• Dr Paolo Cherchi Usai has this month taken up the role of Director of ScreenSound Australia, the National Screen and Sound Archive. Dr Cherchi Usai is one of the world's leading and most knowledgeable authorities on audiovisual archiving and has made a major contribution to international cinema culture as an archivist, curator, academic, teacher, author and festival director. In the midst of an intensive program of orientation to the Archive and its activities and to the AFC in general, one of Dr Cherchi Usai's first official duties was to open the Archive's 20th anniversary exhibition Take '84 on 16 September in Canberra.


• The Archive celebrates its 20th aniversary with its latest exhibition Take '84. In 1984 the Australian Government created the National Film and Sound Archive, and 20 years later, as ScreenSound Australia, the Archive is paying tribute to those heady times in its new exhibition, Take '84. All members of the public are welcome to visit the exhibition which is running until April 2005.


• The Sydney office of ScreenSound Australia, the National Screen and Sound Archive will begin operating from new and upgraded purpose-built facilities at the Australian Film Commission offices from Wednesday 27 October 2004. The move is much awaited by Sydney Archive staff who, for the first time, will have a sealed film-handling area, a cool room (with a nitrate safe), and sound-proofed viewing rooms ready to take advantage of digital delivery technologies. The current Sydney Archive office based at Fox Studios will close at 5.30 pm on Wednesday 20 October. The new office will open a week later at 9.00 am on Wednesday 27 October 2004 at the AFC offices, Level 4, 150 William Street, Woolloomooloo. Archive Director, Paolo Cherchi Usai, said moving to the new premises will be an exciting time for the Archive, "The custom-built facilities in Sydney offer the Archive unprecedented potential for increased development of the collection and enhanced collection access to all Australians".


• Continuing our series on low-budget feature filmmaking, Carole Sklan interviews Lone Scherfig about her low-budget Dogme film Italian for Beginners and Jackie McKimmie speaks to British screenwriter Tony Grisoni about his collaboration with Michael Winterbottom on the extraordinary documentary-drama In This World (2002).

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• The Indigenous Unit is expanding the opportunities it provides for Indigenous filmmakers through a new program to develop feature film ideas. LONG BLACK is a strategic initiative aimed at encouraging and supporting Indigenous filmmakers to work in the longer format, and to bring to the screen feature stories authored and crafted by Indigenous people. Deadline 19 November.
  
• The following AFC funding round deadlines are coming up in October and November:
  Film Development
  1 October: Strand J - Seed Funding, Strand K - Project Development, Strand F - Low-budget Feature Development
  8 October: Strand V - Early Development Funding
  15 October: Strand L - Shooting Time-Critical Material
  22 October: Strand D - Draft Funding
  27 October: Fellowships
  5 November: General Development Investment
  19 November: Strand L - Shooting Time-Critical Material
  Indigenous
  8 October: Drama Development - Features and Short Features
  19 November: Long Black - Feature Development
  26 November: Documentary Development
  Industry and Cultural Development
  5 October: National Touring Exhibition Fund and Events and Activities Fund


• AFC funding approvals.

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• The Berlin Co-Production Market is going into its second year in 2005. The two-day initiative for co-productions is currently calling for submissions until 5 November. The third Berlin Talent Campus is also calling for entries, applications close on 1 November. October/November deadlines are also coming up for the Rotterdam, Clermont-Ferrand, Goteborg, Cinema Du Reel, Berlin and Aspen film festivals. For help with your festival strategy, visit International Festival Profiles


• A new print of the rarely seen 1974 Australian cult classic film, Pure Shit (aka Pure S), screened at the Museum of Sydney 25-26 September as part of the Drugs on Film program being run by the Historic Houses Trust. Presented by ScreenSound Australia, the National Screen and Sound Archive, Pure Shit is one of 50 Australian feature films being restored by the Archive as part of its Kodak/Atlab Cinema Collection.


• Preparations are underway for the Australian presence at MIPCOM (4-8 October) with over 64 Australians attending the market in France. The AFC has again produced a booklet called Australians at MIPCOM 2004, which contains company information and details of projects taken to the market. The booklet will be available at the AFC stand and will be an invaluable marketing tool both during and after the market.


