Thursday night saw the opening of the 30th annual St Kilda Film Festival, where attendees saw auteurs flex their creativity muscles via nine bite-sized tastes of what the festival has to offer. The Palais Theatre was alight as crowds poured in and took to their seats. Musician Tim Rogers hosted the event and introduced an array of speakers including Port Phillip mayor, Amanda Stevens and Paul Harris, a long standing patron of the festival.
Harris, mulling over what the theme of the night was to be, postulated that it “might be…metal” and with films like Barbarion – My Rock by Dave Budge: an escalating ode to rock music reminiscent of Macualay Culkin in Black or White, and Death of a Bogan by Nick Mathews: a tongue in cheek account of an actor playing a bogan in Adelaide, he looked to be on the money. Other films like Ruby by Summer DeRoche and Scratch by Danielle Boesenburg strummed on heart strings while Explosions by Christopher Frey held the audience captive for a ransom of intrigue with its mesmerising visuals and ambiguous story line. However it was Julian by Mathew Moore that seemed to be the crowd favourite, portraying a neat school boy who gets in trouble for “dobbing”.
This is the only year that the festival has run for ten days rather than a week but that doesn’t mean you have time to dawdle. Head along to one of the festival’s many events, whether it’s SoundKILDA or catching a top 100 flick on the biggest screen in the southern hemisphere at the Astor. With a directorial line up this good, who doesn’t have time for a short film?
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