SFCINEMATHEQUE

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Thursday, May 31, 1990

CROSSING BORDERS

The Super 80's: Australian Super-8, 1981-1987

San Francisco Art Institute





The Super-8 Film Group of Sydney was a lively center of low-budget filmmaking through most of the last decade, producing nearly 600 films by scores of Australian filmmakers. Embracing super-8’s low-end production values, these filmmakers rudely rejected the formal ‘ascetisicm’ of the previous generation, turning to pop culture and early Underground film figures for their inspiration. Tonight’s selection by Michael Hutak presents “most of the curious sub-genres specific to Australian super-8.” The World As We Know It by Catherine Lowing “undermines feminist orthodoxy by re-animating taboo images of femininity”; Shock Corridor by Mark Titmarsh reveals a “fascinating will to speculation on the edge of the unknown.” Also films by Juan Davila, Rolando Caputo, Richard DeSouza, Rhondda Kelly, Stephen Harrop, Michael Hutak, Marilyn Fairskye, Gary Warner, Andrew Frost, Simon Cooper, Rowan Woods, and Geoff Weary. Running time: 88 minutes.