• Maryanne Redpath, Preselector for the Berlin International Film Festival visited Australia in September to view feature films for potential selection into the 2005 festival. The AFC organised a program for her including feature screenings, meetings with filmmakers and industry stakeholders, and festival talks in Melbourne and Sydney.


• There will be an Australian focus at this year's Pusan Film Festival (7-15 October). Four Australian films have been selected to screen at the festival including the features Human Touch (dir. Paul Cox) and Tom White (dir. Alkinos Tsilimidos), the feature documentary Letters to Ali (dir. Clara Law) and the short animation Birthday Boy (dir. Sejong Park). The directors of the films selected will attend the festival and the Australia Korea Foundation, the Australian Embassy in Seoul and the AFC are co-hosting a 'Celebrate Australia' gala night during the festival.


• The Big Screen tour continues to blaze a trail through new venues. After a very successful show in Bathurst, the tour has returned to Malanda (in far north Queensland) and Yeppoon (north coast Qld) for the fourth consecutive year in each. Yeppoon kicked off with an opening night outdoor extravaganza which attracted over 1,200 people, while Malanda ran in the beautiful historic Majestic Theatre and enjoyed a great weekend with festival guest Dan Spielman. From Malanda, Big Screen moved down the Queensland coast to Hervey Bay where the response was fantastic, with audiences enjoying both a Rolf de Heer retrospective and Big Screen's ever popular archive program. At time of going to press Big Screen is mid way through its first season on the Gold Coast where a Paul Cox retrospective, an Australian Horror triple bill and a programme of St Kilda shorts are playing. Big Screen has also recently completed two great seasons in Darwin and Broome. Darwin played host to Rolf de Heer, with a rare screening of Bad Boy Bubby, and Adam Elliot with Harvie Krumpet. Adam also visited schools to discuss his Oscar experience and animation in general. In Broome's historic Sun Picture Gardens, Michael Caton presented the Australian comedy classic The Castle. Also screening was The Finished People and 70s flicks Crystal Voyager and The Man From Hong Kong from the Kodak/Atlab collection. Next up Barcladine (Qld), then on to Warrnambool (Vic), Mildura (Vic), Victor Harbor (SA) and Burnie (Tas).


• The Embassy Roadshow is a travelling film festival that showcases a selection of contemporary Australian films through Australian embassies. It is an initiative of the Australia International Cultural Council, managed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the AFC. During August, Roadshow events were held in South Africa (Pretoria, Cape Town and Johannesburg) and Kathmandu, Nepal. The Embassy in South Africa reported a very successful event with 12 of the 16 screenings in Johannesburg sold out despite the Olympics competing for audience at the same time.


• The Sentimental Bloke will screen in Melbourne on Tuesday 26 October at the RMIT Capitol Theatre, to be followed by a reception for invited guests in the Swanston Room at Melbourne Town Hall. The screening will be presented as part of a two-week screen culture event, Melbourne On Screen, co-ordinated by Film Victoria. The screening will be introduced by AFC Chair, Maureen Barron; Archive Director, Paolo Cherchi Usai and President of Film Victoria, John Howie.


• The Sentimental Bloke will also be screening with live musical accompaniment as part of the Bangalow Outdoor Film Festival (BOFF) 2004. The festival will screen in the Bangalow Showground 1-9 October.


• Australian films have received 10 international awards since July 2004, including Chris Kennedy's feature A Man's Gotta Do which won the Golden Zenith at the Montreal World Film Festival. Australian animations have also received international acclaim including the AFC-funded animation, Ward 13 by Peter Cornwell which picked up a special mention at Canada's internationally acclaimed Ottawa Animation Festival in September. Read more about Recent International Awards.


• Australian films have enjoyed a strong international presence since July 2004. View the Recent International Screenings of Australian films at key events, including 4 in Toronto, 8 in both Edinburgh and Ottawa, 12 in Montreal and 25 short films in Palm Springs.

