Container #1 - Peter Strickland's Flux Gourmet, and hello.
Also Locarno's 2022 lineup, and the Australian Cinematheque's retrospectives for Larisa Shepitko and Jane Campion
Hello and welcome to Container: Brisbane Film Society, an offshoot or cousin of the Queensland Film Festival. Normally each fortnight we’ll note the next screening, maybe announce a few, and include a few thoughts on international and local film news. But we thought we’d introduce ourselves briefly with a bit more information later on in the email.
Basically we’re a membership-based screening series. We’ll screen amazing contemporary films—typically still on their festival run—fortnightly on Tuesday at 7pm at The Elizabeth Picture Theatre. Once you’re a member, you can attend these screenings for free, and we’ve done our best to keep prices as low as possible with joining fees ranging from $30 (six months concession) to $100 (annual regular). Membership is available online or at The Elizabeth box office counter.
Next Screening
Flux Gourmet | Peter Strickland | 7pm, Tuesday 12 July at The Elizabeth
An absurdist comedy by auteur Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio, The Duke of Burgundy, In Fabric) that delves further into his obsessive kinks with food, sensual recordings, ‘70s filmmaking and art.
At an institute run by the overpowering Jan (Gwendoline Christie) and devoted to culinary and alimentary performance, a collective led by Elle di Elle (Fatma Mohamed, in role perfectly created to exploit her tics and comic timing) finds themselves embroiled in power struggles, artistic vendettas and gastrointestinal disorders in a dream setting for Peter Strickland’s increasing turn to comedy. One of the key films of Berlinale 2022.
With thanks to Peter Strickland and Arcadia Films.
More information on Container
Just thought we should note our existence. We’re Container: Brisbane Film Society, a new screening series for Brisbane showcasing key contemporary films and moving image works which would otherwise not be screened in Brisbane. These screenings will be held fortnightly on Tuesday evenings—so no awkward overlaps with the Cinémathèque screenings or exhibition openings.
Basically we’ll act like a festival, but spread throughout the year so we can build a community—at least arrange catchups—and be less rushed when screening films.
We’re membership-based. Which basically means if you’re a member you can attend our screenings for free.* Membership links and information are on our website, and we’ve done our best to keep fees low if needed.
*except for a few hypothetical screenings with unexpected technical requirements which we haven’t even planned yet.
2022
12 July: Peter Strickland’s Flux Gourmet
26 July: Joana Pimenta & Adirley Queirós’ Dry Ground Burning
9 August: Rhayne Vermette’s Ste. Anne
23 August: Lucile Hadžihalilović’s Earwig
6 September: João Pedro Rodrigues’ Will o the Wisp
20 September: Gasper Noé’s Lux Æterna (presented in partnership with Static Vision)
4 October: Michelangelo Frammartino’s Il Buco
We haven’t announced our entire lineup for the year because we want to maintain some flexibility—maybe for new films yet to debut or opportunistic nabbings of visiting directors. We’ll normally be a bit coyer about confirmed but unscheduled screenings but some include A New Old Play (Qiu Jiongjiong), the 3D A Woman Escaped (Sofia Bohdanowicz, Burak Çevik & Blake Williams, Circumstantial Pleasures (Lewis Klahr), Expedition Content (Ernst Karel & Veronika Kusumaryati), Happer’s Comet (Tyler Taormina), maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore (Sky Hopinka), La Nature (Artavazd Peleshian), Pacificition (Albert Serra), Topology of Sirens (Jonathan Davies), Urthworks (Ben Rivers), as well as films by Zachary Epcar, Pedro Neves Marques, Michael Robinson, Apichatpong Weerasethakul and a live expanded performance by Richard Tuohy and Diana Barrie. Plus a few other things.
Locarno Film Festival has announced its lineup for 2022.
Until recently, Locarno has been one of the must-watch festivals of the international festival circuit. Though unable to match the power and support of Cannes or Venice, Locarno was nimbly guided by artistic director Carlo Chatrian, presenting world premieres of some of the most artistically exciting cinema emerging—whether from gallery, experimental or arthouse backgrounds—burnishing the reputation of both the festival and its filmmakers. This success likely informed Chatrian’s appointment to the larger Berlinale but has left the festival at an impasse. Chatrian’s immediate successor Lili Hinstin left after two years citing “strategic differences”, programmers were let go, and films already confirmed for the next festival had their invitations rescinded. Hinstin’s successor Giano Nazzaro—with the board’s support—has pushed for a more genre, populist approach to art cinema, but this cuts against the festival’s existing identity and its broader place within the festival circuit (i.e. just because it wants world premieres of shiny art titles, doesn’t mean it is powerful enough to get them.) This has lead to a split between potentially genre titles like last year’s Mad God and Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash and the more niche titles available to Locarno.
And yet! We are still highly interested in their lineup—ably listed in full over at Notebook. Titles that we will be paying close attention to include:
Human Flowers of the Flesh (pictured, Helena Wittman’s ambitious followup to her breakthrough Drift, but also we love its name)
Petrol (Australia’s Alena Lodkina following up Strange Colours QFF2018 which will then immediately play at MIFF2022)
It Is Night in America (Brazilian experimental filmmaker Ana Vaz with her feature debut)
Where Is This Street? or With No Before or After (by João Pedro Rodrigues and his regular collaborator João Rui Guerra da Mata—We’re screening Rodrigues’ Cannes 2022 title Will o the Wisp on 6 September and his prior film The Ornithologist was one of our favourite works of QFF2016 and the year in general. We like his work.
The Australian Cinémathèque’s Larisa Shepitko and Jane Campion retrospectives
We want to give a quick shout out to GoMA’s current retrospective’s of the pioneering filmmakers Jane Campion and Larisa Shepitko. One of the key Soviet filmmakers of the ‘60’s and ‘70s, Shepitko’s work is particularly important to see since so little of it—bar her most famous work The Ascent—circulates on home media or even DCP. To have the opportunity to see so many of them on imported 35mm is a rare opportunity. For those looking for a bit more background on her work, GoMA has a talk on her work at 2:15pm this afternoon from Monash’s Emeritus Professor of Ukrainian Studies Marko Pavlyshyn. All screenings are free.
Thank you. We hope to catch you on Tuesday and the following email will contain more new on our 26 July screening of Dry Ground Burning, an exciting docufiction work about Brazilian oil pirates that blurs immersive portraiture of Pedro Costa with the genre touches of Mad Max or Assault on Precinct 13.