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