Tuesday 23 February 5pm - Opening Night Session
Featuring special guest Brian Hill with first filmmakers Kim Munro and Stella Kinsella
Saturday Night
Director Brian Hill
UK / 1996 / 50mins / Admission 18+
It’s Saturday night in Leeds – time to escape the workaday week.
Ian’s an ex-con with a fistful of Es. Jackie’s a hostess with a dinner party to feed. Lola’s a drag queen out for the night. Mike’s a singing millionaire in trousers too tight.
Just another ordinary Saturday evening? Or one to remember?
With narration in verse by poet Simon Armitage, we go in search of the heart of Saturday night through the lives of assorted revellers, ravers, rogues and cross-dressers.
The Rise of the Leatherman
Director Kim Munro
2008 / 10mins / Admission 18+
With three musical interludes, this part-fantasy documentary tracks Scott Watterson's journey through his preparation for the Mr Leather Australia New Zealand Competition.
An intimate portrait of one man's quest for identity and personal freedom . This film plays with the conventions of documentary and experiments with styles. Delving into Scott's personal reasons for wanting to compete and his struggle to come to terms with his sexuality. The Rise of Leatherman is a disarming beautiful daring short documentary.
World Premiere
Making Mary & Max
Director Stella Kinsella
2009 / 57mins / Admission 18+
A satirical behind-the-scenes obsession with the making of the animation feature Mary and Max.
Making Mary and Max is an obnoxious, self-aggrandizing piece of work that became a kind of endurance race more than a documentary.
Filmed over the two years it to took to produce the intricate and painstaking feature length animation written and directed by Academy Award winning Adam Elliot, the filmmaker set herself a task to see how long she could place Elliot under a bell jar without getting thrown off the set.
Within six months of production the documentary film crew were evicted from the studios but managed to maintain a covert relationship with the animation team, long enough to create this bizarre behind the scenes epic.
Working organically with the fifty plus crew, Making Mary and Max not only reveals the candid and remarkable personality of the animation director but also the improvisational talents of the odd ball crew who helped make his film.
Capturing candid moments with Adam, the crew and delicious asides from megastars Eric Bana and Barry Humphries, Making Mary and Max is a tongue in cheek but no less true revelation of the insanity and excess long form animation demands.
It tells a dedicated version of how the feature animation was made, but ultimately captures the agony and triumph of the journey to find the marquee actor who would play the leading role of Max and satisfy financiers, creatives and ultimately, the audience.