Mary Stephen: Artist in Residence, August - September 2011
Mary Stephen is an accomplished film editor, best known as Eric Rohmer’s long time collaborator. Initially an assistant to Cecile Decugis (the editor for Godard’s Breathless) since The Aviator's Wife (1981), Stephen became Rohmer's Chief Editor in the early 90s with Winter's Tale and all the subsequent Rohmer films up to the last one, The Romance of Astrea and Celadon (2006). In the last few years she also works in Turkey, Canada and China, on films such as Du Haibin’s 1428 (MIFF 2010), a prize-winner at the Venice Film Festival and Lixin Fan's Last Train Home, Grand Prize winner at IDFA, Hüseyin Karabey's My Marlon and Brando, prize winner at Tribeca. She joined Griffith Film School in 2011 as Artist in Residence.
During her time at Griffith Film School, Mary worked with the 2nd and 3rd Year Undergraduates, Honours and Postgraduate Screen Media and Animation Students on a range of topics and skills including editing and story narrative.
During her term here - August to September 2011 - Mary also presented her work through the Essential Cinema program with complete films that she edited from France, Turkey and China. The GFS Cinema lunch time and special VIP evening screenings were very well received by invited VIP guests, staff and students. Her latest work, Seren Yüce’s Majority (Lion of Future, Venice Film Festival 2010), that was presented at the Melbourne International Film Festival 2011, was also screened during her time at Griffith Film School.
Mary on her time at GFS:
I wanted to use this time at GFS to open students up to influences from other cultures and other methods of filmmaking; to encourage them to be more aware of the world and the times in which they live, and to make films that will have meaning for themselves and for others.
Time Out Hong Kong Interview (2009) Reel Life: Mary Stephen
Screen Hub Interview (2011) MIFF 2011: Ace Editor Reveals Wonderful Career
Alberto Sciamma: Artist in Residence, March - April 2011
Alberto Sciamma is a producer, writer and director of feature films and other media. As a feature director he has worked from conception, writing, visualisation, planning and storyboarding - to production, special effects, shooting and editing.
He started his film work producing and directing music videos for Mute Records, Rhythm King and Palace Pictures, working mainly with cutting-edge independent British bands and for a new wave of Spanish artists including Nitzer Ebb, Diamanda Galas, Thomas Felman, Rude Girl and many others.
‘The Killer Tongue’ was Alberto's first feature as writer/director; an "off the wall, over the fence and far beyond" (as Variety described it) horror comedy starring the three kings of Horror at the time: Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger, of Nightmare on Elm Street fame), Melinda Clarke (Spawn) and Doug Bradley (Pinhead, Hellraiser movies). The cast also included Jonathan Rhys-Meyers and a few renowned London transvestites.
Shot in Spain, the film won the Best Actress Award for Melinda Clarke at The Sitges International Festival of Fantastic Cinema 1996, Best Special Effects for Image Animation at the Fantasporto Film Festival 1997, and Best Director at the XVII Fanta Festival Rome 1997. The movie was also nominated for the Spanish Goyas (the equivalent of the BAFTAs). Since then ‘The Killer Tongue’ (aka ‘La Lengua Asesina’) has become a loved and hated cult classic, inspiring fan sites, designers, comic book artist, and even musicians to adopt its name.
Alberto has since worked on the supernatural thriller ‘Anazapta’ and his third feature film ‘Jericho Mansions’, a surreal thriller set and shot Canada and Spain was nominated for Best Film at the Montreal World Film Festival in 2003 and also at the Hollywood Festival in the same year.
Having worked in Tokyo on conceptualising and developing an animated movie based on the popular manga caracter ‘Gon’ by Masashi Tanaka, Alberto's skills were of use to our animation students too.
Alberto's comments on his time at Griffith Film School:
My task was to take the students and make them see film from a genre point of view, so they could learn the language of film making with out the entrapment of naturalistic film making. I wanted them to digest and assimilate what a shot means, what script writing means, how to run a set, how a movie evolves from words on a page to shooting to editing and sound -- how to hit the targets, how to redefine their ideas according to film grammar. It was a great experience and many great shorts where created. I believe that once they felt free to express what they wanted everything worked. We had comedies and horror and thrillers and zombies -- and at the end we had students with wide opened eyes…
Victor De Sousa: Artist in Residence, 2010
Victor is a Timorese film maker who, prior to a number of casual jobs, studied at the Dili private art school Arte Moris.
Initially he worked to become a painter but with the arrival of the Spanish designer/film maker David Palazon at the school, Victor moved into film. When David left to join the Academy of Creative Industries project and work with the Dili design practice IDA (who had a burgeoning film making facility), Victor joined him and this is where he now works.
Besides his major work to date - Uma Lulik - Victor has make a number of short films and worked on several more. His work has been shown in a number of film festivals, including in Mozambique.
As a result of this quality of Victor's work on the Uma Lulik film in Timor-Leste, and via his association with Griffith Univeristy, Queensland College of Art Professor Tony Fry (working on the Timor Creative Industries project), Victor was invited to come to work as an 'Artist in Residence' at Griffith Film School for two months in 2010.
The visit was specifically to develop his skills, especially in editing and animation, and he worked with fellow student Xin Li for this purpose. During this experience he proved himself to be an absolutely dedicated filmmaker.
The film Uma Lulik (PDF 2.5MB), that he focused on while at Griffith Film School, was screened at the 2011 Brisbane International Film Festival and was voted #3 on the Showtime Movie Channels Top Ten awards from the festival, as judged by the 2011 audience.
Victor De Sousa's film Uma Lulik at the Brisbane International Film Festival.
Uma Lulik Premiere at Brisbane International Film Festival 2011. Introduction and post-screening Q&A session featuring Victor de Sousa (director), David Palazon (producer) and Joao Ferrer (producer), makers of the film Uma Lulik, the first feature made in Timor-Leste by a young Timorese filmmaker.
Q&A filming by Luke Monsour