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• The Chinese Government has approached the Australian Government to discuss the possibility of forming closer relations in terms of film productions and is interested in formalising a co-production treaty with Australia. The AFC hosted a national Chinese delegation from Beijing in September to begin discussions about co-production arrangements between the two countries. The week-long visit to Australia included two days in Sydney, one day in Canberra and two days in Melbourne.


• The annual conference of the Australian Screen Directors Association (ASDA) was held 3-5 September at the Sydney College of the Arts, Rozelle. Read AFC Research Assistant Asha Ardill's report on the conference.

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• The AFC's new statistics publication, Australia's Audiovisual Markets, is now available. This free 96-page magazine-style publication is the first of a new series of printed reports which feature key data from Get the Picture Online. Covering Australia's cinema, video, TV and interactive media markets, its graphic style and short chunks of information are designed to complement the detailed data available online. There are also articles by industry commentators and 'Eye on the Future' sections which foreshadow the impact of new technologies and services. Download from Get the Picture Online or order a copy from publishing@afc.gov.au


• The AFC's Recent Australian TV Drama and Documentary Catalogue September 2004 will be launched at MIPCOM. The catalogue provides information on recently completed documentaries and television drama in production and recently completed. The AFC's new booklet Australians at MIPCOM 2004 will also be launched at the festival. Copies of both publications will be available in mid October from the AFC.


• Women Working in Television will launch their new publication Tuned Into Leadership - women and television at their annual cocktail party to be held on Monday 18 October at The Wharf Restaurant in Sydney. Liz Deep Jones - presenter, SBS Toyota World Sports will MC the event and AFC Chair, Maureen Barron will launch the booklet. The guest speaker at the event will be Sue Masters, Head of Drama at Network Ten, who has also provided the key case study in the publication.

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• ScreenSound Australia is internationally recognised for its dedicated research into many aspects of audiovisual media conservation and preservation. In the Photographic Conservation Research at ScreenSound Australia paper, Mick Newnham and Carey Garvie present an overview of the Archive's research projects and summarise their findings on the behaviour of gelatin as it relates to the conservation of photographic materials.


• Are you looking for details of a particular Australian film title - feature, short, TV drama or documentary? The Searchable Film Database includes Australian and co-produced features, TV drama and documentaries from 1990 and shorts from 1998. It is now updated on the AFC website each month.


• Upcoming Production Report.


• Latest updates to Get the Picture Online industry statistics.

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• Farewell to Legal Assistant Malina Reeves and welcome to Dr Paolo Cherchi Usai, new Director of ScreenSound Australia, the National Screen and Sound Archive, and Legal Co-ordinator Richard Cohen.


• Current Positions vacant include Administration Assistant - Indigenous Unit.

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• The Big Screen 2004 regional tour of Australian films heads to Katherine (NT), Barcaldine (Qld), Warrnambool (Vic) and Mildura (Vic) in October and Victor Harbor (SA) and Burnie (Tas) in November.


• The Australian features Bondi Tsunami, Letters to Ali, A Man's Gotta Do, Somersault and Tom White are screening in October-November so keep an eye out for them at your local cinema.


• Electrofringe is an electronic, digital and media arts festival dedicated to unearthing emergent forms, highlighting nascent trends and encouraging young and developing artists to explore technology and its creative possibilities. Held in Newcastle from 30 September to 4 October, Electrofringe sees more than 80 national and international filmmakers and digital artists participate in exhibitions, screenings and workshops. For further information visit the Electrofringe website www.electrofringe.org


• GameTime a major international event dedicated to the latest in games development, interactive entertainment and networked media will be held in Melbourne from 1 October to 14 November at the State Library of Victoria and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image (ACMI). For further information visit the GameTime website www.gametime.net.au


• MAAP: Multimedia Art Asia Pacific is an organisation and festival that explores New Media Art. Exhibitions are running in Brisbane from 1 October-28 November, while the conference and festival focus week takes place 27-31 October.


