Gods of the Supermarket (2022)

A young man at an impressionable age starts to feel things from images of muscled male torsos at the discount store, ends up exploring it more through online porn around the mid-2000s. Why yes they do show gay pornography in this. Well I don’t know how I recognised one of the actors either (RIP Billy Herrington). I would have liked if they had used the “HEY EVERYBODY, I’M LOOKING AT GAY PORNO!”

Kind of a strange one to start off the program with, it is more the recollections of something that would usually be presented in some kind of diary format. In this case they just use a lot of found footage. Some of the cropping is really weird, they could show the cumshot but not the penis? The festival does have classification exemption but I guess it would have made it difficult to screen in other places.

Not really sure what the point was of this one? It doesn’t really saw anything you couldn’t read in a million books, articles, blog posts or videos already.

Film details:

Original title: Les Dieux du supermarché

Director: Alberto Gonzalez Morales

Producer: Delphine Jeanneret

Screenwriter: Alberto Gonzalez Morales

Composers: Esteban Mercier, Lucas Innocenti

Editor: Alberto Gonzalez Morales

Premiere Status: Australian Premiere

Origin: Switzerland (2022)

Language: English, French with English subtitles

Genre: Documentary , Experimental

Trailer

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Vision of Paradise (2022)

The island “Hy-Brasil” appears on a lot of old maps off the coast of Ireland but is claimed not to exist. Despite this the Brazillian navy goes to find it as a point of pride. This one is more an exploration of the notion of paradise and virtual worlds with many different ones shown including “The Mountain” a famous art installation and other virtual worlds and science experiments with various people talking about them.

This one is more a theoretical exploration than anything with some interesting visuals so you do not get bored. Some of the material is a bit dry and long-winded so they have to show some nice scenery while they are delivering it.

I could get what they are going for with this one and it is difficult to deliver something so theoretical and have people pay attention to it. This one was OK and I would recommend it to people interested in virtual worlds.

Film details:

Original title: Visão do Paraíso

Featured Subjects: Dan Dixon, David OReilly, Douglas Goodwin, George Tramell, Jackson Fletcher

Director: Leonardo Pirondi

Producer: Leonardo Pirondi

Screenwriter: Leonardo Pirondi

Cinematographer: Leonardo Pirondi

Editor: Leonardo Pirondi

Premiere Status: Australian Premiere

Origin: Brazil, UK, USA (2022)

Language: English, Portuguese with English subtitles

Genre: Documentary , Experimental

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Then Comes the Body (2022)

Daniel Owoseni Ajala based in Lagos, Nigeria teaches himself ballet from YouTube and decides to open a ballet school for young people after being rejected when trying to dance overseas. He encourages his students and they eventually end up getting scholarships themselves.

This one was quite well shot and executed but does not fall into the trap of being “poverty porn” as the people involved get to tell the story themselves. They are open as to how they were treated but still encourage others to try for themselves to enter the world of ballet.

I did like the main subject saying that there was “no culture” where he was “only yourself and the internet” which is not only true for Africa, go out in the country in Australia or even into the far suburbs without a car and see how much culture is around.

This one would fall into the category of inspiring if you could call it that. I even recommended it to a ballet busker who is currently overseas https://www.instagram.com/balletbusker/

Film details:

Featured Subjects: Daniel Owoseni Ajala, Olamide Olawale, Precious Duru

Director: Jacob Krupnick

Producers: Damilola Aleje, Jacob Krupnick

Screenwriter: Jacob Krupnick

Cinematographer: Soren Nielsen

Composer: Martin Velez

Editor: Esteban Pedraza

Premiere Status: International Premiere

Origin: Nigeria, USA (2023)

Short

Language: English

Genre: Documentary

Trailer

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Undercurrents: meditations on power (2023)

Various fears of the modern age are equated to the rise of Nazism, honestly that is too easy a mark and a bit on the nose how it is framed. C’mon try and do something new for once and not just the same thing every time. It’s like people saying 1984 who have never read George Orwell in their life.

This film maker has been in the festival before and could not even be bothered to actually film anything new for this one and just recycled some of their old films for the footage and talked over it.

