It ’s a bloody slow burner alright. Streetsweeper will screen in January 2009 at the Bridgetown Film Festival. That’s not Bridgetown the capital of Barbados, but Bridgetown that is just about equidistant between Manjimup, Dardanup and Darradup in the south west of Western Australia. It’ll be the first time that the film has headed west since it’s premiere at Revelation in Perth in 2007.

We managed to make it onto the back page of the Australian today under the title “Poetry of the micro movie”, with an announcment about our award in Alsaka and with a vaguely inflamatory comment, which is good. Yesterday we got a mention in the Herald as “Street Sleeper” and also a spot on the news feed at IF magazine’s website…

I’ve also been passed on a link to this Alaskan Blog called “What Do I Know?” which has some very interesting writing about seeing the film and the very nature of Streetsweeper as a different film experience.

“Streetsweeper can be seen as a visual concert. Just as the symphony is sounds without verbal content, this was a series of visual images (with the added sense of sound). In his visual composition, Mansfield challenges us to look at things so ordinary that they have become invisible.”

The blog also features a 15 minute clip of Neil as silouhette talking about the film. Thanks for the heads up go to Neil’s brother Alan… TR

We’re in the Anchorage International Film Festival, Alaska, USA. Take in a nice breath of cool fresh air… NM

Go to: http://www.anchoragefilmfestival.org

We’ve had some good feedback from Anchorage Film Festival in Alaska. Although we’re not invited yet, it’s great to get some encouragement from foreign shores…

Hi Toby,

Tony

It may be that our film will have a further life in festivals after all!

We made the film, against the odds — and we thought it was a festival film, but now it’s obvious it isn’t — so we are going to tour & screen the film ourselves, soon-ish, in make-shift fly-by-night grass-roots venues. From Brisbane to Adelaide. Any ideas where & for whom?

Nm

brisbane international film festival have sent us our last australian rejection. beautiful one day perfect the ¬¬ ˚ ˚˙ ˙˙ zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz……………………………

We got rejected by Melbourne International Film Festival yesterday. I’m used to it by now. Radio National had a bit on their film show about how much competition there is between Scurvy Sydney and Miserable Melbourne film festivals. Turned out largely to be about who showed what first – because they all want the same hot films from European festivals… and to dig up some good films from the past for their repertory screenings. Guaranteed bums on seats I gather. All the best hits from the 60’s 70’s and 80’s anyone?

Three nasty clowns who don’t like our film!

It seems we sit between the devil of the big corporate festival and the deep blue sea of the ramshackled underground.

Our last screening in Melbourne was at Melbourne Underground Film Festival last year. I was really excited about the festival and went down to attend the screening. It was a cold wet night and we went to a cool small place called the Glitch Bar… Things seemed to be shaping up well. No-one was around from MUFF, so we had a beer and settled in to wait for the play – on before the films – to finish. As it the place emptied of theatre patrons the fellow from MUFF arrived. He was flustered and wet and had raced from another screening to get there and start the session.

He had, however, forgotten to bring a copy of our film – or the film we were a double bill with…! I was surprised, but dug through my bag to find a copy of Streetsweeper to hand him. We got the fifteen or so punters in the door and started the film… he stayed for a quick beer and left! I was disappointed with the quality of the projection, (a bit of a greeny purpley hue) and disappointed with the sound, (low and muffled) – but at least they took a chance on us and screened the film – unlike the cursed Dreary Dungog, Miserable Melbourne and damn Scurvy Dog Sydney.

Festival Tally:

44 Rejections
4 Invitations – Revelation 2007, MUFF 2007, This Not Art 2007 and Filmstock 2007 in the UK

We’re still waiting on Moscow, Brisbane, (both similar I know) and a couple in Italy… We’re bound to get one! Aren’t we? TR

I love the idea of film festivals. The romantic idea that they are a place where cinema might matter.

We are waiting on a final few before completing the festival cycle – but we have had 43 rejections. No interest at all from any “local” film festivals. Dungog and Sydney both rejected the film. I called and emailed SFF, and was not even replied to. We had a last minute glimmer of an offer from Dungog, but they seem content showing mostly films that have been in general release at Hoyts.

More and more I feel that the festival circuit is a pile of shit. The open entry system appears to be merely a paper pushing facade for an actual selection process that depends entirely on whom the filmmakers, and more importantly their distributors know.

I’ve wasted an enormous amount of time learning this and entering all these festivals. I don’t mind that they are a commercial and corporate concern, but I wish that they would drop the charade and simply select the films that they are lobbied to do – be open and transparent in their festival marketing and branding exercise. I would be shocked if any festival accepted our film now. It’s a good film. Real Australian Cinema. Audiences like it, and I am the harshest critic.

At least I know that the next film we make should be gently inserted into the rectum of the festival director over a long lunch – and then we’ll be getting somewhere… TR

I just sat on a panel for Megan Spencer’s Destination Film Festival, talking about the internet and filmmaking. It was pretty exciting. I think that Megan is trying to start a revolution in the Australian filmmaking community. This involves screening a cool film or ten, inviting a diverse bunch of bodies to chat and field questions on any given topic to do with our chosen art or craft, and then getting the whole mob down at the pub to talk and drink together.

The pub is the important part. Inevitable excitable exchanges take place, but the jist of it all is that – we ‘young’ and younger filmmakers can get together and help each other with knowhow and encouragement, and just the rare feeling that we are not all alone in our little isolated worlds. The rough consensus seems to be that the old models do not work for us, and that we need to reinvent the system to suit ourselves, rather than wrestling it from the hands of the babyboomer gatekeepers in their death throws.

This presents us with a situation that is both exciting and daunting. We now have the technology to make a film like Streetsweeper in three days, and, with the financial goodwill of our friends and allies, we use this new freedom to liberate the medium of filmmaking, big or small, for a renaissance in the biggest small country in the world. It’s a grand ambition, but then – why the fuck not? Let’s do it.

Thanks Megan. You’re a bloody champ. TR

Shots from Destination Film Festival at Carriageworks