Canberra International Film Festival 2012: Preview

Sydney and Melbourne film festivals are now so massive that it’s impossible to see even half of the best stuff on their programs. And while they unquestionably screen plenty of terrific films, it’s a general principle that once a festival program grows beyond a certain size it inevitably starts compromising its programming standards – there simply aren’t enough great films made in a given year.

With a program of 60 full-length titles – fictional features and documentaries, no shorts – Canberra International Film Festival (October 31 – November 11) is nearer to a boutique event than those behemoths. Yet while not so large as to risk freezing punters into indecision as they peruse the program, it’s nonetheless big enough to offer a stimulating event with programming variety to cater for different tastes and interests – from the hard core foreign art film buffs and the dogged schlock cultists to the casual art house film-goers that probably make up the bulk of its audience.

For local audiences the festival’s attractions are obvious, but for the out-of-towner, it has the advantage of offering a chance for catching-up on some of the standout films missed earlier in the year and seeing a few that have come along in their wake. Last year this writer for the first time travelled to the national capital for a few days at the event. The best compliment I can give it is that this year I’m planning to return.

The festival has been around for a decade and a half though for much of the time was too small to make much impact outside of its home town, but gradually under director Simon Weaving it’s been steadily growing, with last year being the biggest yet for tickets sales, with 80% of sessions sold out.

This year one of the most immediately attention-grabbing strands consists of six major prize-winning films from this year’s biggest film festivals, including Michael Haneke’s Amour (Cannes Palme d’Or), the Taviani brothers’ Caesar Must Die, the Berlin Golden Bear winner in which Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar is powerfully mounted for both camera and stage by a bunch of convicted Mafiosi and murderers. (Strangely none of these films’ awards are listed on the festival website.)

Weaving says the 2012 program has “probably fewer” films destined for future commercial cinema release than some previous years. “We’ve probably stayed a bit more film festival-pure this year. My philosophy for finding films is ‘accessible art house’ that won’t necessarily get to the cinemas.”

But surely that’s not easy, given the most accessible independent films nearly always come with a distributor attached? True, he acknowledges, but points out that sometimes the local distributor has no plans to screen their films in cinemas outside of festivals, having bought them with a DVD/download release primarily in mind. A festival screening is the only time they’ll be shown on the big screen. A notable example this year is Undefeated, a US doco about a college football team from a poor black town transformed by a new coach. The film rights are owned by a Melbourne-based distributor, Madman, but the title will not gain theatrical release.

Shopping mall multiplexes have become so globally ubiquitous that the majority of film festivals now use them as venues. CIFF’s main venue is the Dendy Cinemas, located in one of the malls at Civic, the nearest this city-without-a-centre has to a downtown. On the upside, such venues are hugely convenient, with comfortable multiple screens and ready access to food malls, cafes, parking and public transport.

On the downside they tend to make these events somewhat colourless and impersonal. Sitting in a multiplex cinema in Toronto, you might just as easily be in Busan (Korea), Berlin or, for that matter, Canberra. This explains why events such as Melbourne and Sydney, while using multiplexes, have also clung onto older venues like the former’s Forum and the latter’s State Theatre – buildings with character and atmosphere.

In Canberra that injection of personality comes from the National Film and Sound Archive, whose national HQ occupies a handsome art deco building a few minutes walk away from the Dendy. A signature of the festival is the special outdoor screenings held annually in the courtyard. Programmed this year are a couple of prime items of vintage schlock in the form of Larry Cohen’s 1982 creature feature Q. The Winged Serpent, and Robot Monster (pictured), the 1953 3D science fiction film from the Ed Wood-like Phil Tucker that’s gathered a cult following on the alleged grounds of being so-bad-it’s-good.

Cohen (also the keynote speaker in Sydney at the screen producers’ annual fringe conference) and actor Laurene Landon will be on hand to introduce and discuss a couple of retrospective strands of 1980s horror including the titles mentioned above. The strands include titles made by others that Cohen likes, and some he directed including 1988’s Maniac Cop (to be remade by Nicholas Winding Refn), a lurid tale of a cop on a killing spree replete with what Weaving describes as “lots of tacky 1980s gore”, and 1985’s The Stuff, a dark tale of an ice cream-like substance issuing from the ground that serves as “a commentary on consumerism and fast food”.

Weaving, who programs most of the festival from films he sees or picks up (in DVD form) at Cannes, says he found it hard to identify any major trends in world cinema this year, unlike 2011 when end-of-the-world and problem children kept cropping up. Instead the major trends in the festival world are the result of globalisation – most films programmed are now international co-productions, with titles from a single territory relatively rare – and changing technology.

A sign of how comprehensively digital projection has taken over is the fact that this year Canberra is screening only one film print, the rest being all from digital files. “There are huge benefits, says Weaving, who notes that most of the films at Cannes this year were also screened digitally. The festival saves on freight costs – no more bulky metal canisters of film to fly in and out, and “the image quality is dramatically improved”.

But, he adds, it has created a different problem for festivals. In the cinemas, the digital files have to be copied onto the projection system, but these have strictly limited space – a real problem for a festival screening 60 titles, mostly using the same projection box.

“We’re facing this issue right now, where we have to hold onto these films a little longer, and not delete them immediately.” In addition, this new way of doing things is inflexible. In a bid to beat piracy, codes known as ‘keys’ are needed to unlock the digital files, which dictate the film can only be screened at a particular, pre-arranged time. This is fine – until a few titles need to be swapped in the program due to unforeseen issues like a film dropping out of the program. Result: frantic phone calls to the one person overseas who can re-set the key, often at a time when they’re in bed.  Nonetheless, this is but a “teething problem” that is bound to improve. “The way out of this is for the distributors to copy the films onto more hard drives.”


For more information on the Canberra International Film Festival visit the official website.