Old, young yarns for the big screen

Staff Writers
February 14, 2013

If you’re fascinated by the art of documentary-making and either under 25 or over 55, Melbourne Queer Film Festival wants you for its exciting new community film project. Eight lesbian, gay, bi, trans or intersex people will venture out to make eight short documentary films featuring stories from diverse voices with the LGBTI community.

Organisers want the budding filmmakers to focus on the stories told instead of the technology, so the short films will be shot using iPhones.

Volunteers will be paired together into four teams so each will have a young person and an older person – something organisers hope will bring different generations together.

Writer/director Grant Scicluna and producer Jannine Barnes will mentor the group and will also be joined by Battlefield director Tim Marshall.

Scicluna wrote and directed The Wilding (pictured) which won Best Australian Short Queer Film at MQFF last year and also went on to win the IRIS Prize, one of the world’s most prestigious awards for queer short film.

Barnes produced the film.

Scicluna said he was looking forward to bringing some amazing people together.

“Extraordinary stories that not only say something about the participants, but also define us as a community. I’m also super excited to see how the different generational participants can nurture each other into really getting to the heart of what pride means, or how disrespect feels, no matter your age,” he said.

Scicluna told the Star Observer the project was looking at what the common experience was between younger and older people in the community.

“I think the stories of really young people and the stories of more senior people in our community are incredibly powerful and they’re voices that don’t get asked to tell their stories a lot,” he said.

“It’s the people in between that get to tell their stories a lot so I was really just interested in seeing where the common experience of those generations lies or where things are different for young gay people as oppose to people over 55 and gay.”

The lucky eight will attend a short filmmaking workshop on March 1 and then shoot their film on the March 16-17 weekend. The final MQFF and beyondblue are behind the project.

Applications are open now and close on February 17.