The Curb

The boxing film subgenre gets an esteemed new entry in the form of Paul Goldman's Kid Snow. Set in the 1970s, Kid Snow follows Billy Howle as the titular character, a washed-up fighter who has one last shot at glory. Shot in the red dirt of WA, Kid Snow also features an impressive line-up of Aussie actors including Phoebe Tonkin, Hunter Page-Lochard, Mark Coles Smith, and Nathan Phillips.Nadine Whitney spoke to Paul Goldman ahead of the World Premiere at the 2024 Sydney Film Festival, with the two talking about Paul's experience of shooting in Kalgoorlie, how he cast the roles, and the allure of the drama within a boxing story.Kid Snow has two more screenings at the Sydney Film Festival on 14 and 15 June before it heads west where it screens as the opening night film for the Revelation International Film Festival in Perth on 3 July. Tickets for all screenings are available now. 

One of the finest films having its Australian premiere at the festival is Jaydon Martin's stunning feature debut film Flathead. This fiction-documentary hybrid film follows Cass Cumerford, a bloke near the end of his days who returns to Bundaberg, the region he grew up. Swaying into the town, he finds consolation and support with various religious sects that have sprung up in the land before he flows into the life of Andrew, a Chinese-Australian fish and chip shop owner who is dealing with his own understanding of mortality.Flathead follows these real figures as they're nudged along a partly-fictional narrative, and as the film plays with a sublime black and white presentation, it sways into a dreamlike state, providing a highly affecting story about modern Australia.It's that notion of what a modern Australia is that drives the following conversation with Jaydon, who took four years to make the film and had to leave Australia to realise what it was that he needed to make. Flitting into some of the scenes, and delivering a closing duet with Cass, is fellow filmmaker Brodie Poole, a documentarian in his own right who has also essayed what modern Australia looks like on screen with his documentary General Hercules. Both Brodie and Jaydon are engaging in an essential conversation right now about Australian identity and culture, and in doing so, they're also reasserting the notion of who gets to tell stories on screen in this place we call Australia.Flathead is an experience like no other, and my words here barely scrape the thematic text of the film, nor do they do justice to what Jaydon is putting forward as a filmmaker. As a nation, there is a shortage of filmmakers who operate in the realm of social realism, and I'm hoping beyond hope that Jaydon continues down this path. If so, then we will be richly rewarded as his body of work builds over the years.For now, do what you can to see Flathead. It's one of the finest Australian films of the year.It screens on 12 June and 15 June at the Sydney Film Festival. For tickets, visit sff.org.au.

In Vitro is the highly anticipated follow-up from Will Howarth (Bombay Beach) and Tom McKeith (Beast, SFF 2016) after their debut feature Beast was nominated for Best First Feature at Toronto International Film Festival 2015.Starring the director Will Howarth, Ashley Zukerman (Fear Street) and Talia Zucker (Lake Mungo).On an isolated cattle farm, Layla and Jack's life takes a dark turn when a storm exposes the unforeseen repercussions of Jack’s animal breeding technology.Nadine Whitney chats to Will and Tom about creating a sense of extreme isolation in In Vitro, collaborative writing processes, making grounded science fiction, and Ash Zukerman doing the washing.In Vitro screens at Sydney Film Festival on the 6th, 8th, and 9th of June. Tickets are available here: https://www.sff.org.au/program/browse/in-vitro

The 2024 German Film Festival is currently underway across Australia with screenings taking place from 7 May to 5 June. The poster film for the festival is From Hilde, With Love, by director Andreas Dresen.In the following interview, Nadine Whitney and Andreas talk about his interest in telling the story of Hilde Coppi on screen. Hilde was a young German women who was drawn into the anti-Nazi resistance movement during World War Two.Andreas Dresen is in attendance at the festival as a festival guest, and will be participating in Q&A sessions at screenings of From Hilde, With Love, on Thursday 9 May at Sydney Palace Central, Saturday 11 May at Palace Cinema Como in Melbourne, and Saturday 18 May at Palace Barracks in Brisbane. For all screening times and to purchase tickets, visit GermanFilmFestival.com.au.Thank you for listening to this episode of The Curb podcast. To help keep the Curb independent, visit patreon.com/thecurbau to show your support from as little as $1 a month.

Roger Ungers is a documentarian who continually presents a new perspective on the world around us. His 2020 documentary Finding Creativity saw him explore the complex nature of creativity, and in turn, he reflects on his own creativity. That personal touch is brought to his latest documentary, Shape.This is a film about physicality and the at times exclusionary manner that the gay community can exhibit prejudice against different body types. Shape explores how a community that is often vocal about celebrating diversity can engage in body discrimination.Shape screened at the Mardi Gras Queer Film Festival in 2024. To keep track of where Shape will screen in the future, visit Roger's website: RogerThatPictures.com.au for more information.Shape will screen at Victorian Pride Centre as part of their pride month events on 19th June 2024 at 7pm. Tickets are available here. 