• AFC-funded music drama The Widower LIVE will be screening 8-11 October at ACMI cinemas as part of the Melbourne International Arts Festival. Evening screenings will see the soundtrack to the film performed live on stage by guitarist Slava Grigoryan and tenor Lyndon Terracini. For bookings phone ACMI (03) 8663 2583 or visit www.melbournefestival.com.au.


• The 5th Brisbane International Animation Festival (BIAF) will be running from 14-17 October.


• The X|Media|Lab 3000 Professional Day Conference will be held at ACMI, Federation Square on 22 October.


• Seven AFC-funded films have been nominated for the 2004 Australian Writers' Guild AWGIE Awards: the documentary, The Fall of the House; short features Floodhouse, Preservation and Lennie Cahill Shoots Through; and features The Finished People, Somersault and Peaches. Hosted by Tony Squires, the AWGIE awards will be held on Friday 22 October at the Plaza Ballroom, Regent Theatre, Melbourne. Visit the AWGIE Awards website for a full list of nominees.


• Presenting a unique showcase of films made by women, where stories are told and the world is seen from a women's point of view, the World of Women (WOW) International Film Festival is running 22-24 October. Visit www.wift.org/wow for program details.


• The Document Music Film Festival will be running in Adelaide and Melbourne 22-24 October 2004; and Brisbane, Sydney and Perth 29-31 October.


• The Melbourne Writers' Muster will be at ACMI, Federation Square 23-24 October. Confirmed speakers include acclaimed Australian screenwriter and playwright, Andrew Bovell (Lantana and Strictly Ballroom) and Karen Lutz, co-writer of Legally Blonde, 10 Things I Hate About You and Ella Enchanted. The Melbourne Writers' Muster is a part of the Australian Writers' Guild's Text and the City and Melbourne on Screen. For more information and to download a brochure and booking form visit the Australian Writers' Guild website.


• The 2005 Australian International Documentary Conference (AIDC) will be held in Adelaide, SA. Based on the theme Common Ground, New Horizons the 2005 AIDC will focus on international co-production and the potential new delivery platforms are offering the documentary maker today. Early bird registration closes 1 December 2004. To register go to www.aidc.com.au


• The Australian International Documentary Conference 2005 screening program will be presented by the Adelaide Film festival - entries close 25 October, to enter visit www.adelaidefilmfestival and download an entry form.


• Eleven films which have received AFC funding have been nominated in non-feature catagories of the 2004 AFI Awards - feature film nominations are yet to be announced. Now in their 46th year, the AFI Awards are the premier event of Australian film culture, acknowledging excellence in a broad range of categories that cover feature film, television, documentary, short fiction and short animation. The AFI Awards will be held in Melbourne on 29 October.


• Running 30 October, confirmed speakers for the Sydney Writers' Muster include Karen Lutz, co-writer of Legally Blonde, 10 Things I Hate About You and Ella Enchanted and Deborah Cox, Andrew Knight, Roger Simpson, Andrew Upton, Christopher Lee, Tim Pye, Rick Kalowski, Stephen Hall, Vin Hedger, Jacqueline Perske, Claudia Karvan, John Safran and Mark O'Toole. The venue is yet to be confirmed, for further information phone the AWG national office on (02) 9281 1554.


• The MIPCOM, MIPCOM Junior and MIFED international markets will be running in October. See International Markets for more information.


• Digital Salon invites all digital media artists working or experimenting with interactive media, VJing, non-linear filmmaking, DVD, electronic music and projection arts to take part in their regular meetings, held the last Tuesday of each month in Sydney.


• Check out upcoming events in October at the Archive in Canberra.


• Cinematheque offers a diverse program of classic, cult, animation, experimental, documentary, silent and short films to Australian audiences all year long. For October/November screenings in your state visit the Cinematheque website.


• Voting for the 2004 IF Awards closed on Friday 24 September 2004. The awards will take place at Luna Park in Sydney on Wednesday 10 November.


• ReelDance International Dance on Screen Festival focuses on dance in everyday life. It is touring nationally until Wednesday 27 November.


• IF magazine's What's On in Film July to December 2004 guide to screen events is sponsored by the AFC.


