Short film screenings in Australia
On invitation by the Perth International Arts Festival and the Goethe Institute Australia, EFA Director Marion Döring visited Australia for a series of screenings and presentations. In Perth, Sydney and Melbourne, she introduced screenings of the EFA SHORT MATTERS! Programme, the short films nominated for the European Film Awards 2009, and gave presentations about the work of the European Film Academy and filmmaking in Europe.
Marion Döring says it was “a great experience to see that the five screenings in Perth were fully packed with people from all generations and that these films really had a great and curious audience. I was very surprised that there is such a curiosity about European films, people yearn for European films.” When she asked people they said the reason is that they are so isolated. “Perth is a big city with 1.2 million inhabitants but it is, as people say, the most isolated capitol in the world. It is far away from other cities in Australia like Sydney and Melbourne, a flight from there takes five hours. So everything that comes from outside is very, very welcome. They embrace foreign films.”
Sherry Hopkins, the film programmer of the Perth Festival who invited Marion Döring, thinks the reactions were "amazing to say the least". She adds: "Over five evenings we attracted close to 1,000 patrons and the feedback and word of mouth on the event and the quality and entertainment value of the short films screened were outstanding. Marion Döring's address to the audience was an added bonus, and when she first stepped on stage and asked the audience to wave to her while she took a photo, she had everyone laughing and clapping before the screening even began."
During her two-week visit, Marion Döring also visited an open air cinema in Perth, the Somerville, which is mainly showing European films. “Thanks to the great weather there it is running five months from November until the end of March and it is fully packed every night for screenings of THE WHITE RIBBON or THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO which was the big hit of this summer in Australia.” She adds: “It is a great cinema experience because you can have a picnic while you are watching the film.”
In addition to the screenings, Marion Döring was also invited by the Goethe Institute to hold lectures in Sydney and Melbourne and to meet people from the Australian film industry. “I held a lecture at Screen Australia, the supporting fund for film in Australia and talked about European cinema.” Two days later, she again gave this presentation titled ‘United in Diversity – European Cinema and its Role in a Globalising World’ at the University of Melbourne and also had meetings with film students and teachers both in Perth and Sydney at the Australian Film Television and Radio School. “They all have a huge curiosity about everything that is done in Europe. They know a lot about European cinema!”
The visit is not the first collaboration with Australia, she states: “Some years ago we already had the short film programme at the festival in Melbourne so this is the second time.” She believes that “short films are a good showcase for young and upcoming talents in Europe. It’s especially interesting for the film students who watched the films together and discussed them afterwards.”
The experience was so pleasant that it is the aim to continue the collaboration. “In the several meetings we got a lot of ideas and we’ll work on it”, says Marion Döring, “but of course you should only talk about it once it’s concrete.”
