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Super 8 Dreams by Bill Mousoulis |
a programme of Super 8 films from the 1980s |
Thursday, November 5, 2015, at 7:30 pm, $6 entry Goodtime Studios, Basement, 746 Swanston St. Carlton organised by Artist Film Workshop |
| Acclaimed Greek-Australian filmmaker Bill Mousoulis (9 features to his name) started making films in 1982, by utilising the Super 8 medium. By the end of the '80s, he had made over 40 short Super 8 films, and we present 8 of the best ones in this special programme. From narrative works showing Mousoulis' development from Spielbergian sentimentalism to Bressonian formalism, to non-narrative works showing Mousoulis' growing interest in the auto-portrait and essay modes, this is a rare glimpse into a particular time and artistic space. The original Super 8 films themselves will be projected, on loan from the National Film and Sound Archive. |
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Dreams Never End Featuring: Mary Mousoulis, John Stenos, Monica Mousoulis. A look at the life of a 16-year-old girl, focusing on the person she loves and what happens to him, and how it affects her. In a world that is less than perfect, not all desired things are destined to be. But dreams never end ...
"The Bresson of Super-8, Bill Mousoulis, makes films which are a sublime and quizzical mix of down-home observational physicality and transcendental spirituality, luminous with both the sadness and potentiality of individual dreaming. You won't believe it until you see it. Dreams Never End is a classic." - Adrian Martin, film critic, 1986. No.16 in "28 All-Time Greats of Super-8" by Mark Titmarsh, Limit of Maps, Spring 1985. |
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In a Lonely Place Featuring: Bill Mousoulis Various shots taken inside and outside the house Mousoulis was living in when aged 19 in 1982 (his parents' house). This is the first of Mousoulis' films to consciously attempt an impressionistic, experimental style. It is also the first time Mousoulis started playing with the idea of the "subversive music clip", taking a known song and putting his own images to it.
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J.C.: The Jewellery-Case Featuring: George Goularas, Jerry Goularas, Mary Mousoulis. A jewellery-box literally jumps in front of a teenage boy's path. Perplexed, he gives it to his brother who is mysteriously attracted to the box. After awhile, it dawns on him that he has an obligation to the box, and he follows it through, accompanied by John Williams' orchestral music. A tribute to Spielberg and E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial.
"Dreams Never End and J.C.: The Jewellery-Case are both extremely personal, and, to borrow a term from Paul Schrader, exhibit what might be called a "transcendental film style". These films' undeniable honesty renders all cynicism impotent." - Andrew Preston, Filmnews, 1985. |
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The Green Door Featuring: Bill Mousoulis, Monica Mousoulis. Various tableaux of home life. Mousoulis once again films moments in his home in an eclectic, strange way, creating both an ordinary and extraordinary representation of reality.
"A quite personal film, which bears some resemblance to Gillian Leahy's My Life Without Steve. The Green Door, however, has a simple eloquence and an authenticity the bigger film lacks." |
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Physical World Featuring: Matthew Rees, Georgina Campbell, Anita Campbell, Barry Branchflower. A man and a woman prepare to go to work in the morning. A guy and a girl, a secret and a world ...
"Physical World is dry, austere, methodical. However, it is a film which draws the viewer's attention away from the surface towards a deeper meaning. We cannot accept that Life, as represented in the first three quarters of the film, is solely composed of the dull, everyday physical activities that we are watching - there must be something more. Through implication the answer is conveyed - yes there is more. There is love. Love alone is the fuel that drives our tired bodies on." - Mark La Rosa, Super-8 Yearbook, Feb 1987. |
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Knowing Me, Knowing You Featuring: Bill Mousoulis An essay film about the failure of post-modernism. Bill Mousoulis: Abba, Michael Hutak, Bruce Springsteen, Julianne Phillips, David Parkin, Alan Johnson, John Coleman, Roland Barthes, Belinda Carlisle.
"I admire Mousoulis' narrative fiction but it is his essay films which are the most interesting for me. Knowing Me, Knowing You is so contained within its rhetoric, those of us in the audience can only wonder what he's getting at. It seems to be a direct reply to a Michael Hutak article "Moral Fiction" that appeared in On The Beach ... I hope Mousoulis continues with this series of films, possibly the most philosophically contained and interesting of its kind in Super-8." |
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Melbourne '89 Featuring: George Goularas, Bill Mousoulis Various tableaux of Melbourne in 1989, as experienced by the film-maker. "I can't live with myself .... Your bone's got a little machine .... Every day is like Sunday ..... No more sorry." No more sorry.
"It is a film of shots/views. Views of Melbourne and portraits of friends. There is also a section of Bill and his band. The ten second portraits of Mark Freeman, Sarah Johnson, Chris Windmill, Heinz Boeck and others looked good. The last shot of George (Renaissance Man) Random in drizzly Punt Road was SENSATIONAL!!!" |
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Faith Featuring: Elwin Bradshaw, Loren Daniel, Peter Camerone. The faith of a heart and the faith of a look. A period in the life of a young Australian couple.
"With gentle direction, Bill does not impose a story upon the viewer. Faith lets its story grow from its spaces, revealing how the cinema and its meanings can be very hard to pinpoint. Bill lets meaning grow out of silence; significance grow out of the fact that he has faith, as much as the viewer slowly begins to realise, that the characters do not have to be spoken for. Their richness slowly rises to the surface." - Darron Davies, Filmviews, Sep 1987. - Voted Best Super 8 Film of 1987 in Super-8 Yearbook 1988 (making 12 Top Ten lists). |