2011 St Kilda Film Festival

A friend of mine who is a film student recently got two free tickets to opening night of the St Kilda Film festival. I was lucky enough to be invited along so last night, just like many other avid film fans we braved the extremely cold weather and rain to make our way to the Palais Theatre. Now I’ll admit, I’d never even heard of this short-film festival before but I’m not one to turn down anything to do with my love of film. Needless to say I quickly jumped on the opportunity to go as fast as I could.

The Palais Theatre really is a beautiful venue and definitely one of Melbourne’s finest. We arrived to see large crowds of cold movie film fans huddled outside as the Palais seemed to look even more magnificent shrouded in rain.

Six short films were shown that night and I was very impressed overall with each one although I did have a few stand-outs. I’m going to write a quick summary of my thoughts regarding each film.

There may be some minor spoilers.

Pop

Director: TOBIA ANDERSSON

Pop is a film that had really outstanding cinematography and direction. It looked beautiful from the opening second to the closing moments but I must admit that the story just didn’t grab me. As someone who greatly dislikes both hunting and chewing gum I found some parts of this film more frustrating than anything. Although I can appreciate and really enjoyed the fantastic way in which the father/ son relationship was developed without any dialogue at all.

Suburbia

Director:  ANTONIO OREÑA-BARLIN

This was one of the stand-out films for me. The sound editing was especially strong in this one and helped to create an extremely thick, eerie atmosphere throughout the whole film. The Palais Theatre was packed and throughout this whole film hardly anyone even breathed, the tension was strong which to me is one of the best signs of a good filmmaker. This film was powerful and very creepy all the way through and I enjoyed watching the audience reactions to some parts as much as I was enthralled with the actual short.

A Lost and Found Box of Human Sensation

Director: STEFAN LEUCHTENBERG

Even though this film tackled a very dark plot I found it very fun to watch all the way through. The beautiful Tim Burton-style imagery and animation worked well here and was at times outlandish while still remaining relevant to the story. I found that the music in this film is really part of what made is so memorable for me. While not being a musical by any means there was the odd song mixed in with the story which added to the overall quirky feel of this film. A lot of the designs, the robots etc felt really familiar to me here as this type of Burton steampunk style is appearing everywhere now, especially in animation. Even though it’s being used a lot I still found it quite effective here so it didn’t bother me.

Bee Sting

Director: HEATH DAVIS

I did enjoy this one but it just felt way too familiar to me. I think I have seen this exact same plot told several times before, whether in TV, film or something else. What saved this film for me was the brilliant acting and the directing. There were a lot of little funny moments throughout but in the end this story for me has just been done too many times before and I couldn’t really connect with it.

Dan Sultan – Old Fitzroy

Director: RHYS GRAHAM, NATASHA GADD

I haven’t listened to much of Dan Sultans music before and I really ended up enjoying this song. I liked the idea for this music video, clean and simple yet it never really felt boring or too repetitive. While this was about Fitzroy specifically I felt like it really captured the feel of all of Melbourne.

Bear

Director: NASH EDGERTON

This film really was a wonderful way to end the night. I hadn’t even read the plot for this so I had no idea where it was going from the beginning, but I found myself being constantly surprised again and again and laughing out loud many times. I found that the very end was quite predictable, but that fact that I never knew where the film was heading up until that point kind of made up for it. The acting was great in Bear and I think the pacing really helped to make it as funny as it was. This film was in some ways quite dark humour but so laugh out loud funny at the same time. This one definitely makes me want to check out other work by this director.

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Overall I loved my night at the St Kilda Film Festival and I wish I could have seen more than only 6 films. I would really like to keep attending this event each year in the future as it really is a great showcase of local and even some international talent.