![]() ![]() Things are so long ago it is hard to recall details but I ended up being a Volunteer at the Brisbane International Film Festival. I think I had to fill out a form from their website and submit it to their office. ![]() Mike was steering me towards good things again. I knew I had to start getting out there if I wanted to land a job so I put my hand up. I was getting 23 going on 24 and in the last year of my university studies in arts. A year went past and Mike suggested that I go and volunteer at the film festival. In a very real way they were my 20s along with another friend called Rachel. There are two men outside of my family that I admire deeply for their moral courage and loyalty. Mike, another friend Tim and I met each other at Scouts long ago but as that came to a close along with high school our friendship deepened. The Fog of War at the Schonell, Sideways and The Secretary at Palace Centro, Bowling for Columbine and Napoleon Dynamite at Dendy George Street, Murderball at Indooroopilly. Mike with whom I would go with or have come along with to see foreign films, documentaries and independent cinema while gushing over the new auteurs of blockbusters. Mike who dragged us to the west side of town to see Inception, the first feature from Christopher Nolan. Mike who championed American History X and High Fidelity to me. Mike who brought a DVD of The Station Agent, Dr Strangelove, Cube and Contestant 7 to my house. I had been brought along by my friend Mike. Also falling asleep would remain a tradition too. It set the stage for my film festival going where not every film you see is a great one but they sure are trying. I went to see Gerry in a morning session on the weekend and subsequently fell asleep during a few minutes in the third act. In 2009 I went to the Regent and purchased some post cards that were being sold and signed a petition for it not to be destroyed. Ahead of the lobby was Regent 1 and 1 and bar on the first floor. Alternatively up a grand staircase made of Queensland marble led to Regent 3 and 4 which had been built in the 1970s and looked it. In Melbourne a similar Regent cinema was remodelled into a live theatre complex and is doing very well as a grand venue. A redevelopment in the 1970s broke the original theatre into 4 but much of the old grandeur remained when I passed through the lobby in the early part of this century. That lobby was heritage listed in 1992 and remains but the Regent as I knew it has been lost. The Regent Theatre was built in the 1920s in the American style of the then popular picture palaces. Two of my oldest dearest friends and I went to see the movie Gerry at the festival that year at the Regent Cinemas. I didn’t cross paths with the festival until 2003. The first Brisbane International Film Festival was in 1992 screening 43 films. How can I do that justice? What should I include or omit? What is private and what is too interesting not to share? What you read here may or may not be the entire truth but I will try to evoke the wonder of having a hometown film festival. I met my wife at BIFF, I volunteered at BIFF, saw over 20 movies at one BIFF and my history with it is just a small part of a much larger tapestry. There’s a wealth of thoughts and memories that I wanted to write about that I wouldn’t be surprised if these posts just become a jumbled mess. ![]() Both opening and closing film directors have previously won the New Currents Awards at Busan.The Brisbane International Film Festival returns this year and I couldn’t be happier. Korean romance film Moonlit Winter, directed by newcomer Lim Dae-hyung, will close the festival. The 24th Busan International Film Festival (BIFF) will open with Kazakhstani western The Horse Thieves, Roads of Time organizers announced on Wednesday.Ĭo-directed by Kazakhstan’s Yerlan Nurmukhambetov and Japan’s Lisa Takeba, The Horse Thieves stars 2018 Cannes Film Festival best actress Samal Yeslyamova and tells the story of gangsters who murder the father of a young family and steal the herd of horses that belonged to the village. ![]()
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