pigram is choreographer and co-artistic director alongside director and dramaturg Rachael Swain. The screen iteration of “Gudirr Gudirr” was shot on location at Broome in 2019, directed by Queensland-based visual artist Vernon Ah Kee, who brings his particular aesthetic qualities of text-based imagery, portraiture and hand-held footage, natural extensions of the stripped back set design and video installation he created for the original stage production.

Richly layered and deeply personal, in “Gudirr Gudirr”, Pigram’s dynamic movement and spoken word in Yawaru, English and the local vernacular of Broome Aboriginal/English represents an embodiment of the past, encounter with the present and redetermining of the future.

Commissioned by Carriageworks and Marrugeku for The National 2021: New Australian Art.

FLUX: ART+FILM for 2019 Sydney Film Festival

Producer, Bridget Ikin, guest curates for the 2019 Sydney Film Festival. FLUX: ART+FILM explores the fertile ground between art and cinema, with radical and innovative films and videos by artists who challenge or transform our experience of what cinema can be. Ikin has selected 9 films, ranging in length, location and style that will screen throughout the festival. To see the full FLUX: ART+FILM program head to the website.

It All Started With a Stale Sandwich joins the program for the 2019 Sydney Film Festival

It All Started With a Stale Sandwich, a Felix Media production directed by Samantha Lang will have its world premiere at the 2019 Sydney Film Festival. The documentary offers a celebration of the inspirational artworks created for Kaldor Public Art Projects over 50 years, with artists including Christo, Abramovic, Jeff Koons, and Gilbert & George. There are two screenings available this festival so be sure to get your tickets now!

Angelica Mesiti's exhibition for the Australian Pavilion, ASSEMBLY, has now opened at the 2019 Biennale di Venezia

Angelica Mesiti's exhibition for the Australian Pavilion, ASSEMBLY, has now opened at the 2019 Biennale di Venezia. The three channel video work, produced by Bridget Ikin, is situated in a carpeted architectural amphitheater, with six channel sound composed by Max Lyandvert.

Curator, Juliana Engberg, says “ASSEMBLY seeks to create a new space for those who want to speak differently, hear attentively, and act together to form a new translation of the democratic process.”

The piece will also be part of the National Gallery’s 2020 program and with plans to tour nationally the following year, in partnership with the Australia Council for the Arts. Read more here.

Gabriella Hirst is awarded with the Ian Potter Moving Image Commission 2020

We are very excited to announce that Gabriella Hirst has been awarded the Ian Potter Moving Image Commission 2020. A suiting follow on from the 2019 recipient, The Calling, by Angelica Mesiti. Bridget Ikin will be producing Hirst’s work, with its world premiere at ACMI occurring in 2020.

Alongside the The Ian Potter Cultural Trust, ACMI provides the successful artist with $100,000 from The Ian Potter Cultural Trust and professional support from our curators including highly specialised curatorial, production and presentation expertise.

See more here

FLUX: Art + Film masterclass with Andrew Kötting

Sydney Film Festival, Felix Media and Carriageworks present a FLUX: Art + Film masterclass.

Festival guest, Andrew Kötting, co-writer and director of Lek and the Dogs will lead a masterclass, an inspiring event for all free-spirited filmmakers and aspiring creatives.

Artist and filmmaker Andrew Kötting has directed numerous, resolutely independent, short films and feature films, and performed across the UK and Europe. He’s been awarded prizes at international film festivals and won many commissions. He also produces books, CDs, LPs and paintings, many in collaboration with his daughter Eden. He teaches part-time as a Professor of Time Based Media at the University for the Creative Arts, Canterbury.

Andrew will share highlights from his thirty-year career, and talk about his approach to performance and filmmaking. In particular, he’ll dig forensically into the way in which Lek and the Dogs was developed and made.

Andrew Kötting is one of Britain’s most intriguing artists, and perhaps the only film-maker currently practising who could be said to have taken to heart the spirit of visionary curiosity and hybrid creativity exemplified by the late Derek Jarman. Formally exploratory and aesthetically innovative, like Jarman he is also a great collaborator, building around his various projects a community of shared interest, while anchoring his prolific production in an ongoing report on the lives of those closest to him."
- Gareth Evans, curator, critic and cultural commentator.

Event details

Sunday 17 June 10am – 1pm
Carriageworks, 245 Wilson St Eveleigh NSW 2015
FREE but booking required
Tickets: Sydney Film Festival

Felix Media acknowledges Screen Australia's Enterprise Industry support.

