Ivan Malekin
b. June 11, 1982, Footscray, Victoria,
Australia.
BIOGRAPHY:
Ivan Malekin is an award-winning producer, director and editor whose short films have screened and won awards both locally and internationally.
Ivan's debut feature film, Dace Decklan: Private Eye (2012), is available through Monster Pictures and OzFlix.
As the founder and director of the Made In Melbourne Film Festival from 2009- 2016, and Short Cut Monthly Film Nite from 2010-2012, Ivan was heavily involved in the Melbourne independent film scene.
In 2017 his latest short film as a director, Zina, won a Platinum Remi at Houston Worldfest, the oldest independent film festival in the world. While his most popular short as producer, Daughter, an awareness project addressing victim blaming and gendered violence, has toured Melbourne and Victoria, picked up various festival awards, including Best Short Film at Women Media Arts Film Festival, a Silver Remi from Houston Worldfest, and the Grapple award at Anarco Film Festival. Daughter is available as an educational tool for Australian schools through ATOM and Beamafilm, and also globally through Amazon Prime and Vimeo On Demand.
Topping off the year, Ivan also co-produced and co-directed the ambitious improvised feature film Friends, Foes & Fireworks in one night over New Year's Eve, and also produced the bold black and white feature Choir Girl, directed by John Fraser and starring Peter D Flaherty.
Currently Ivan lives in Malta where he runs the prolific independent film collaborative Nexus Production Group with Sarah Jayne, while also working as a freelance video editor, and producing NPG's fourth feature, In Corpore, a film dealing with relationships and betrayal of body and soul set in Melbourne, Malta, New York, and Berlin.
You can support the work of Nexus by joining them here on Patreon.
Eternal
CRITICAL
OVERVIEW:
Why do I make films? I have never thought too hard on that question before. The answer has always seemed obvious – because I enjoy it. Yet looking only a little deeper there is so much more. I have always been introverted, the shy quiet kid in school, low on confidence but big on dreams, inside a clown and entertainer and philosopher and debater dying to escape. I was always drawn to creativity and spent a lot of time living in my imagination. I would lock myself in my room for hours on end and work on short stories and fantasy novels with whole make-believe cultures and histories swirling in my head.
I went on to do a Diploma and then a Bachelor in Professional Writing & Editing but it wasn't until University where I first gave a thought to making films. It happened quite by accident. I helped a friend make a film, a no-budget, no-idea feature film with me as a masked serial killer running around the 'jungles' of Brimbank Park in St Albans. I had a hand in the script and seeing your characters interpreted by strangers, hearing your dialogue spoken out loud, watching your plots and ideas come to life … it was eye-opening. It was immediate, it was intimate, and, unlike writing which is an isolating pursuit, it was gregarious and collaborative. A shared experience. I was instantly hooked. I was a filmmaker.
I try not to limit myself to any particular styles or themes. I have experimented in most genres from westerns to musicals to anime and animation. Comedy seems to be the genre I return to most – we should never take ourselves too seriously after all. But I do feel a yearning for that defining dramatic piece, a dark exploration of the human condition, a relationship with an actor that pushes us both to the limits of our creativity, a multi-layered work that has that special something to say. I'm not sure what that 'something' is yet. But I know I'll keep making films until I do. Then undoubtedly beyond that as – and all committed filmmakers will understand – this is a lifetime passion and pursuit.
- Ivan Malekin, March 2014.
Friends, Foes & Fireworks TRAILER(2017)
El WesternTRAILER (2013)
FILMOGRAPHY (as director only):
Sibling
Grey (2007, 14 mins, video, drama)
Welcome to Heaven (2007, 9 mins, video, experimental)
