Ozploitation

*The Australian film industry needed time to really take off after having employed exiled directors (like the great Michael Powell) for many years. But at the end of the sixties, uninhibited filmmakers threw themselves into exploitation films, producing locally and basing their films on sex, car chases and unbelievable stunts. Today the genre is popular once again thanks to films like "Wolf Creek" and "Rogue". The documentary "Not Quite Hollywood" retraces this history and is your road map to the Ozploitation module. We’ve brought in several copies of Australian films that have rarely (in some cases never) been screened in Europe! There’s not only the genre’s unmissable first opus "Mad Max", but also a "Long Weekend" you can take with Colin Eggleston.
The majority of the films in this module are courtesy of Brian Trenchard-Smith, who will also be our guest. This prolific director -he brought us "Turkey Shoot" and the comedic "BMX Bandits" with Nicole Kidman- will present three of his masterpieces: an Australian kung-fu film ("The Man from Hong Kong") featuring George Lazenby fresh from his stint as James Bond, a shamelessly 80s social apocalypse film ("Dead-End Drive-In"), and a seminal UFO docu-fiction about rock, magic and stunts ("Stunt Rock")! If you imagine Australia to be a strange and wonderful country, now’s your chance to come have your beliefs confirmed.*

"Not Quite Hollywood" is a rapid, rhythmic panorama of Australian exploitation film. The film will help orient you through the next few days of Ozploitation... consider it a luxury trailer. It features excerpts from many other films, making it the ideal complement to our program. Perhaps you’ll even end up questioning our selection! Directors, producers, actors, and stunt people from the genre share their views on this unique period in Australian cinema. Brian Trenchard-Smith, George Miller, Jamie Lee Curtis, George Lazenby and Quentin Tarantino appear in the film, amongst others, and are all excited to talk about the pearls of the genre: sexploitation, grotesque comedy, horror, biker movie, thriller, post-apocalyptic... anything goes!

Mark Hartley will introduce the film which will be followed by a Q&A in the bar together with our other Australian guests: Brian Trenchard-Smith and Richard Brennan, producer of "Long Weekend".

This is definitely the craziest film in the program! "Stunt Rock" is as rare as they get. The copy you’ll see is fresh off the press and will be baptized on Nova’s screen. The film itself could be described as documentary fiction about outer space with a focus on hard rock, magic, kitsch and the stuntman Grant Page. Add to this an unexpected appearance by Monique Van de Ven, and you can understand why it’s hard to describe...
Brian Trenchard-Smith recycles stock images from his other films (and from the films of others, like "Mad Dog Morgan"), to construct a vague storyline that interconnects concert footage from the band Sorcery with the life of the musician-magicians on tour and the story of stuntman courting a journalist, all this with plenty of stunts and magic tricks from another era. The whole thing is compartmentalized in split screens, sometimes defying all logic. The film is like "Spinal Tap" ten years in advance and in the first person! Although... the true spirit of the film is difficult to put into words. One thing is for sure: you’ll be in the presence of an extreme form of exploitation cinema, one of the most hilarious ever!

Brian Trenchard-Smith will be attending the screening

http://www.sorcerymusic.com

If Australians are the kings of stunts, they certainly aren’t the kings of martial arts. Which is why a Hong Kong detective and a wicked Englishman (George Lazenby) were called upon for this unique film... We find ourselves face to face with the former James Bond, the capricious star of the film and Man from Hong Kong, Jimmy Wang Yu, the obligatory Hugh Keays-Byrne ("Mad Max", "Stone", etc), a passionate young Australian actress from Deltaplane (sic) and Grant Page ("Stunt Rock", "Mad Dog Morgan"…), all in top form for an anthology of chases.. In many ways, "The Man from Hong Kong" is also a film for tourists, since it begins with a muscled arrest at the base and then on the summit of Ayers Rock. A detective and martial arts film combo, a comedy of international mores, it’s difficult to describe the film. All we can do is give kudos to Brian Trenchard-Smith once again for his ability to create UFOs in every style.
Need we add that the film’s arrival to a European screen is a big event, one that will provide a humorous close to our Ozploitation module?

Brian Trenchard-Smith will be attending the screening

Mad Max is featured in this second edition of Offscreen because it’s a film that brilliantly represents both the Post-Apocalyptic and Ozploitation modules. This is your chance to watch a shiny new copy this classic genre film, in cinemascope and subtitled in French.
When compared to other Australian productions, it’s easy to see how this film had grand ambitions, and why it was a visual and narrative success. Fabulous chase sequences and stunts: the results of an undeniable native savoir-faire epitomized by "Mad Max". The film’s post-apocalyptic atmosphere has hues of social dereliction, with a true sense of disorientation provided by a huge landscape of endless roads. The story behind the apocalypse is explained in the Road Warrior adventure series, which is also where the fuel myth, the holy grail of the future, reaches its true dimensions.
George Miller proves from this first film onward that medicine is not his only field of expertise, and through a variety of formal discoveries (street level perspective shots, accelerated images, use of music, delayed narration, references to the genre, etc...) he announces the atypical and eclectic nature of his future career.

A middle-class Australian couple decides to spend the weekend on the coast "finding themselves". Although their taste and opinions differ, we realize that their personalities and individualistic attitudes once made them close. She prefers the hotel, he prefers camping. The conflict literally infects their weekend, and the situation worsens when they get lost in a nature that proves to be very hostile. Unless, of course, it’s just nature reflecting their own hostility.
The originality of this resolutely 70s-era film lies in the fact that nature and horror are not combined to critique the return to enchanted earth, as was the case in the American redneck films a few years prior. Here the characters are deeply unappealing and represent the Western lifestyle in a joyfully cynical manner. The quality of the direction and cinematography, both very classy, gives this story a strange and disturbing charm. Hollywood just got wind of it and plans to remake the film scene for scene… with Grant Page as the stuntman!

Producer Richard Brennan will introduce the film

Like the United States, Australia is ruled by the car, the loyal friend of people who inhabit large spaces. So it’s no surprise that drive-ins also had their hour of glory here, particularly as a hang out for bored teenagers. The VHS market of the 80s dealt a fatal blow to these places, and they rapidly became anachronistic. The post-apocalyptic genre of exploitation film isn’t applicable, and "Clockwork Orange" with its violent, misguided teens is also elsewhere. So what’s the connection? The director finds one using the story of a young white trash couple preoccupied by cars and blondes. The two are brought to a pitiful drive-in run by a gang of mean dudes (is that what they were called back then?). The evening goes sour when the young couple realizes that they won’t ever be able to escape what is now a detention camp for teenagers without a future. They’re condemned to watch a never-ending cycle of movies by... Brian Trenchard-Smith.

Brian Trenchard-Smith will be attending the screening