FLUX Art+Film program - guest curated by Bridget Ikin for Sydney Film Festival 2018

Bridget Ikin has curated a new program strand Sydney Film Festival 2018; FLUX: Art+Film. The program explores the fertile ground between art and cinema, with radical and innovative films and videos by artists who challenge or transform our experience of what cinema can be. The 8 films in the program include:

24 Frames (dir. Abbas Kiarostami, 2017)

The final film by the great, late Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami, 24 Frames is an exquisite dialogue between his work as a filmmaker and fine art photographer.

[CENSORED] (dir. Sari Braithwaite, 2018)

The world premiere of Melbourne archivist and filmmaker Sari Braithwaite’s provocative documentary, stitched together entirely from film footage cut by Australian censors.

Dragonfly Eyes (dir. Xu Bing, 2017)

10,000 hours of real surveillance footage is culled down into an engrossing fictional narrative, in this extraordinary debut feature by celebrated Chinese printmaker Xu Bing.

Instructions on Parting (dir. Amy Jenkins, 2018)

American sculpture, installation and performance artist Amy Jenkins turns the camera on her family’s most intimate stories, recording a heart-breaking year of births and deaths.

Lek and the Dogs (dir. Andrew Kötting, 2017)

A mesmerising narrative film meets art piece by British experimental artist Andrew Kötting. Inspired by the true story of a four-year-old who lived with wild dogs in Moscow.

Looking for Oum Kulthum (dir. Shirin Neshat, 2017)

Acclaimed visual artist Shirin Neshat (Women Without Men, SFF 2010) returns with a multilayered film within a film, about the Arab world’s most beloved singer, Oum Kulthum.

TERROR NULLIUS (dir. Soda_Jerk, 2018)

Highly political two-person art collective Soda_Jerk return with the brilliant cinema mash up TERROR NULLIUS, a hilarious, uncomfortable reimagining of Australia’s national mythology.

The Pure Necessity (dir. David Claerbout, 2016 )

Renowned Belgian video artist David Claerbout redraws Disney’s 1967 classic The Jungle Book, removing the animals’ ‘humanisations’.

image: Terror Nullius

Jirga world premiere at Sydney Film Festival

Felix Media is proud to announce the World Premiere of Jirga at Sydney Film Festival 2018. Jirga has been selected for The Official Competition - a group of twelve films recognised for being ‘audacious, cutting-edge and courageous’. Jirga is in great company, with films from a variety of exciting filmmakers, including Spike Lee and Debra Granik.

Jirga, directed by Benjamin Gilmour (Son of a Lion, 2010), is a modern morality tale about a former Australian soldier, Mike, who returns to Afghanistan to find the family of a civilian he accidentally killed during the war. Seeking forgiveness, he puts his life in the hands of the village justice system – the Jirga.

Jirga is a film made under extraordinary circumstances. Director Benjamin Gilmour and Sam Smith arrived in Pakistan to find their funding had been withdrawn and their movements monitored due to Pakistan's secret police deeming their script too political. They could've come home to Australia, but decided to make the filmanyway, in Afghanistan. They had a tiny crew; shoot scenes at 10 times the rate of a normal feature film; and spent nights listening to gunshots and mortar fire. They came back to Australia with some shaky footage and ropey sound. Producer John Maynard saw a story underneath all the dirt on the lens and together with editor Nikki Stevens; Sound Designer Liam Egan; and Composer AJ True; created a sensitive and compassionate tale on the impact of war and the cost of redemption.

Jirga has three screenings over the festival and an extended Q&A with director Benjamin Gilmour, lead actor Sam Smith and producer John Maynard.

jirgafilm.com.au

Bridget Ikin receives Honorary Doctorate from AFTRS

Bridget Ikin has been awarded an honorary doctorate of Arts, Film and Television from AFTRS. She received the award in recognition of her significant contribution to the screen industry.

In her graduation speech Bridget described the key principals that underpin her work as; a commitment to collaborating with women; to advocating for diversity; and to looking for unexpected stories at the edge - a commitment to which has brought her a great deal of creative satisfaction in her 30+ year career, as a storyteller.

highlight video created by AFTRS

Art Bites Series 2 on ABC iview

The second series of Art Bites has been released on ABC iview today. Four teams of emerging filmmakers, from around Australia, each created a bite-sized arts documentary series. Felix Media's Bridget Ikin mentored the teams, thanks to the support of the Screen Australia Enterprise program. The four series are:

Mirror (QLD) - producer: Kate Paul & director Brodie Poole

Six Australian artists embark on a nostalgic journey back to a place of their past to confront memories that will inspire a self-portrait work.

