AFW + NFSA #62: Night Terrors. Films by Friedrich, Moffatt, Potter

Tues 30 January 2024
Doors 8pm for 8:15 start
The Brunswick Green, 313/315 Sydney Road, Brunswick.
Duration 64 mins. 16mm projection. $10 tix on the door.

Step into the New Year with AFW with an evening of haunting, dream-like visions by seminal postmodern feminist filmmakers Sally Potter, Su Friedrich and Tracey Moffatt. 

Gently Down the Stream

Su Friedrich, 1981, 14 min.

“A haunting succession of oneiric images and hand-scratched texts (drawn from the filmmaker's dream journal) take the viewer on a disconcerting voyage down a stream of consciousness. The dreams flash by word by word, rhythmically dramatizing deep psychical disturbances dealing with questions of female identity, religion and sexuality, while the flickering photographic imagery, including images of a woman at a rowing machine, suggests 'life is but a dream’.” NFSA.

Su Friedrich is an American avant-garde film director, producer, writer, and cinematographer. She has been a leading figure in avant-garde filmmaking and a pivotal force in the establishment of Queer Cinema

Night Cries
Tracey Moffatt, 1990, 17 min.

“In the red glow of the outback an Aboriginal woman nurses her ill white mother. As we watch the old woman dying her daughter confronts the finality of death; the bitterness of memory. Shot entirely in a studio “Night cries” uses a stark set-design, a palette of colours as from a dream, and a haunting soundtrack: of bush noises, gasping breath, the wail of a dingo, to suggest a world that combines the frightening distortion of a nightmare and the painful isolation of human loss. Subtitled “a rural tragedy” the film’s portrayal of a personal agony illuminates and exposes the general horror of Australia’s race history. With Marcia Langton, Agnes Hardwick and Jimmy Little.” ACMI.

Tracey Moffatt AO is an Indigenous Australian artist who primarily uses photography and video. In 2017 she represented Australia at the 57th Venice Biennale with her solo exhibition, "My Horizon".

Thriller
Sally Potter, 1979, 33 min.

“A feminist study in which Puccini's opera La Boheme is examined in terms of its narrative, ideological, imagistic and musical content. Creates a narrative using the cinematic conventions associated with the 'suspense' or 'thriller' genre to examine the death of Mimi. Music featured is La Boheme by Puccini and Psycho by Bernard Herrman.” NFSA.

Charlotte Sally Potter OBE is an English film director and screenwriter. She is best known for directing Orlando, which won the audience prize for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival.

We acknowledge that this event will be taking place on Wurundjeri Land. We pay our respects to their elders past, present and emerging.