It may seem I am being a bit harsh on this one but I am sick of documentaries like this that do not really contribute anything to the debate and are just the one person ranting.

You might get more out of this one than I did but I did not think this one belonged here at all, could easily have been a Youtube video or an opinion piece in the Guardian or something.

Film details:

Director: Margot Nash

Producer: Margot Nash

Screenwriter: Margot Nash

Composers: Alistair Jones, Elizabeth Drake

Editor: Margot Nash

Premiere Status: World Premiere

Origin: Australia (2023)

Short

Language: Bosnian, English, Pitjantjatjara with English subtitles

Genre: Documentary

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Apostles of Cinema (2022)

One of the movie pirates in a local stall in Tanzania talks passionately about preserving cinema by sharing it around including local Tanzanian movies. Helping them with this are local “DJs” including DJBlack who do a commentary over the movie in local language which seems to be more a rifftrack as they make them up on the spot. There are also local screening houses that screen movies from China, Bollywood, Hollywood and local movies.

This was a fun documentary about how local businesses step up to provide entertainment when big business is not present in a market. I am sure the big studios do not care as much they are losing this market as they would not make that much of a return. One of the people who made a local movie they are distributing actually makes a point of meeting DJBlack and the DJs often perform at the local screening houses to build their reputation.

Entertainment is enjoyed all over the world but people have different ways of doing it. There are some people who collect bootleg covers and the famous painted movie posters from some African countries as a cultural artifact. This does keep the movies going around and around but they do not really seem to be making new movies in this market. That would be a different documentary and there are already ones on that.

I liked that the people got to tell the stories themselves and it did not seem to be making fun of them. This is there life and they are making a living out of doing something they enjoy.

Film details:

Featured Subjects: Maulidi Frank Shabaan, Rajab ‘Black’ Mangula, Rehema Maganga

Directors: Cece Mlay, Darragh Amelia, Gertrude Malizana, Jesse Gerard Mpango

Producers: Cece Mlay, Darragh Amelia, Gertrude Malizana, Jesse Gerard Mpango

Cinematographer: Darragh Amelia

Composers: Jay Mita, Lorenz Fisher, MC Kadilida

Editors: Cece Mlay, Darragh Amelia, Gertrude Malizana

Premiere Status: Australian Premiere

Origin: Tanzania (2022)

Short

Language: Swahili with English subtitles

Genre: Documentary

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Call Me Mommy (2022)

Sinead is a content creator is supporting her family after an incident with domestic violence left her with no other support and the rest of the family cut her off after learning what she does for a living. It does not sugar coat the truth they actually show what she does for a job (although tastefully shot).

They do show her working with other creators who are much younger than her and she admits that she is up against it given her age but she can provide something the other models do not. Onlyfans in particular was flooded with new creators during the pandemic so it is a lot harder to stand out.

I enjoyed that they did not do the moralising thing like a lot of similar documentaries and just let Sinead tell the story herself. Due to hanging around Twitter/X I do interact with a lot of similar creators as they get banned or restricted from pretty much anywhere else and it does seem true to their experiences.

I did like the scenes of her home life with her pets including the dogs and the cats on the bed when she is doing privates on Onlyfans.

There is a lot of crossover into the sex industry from other areas these days and I have purchased photo sets for life drawing from models if I wanted to draw them. I have said hello to Sinead online and said I was going to be seeing her documentary at the festival.

Overall I thought this documentary was better than even full-length ones like Whore’s Glory or the one that ABC TV did recently that just had to do the “both sides” thing. Also a lot better than any fictionalised account I have seen like X or the very boring Sleeping Beauty. It’s not love it’s just business.

Film details:

Featured Subject: Sinead Connell

Director: Tara O’Callaghan

Producer: Louise Byrne

Screenwriter: Tara O’Callaghan

Cinematographer: Albert Hooi

Composer: James Latimer

Editor: Vincent McEntee

Premiere Status: Australian Premiere

Origin: Ireland (2022)

Short

Language: English

Genre: Documentary

Viewer Advice: High impact sex themes, strong impact domestic violence themes.

Trailer