Unboxed (SA) – producers Kirsty Stark and Rebecca Elliott & director Sam Matthews

Filmmaker Sam Matthews sets out to meet other gender-diverse Australian artists, challenging each of them to create a new artwork based on the theme “Unboxed”.

Carla and Lisa's Countdown (NSW) – producer Barry Gamba & director Ludwig El Haddad

Twins Carla and Lisa Wherby, Auburn-based artists are besotted fans and collectors of Australian popular art and culture. Invited to enter the National Self-Portrait Prize, this series captures them meeting their art heroes.

Lessons From a Middle-Class Artist (SA) - producer: Rebecca Elliott & director Anthony Frith

On the cusp of his 28th birthday, Anthony goes to America to learn from the great song spammer Matt Farley. Can he write and record 100 songs in 10 days?

Art Bites is a joint ABC ARTS and Screen Australia initiative.

Angelica Mesiti at Venice Biennale 2019

Angelica Mesiti has been selected to represent Australia at the Venice Biennale 2019, together with curator Juliana Enberg. The chair of the selection panel, Professor Callum Morton from Monash University, said that Mesiti’s proposal was highly regarded by the selection panel and that they were looking forward to seeing the project realised in the Australian pavilion.

Read full press release

Angelica Mesiti's Mother Tongue at Adelaide Biennial 2018

Angelica Mesiti's Mother Tongue will it's Australian premiere at the 2018 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art: Divided Worlds.

Andrew Frost has written about the work in the Guardian:

Paris–based Australian artist Angelica Mesiti’s Mother Tongue – a sumptuous two-screen installation – is in many ways a perfect distillation of Divided World’s themes. Mesiti’s video juxtaposes the musicians and performers of immigrant communities in Aarhus, Denmark, with Danish-born choirs singing traditional songs. Like her recent work that combines music of various cultures, the video finds a commonality between people.

“The political context of how Europe is treating the immigration crisis and also the rise of nationalism of rightwing parties is the environment that I’m working in right now,” says Mesiti. “Also, as an Australian artist with an immigrant heritage and policies here around those issues. A lot of us in the show are thinking about the contemporary moment and how we can respond to it.”

Does living in Europe offer Mesiti a different perspective on Australian art? “I think that we have a diversity of practice here that is unique, in that we have the benefit of Indigenous culture and contemporary Indigenous practice, as well as artists who are interested in gender and sexuality. As a postcolonial nation, we have so many things that are particular to us … It’s a unique type of art.”

3rd March - 3rd June 2018
Art Gallery of South Australia

Mother Tongue World Premiere

Angelica Mesiti's Mother Tongue, commissioned for the European Captial of Culture - Aarhus 2017 celebrations, premiered last night in Denmark at O Space, Aarhus.

Taking the Danish tradition of communal group singing as a starting point, Mother Tongue explores the way diverse communities in and around Aarhus connect to their cultural heritage through music, dance and song.

The work was produced with the participation of a range of performers from Aarhus including school children, employee’s of Aarhus Kommune, the Ramallah Boy Scouts troupe, the Jaffra Dancers, Gellerup Circus School and residents of the housing development, Gellerupparken.

From popular radio hits to traditional folk songs, Somali blues, marching drills and wedding dances, Mother Tongue explores a series of communal, creative activities shared across the urban, civic and residential spaces of one European city.

Mother Tongue uses music as a way to sketch a portrait of society as we see it today, where individuals and groups seek ways to maintain their own cultural values while integrating into a new place rather than assimilating. Musical tropes like synchronicity, harmony, dissonance and discordant associations build to generate an image of juxtaposed realities. Mesiti has created a complex new melody where traditional and newer unexpected rhythms can evolve.

The exhibition runs 10th November - 10th December 2017. 

Commissioned by Aarhus 2017- European Capital of Culture with additional funds from the Adelaide Biennale.
 

images: Aarhus 2017- European Capital of Culture

Angelica Mesiti museum survey at NGA

We’re so pleased to share that long-time Felix Media collaborator Angelica Mesiti has a survey of her work at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. The five works include Rapture (silent anthem) 2009, Citizen’s Band 2012, The Calling 2014, Nakh Removed 2015 and The Colour of Saying 2015. The survey runs 9 September 2017 – March 2018. More information about the works available here.

Screen Australia Enterprise Program

We’re thrilled to announce the funding of our art+film initiative, thanks to the Screen Australia Enterprise Program. With the support of the grant, John Maynard and Bridget Ikin will continue to nurture talent, supporting innovative artists and filmmakers. Read the Screen Australia press release here.