• Other AFC-supported activities and events.

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Last issue AFC News brought you an article from the 'New York Times' (21 March 2004) on Dogme95, a school of low-budget filmmaking founded by Danish filmmaker Lars von Trier. As set out in that article, 'shooting must be done on location; the sound must never be produced apart from the images; the camera must be handheld; the film must not contain superficial action (murders, weapons, etc.); optical work and filters are forbidden'.

Here, the AFC's Carole Sklan talks to Danish filmmaker Lone Scherfig about her Dogme film Italian for Beginners' made for about US$1 million in 2000.

How did the Dogme approach influence your work?

Dogme wasn't that radical a departure from my previous work, but what was really helpful was to sign a piece of paper undertaking to be more experimental. You couldn't use the aesthetic or dramatic craft you usually use; you had to find other ways. It's like you had to cook but you couldn't cook anything you'd ever eaten before. You had to be more intuitive, to trust the story and the audience more because you were working more closely with truth and reality.

An important factor in the success of the Danish Dogme films is that they're almost all really good. I think there are 10 altogether. The directors were experienced and had reached a point in their career where they were able to use Dogme to develop a more personal voice. And of course you were so afraid of making The Bad Dogme Film or making the film that was not successful, that you worked very hard.

The success of Italian for Beginners made me feel more confident about my own taste, my treatment of characters and my own humour. It turned out other people around the world shared my sense of humour and my approach to stories. Dogme gave me the chance to find that out. It gave me the chance to make my next film, Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself, which is a less accessible and darker film.

The best book on the Dogme school is by Richard Kelly, called The Name of This Book Is Dogme95 (Faber & Faber 2001).

Thinking of Italian for Beginners, how did the budget affect the actual production?

The budget of Italian for Beginners was about €1million - about US$1 million at that time. You have to get the money you have onto the screen, so you don't spend money unless it'll be used on screen. You try to make it easy for yourself, and very often the easy solution is the good solution. If you trust the script and the audience, then you can be less controlling. And when you're more relaxed as a director, you actually notice whenever a gift from the actor, the DOP or the weather is offered. You get more humour; you pick up signals from the actors.

Three or four days into the shoot, I realised all obstacles could be considered gifts and you could adjust the process to work for you. Whenever there was any sort of physical hindrance we just used it. I wrote the film to take place in an actual town near the Zentropa film studio. The actors and the crew could walk to every location and we would discuss how to work things into the story. For example, there were physical problems with the hairdressing salon - how you lean into the sink - and this became part of the love story with the two actors. And the back story for why the old priest had to leave and the new priest arrived came out of the [Dogme] constraints on the soundtrack. The back story had the old priest throwing the organ player over the balcony so he ended up in the hospital where we could use his music.

Creativity within limitations is almost a theme for low-budget filmmaking, isn't it?

Not within the limitations, but because of the limitations. This was very much part of our education here at the National Film School of Denmark - the school almost all of us went to. Every time we got an assignment, there was a list of the conditions we had to work within. And if you don't have these conditions, you tend, as a director, to make them up for yourself. Sometimes you do it secretly and sometimes they are, of course, dictated by the budget. But the more challenging the limitations, the more elegant the solution for the story can be.

So it's about being inventive rather than just putting two characters in a room.

Every film done at the Zentropa studio tries to find an individual low-budget solution. One film that's just finishing now takes place in a small town in New Mexico in America - but it's shot on our studio lot because some of the buildings on the lot look like a little square. The director shot the whole film there with a group of very young actors and some small electronic cameras. Then he developed a look for it that's really beautiful and very original by forcing the material in the laboratory - it definitely doesn't look low budget, but it really suits the film.

[Lars von Trier's] Dogville is another good example. That film has no sets: they painted the houses on the floor of the studio with chalk, and that was it. The audience had to imagine the walls and the rooms and the furniture. We try with every film to invent some sort of solution that's right for that story - even helps the story - and gives a more original look to the film, so we don't end up with a lot of domestic drama.

Read the full interview.

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