There's something in the water in Perth that leads to a creative movement from local filmmakers who push through microbudget limitations to tell engaging and inventive stories on screen. For emerging filmmakers Katherine Grace and Holly Dodd, that drive for creativity comes in the form of working together as actors and directors on a duo of short films. For Holly, it's the short horror Consumed, a story of a young woman who suffers from sleep paralysis, while for Katherine, her short film Alison & Betty sees one friend be haunted by the presence of her distant friend Betty.As Katherine details in the following interview, working together on each others films has helped create a body of work that has been able to showcase their combined and singular talents. There's a charm and devilishness to Alison & Betty that leans into a 1950s housewife modality, flipping it on its head with an off kilter kookiness that sees Katherine and Holly bounce off each other with ease. Alison & Betty shows a talent on the rise that has me excited to see where both Katherine and Holly progress as filmmakers.To follow Katherine's work, make sure to follow her Instagram page @justamissgrace, or visit her YouTube page for more details, and Holly's Instagram page @hollyedodd to keep track of her projects. Thank you for listening to this episode of The Curb podcast. To help keep the Curb independent, visit patreon.com/thecurbau to show your support from as little as $1 a month.

As a young man, Matty Hannon explored the world, sinking roots in the Southeast Asian region. Here, he made lifelong friends, became part of families, and fostered a connection with the land that was ultimately severed when he had to return home to Australia to kick off a 'career'. The towering metal structures that became the home for his monotonous office life played a major role in an emerging mental illness that saw Matty at a crossroads: continue on with this corporate career life and possibly lose a sense of himself, or seek a future where he lives with, learns from, and embraces the land that we live alongside. So begins his Road to Patagonia, the title given to Matty's documentary about his journey from Alaska to Patagonia, a 50,000km trek that sees him encountering magnificent surfing locations, wildlife of all kinds, a bond with a group of horses who help on his journey, and a romance which changes his life. The Road to Patagonia is deliberately meditative film, and as such, it becomes a soothing experience as viewers learn from the people who live with the lands Matty and his partner Heather Hillier trek along. This is not some kind of 'white cultural tourist' narrative either, as Matty and Heather never seek to become saviours or people who co-opt the lifestyles of the people they meet, instead seeking to join the wavelength of the spiritual harmony that the people they meet exude. There's an optimism to The Road to Patagonia that comes across with the way Matty Hannon talks about his life. In the following interview, Matty talks about the challenges he faced making the film, and what he has been able to implement into his modern life in the Byron Bay region. The Road to Patagonia and Matty Hannon are heading around Australia on a national tour until 19 April 2024. Head over to the Facebook page for more details. https://garage.com.au/the-road-to-patagonia/#:~:text=Synopsis,between%20humanity%20and%20the%20Earth.Thank you for listening to this episode of The Curb podcast. To help keep the Curb independent, visit patreon.com/thecurbau to show your support from as little as $1 a month.

Nainita Desai is an award-winning composer whose work has spanned creative formats, from documentaries like The Reason I Jump where she won an Emmy for Outstanding Music Composition, to TV series like Funny Women, to video games like Telling Lies and Immortality. With over 150 credits to her name, Nainita is nothing short of prolific.In the following interview, Nainita talks about her journey into becoming a composer and how Peter Gabriel impacted her career. While we don't touch on her education in mathematics, it plays a vital role in her career as a composer, guiding her interest in sound design as well as composition. From here, our discussion leads into talking about the role of nature in her work, as heard in films like The Deepest Breath, and the 2024 Sundance award-winning film Nocturnes. In both of these films, the role of the ocean and the mountains is as important as the world of the people we are following, and Nainita talks about the way that she reflects those characters journeys in her compositions.Equally important is the role that silence plays in her work. Nainita talks about the role that silence plays as the unspoken instrument for a composer, and how important it is to relinquish the score to amplify the drama of a scene. As a flow on of this discussion point, Nainita talks about the difficulty of knowing that not all aspects of her score will end up in the final film.This wonderfully insightful conversation flows between creativity and personal journeys, with Nainita giving us an in depth look at the mind of a composer. This conversation was recorded ahead of Nainita's upcoming appearance at the Australian International Documentary Conference, which opens in Melbourne on 3 March 2024. Nainita will be presenting a discussion called The Art of Composing for Documentary with Nainita Desai, alongside moderator Emma Bortignon. As we close out this interview, I asked Nainita about the importance of being accessible for interviews and panel discussions, which leads Nainita to reflect on the role of being a mentor for emerging composers, particularly women composers. To find out more about AIDC, visit AIDC.com.au.If you enjoy this discussion, I urge you to seek out other interviews with Nainita as they have regularly been in depth and valuable insights into her art as a composer. Also visit her website nainitadesai.com for more information.