For the first time since it started 24 years ago, the St Kilda Film Festival will feature an event screening short films about St Kilda itself – St Kilda on Screen, 12 noon Sunday June 10 at the Dogs Bar, 54 Acland Street.

The program will include films such as Pleasure Domes; Immaculate Conception; Last Stop; Same Place, Different Place; Headlock; The Secret Life of Fish; and Revolt Into Style. Cost is $10.

Port Phillip mayor Janet Bolitho said that the film camera’s love affair with St Kilda was almost as long as the history of film in Australia.

“Thanks to the pioneering efforts of the Salvation Army Film Unit, we’re fortunate to have some of Australia’s earliest surviving footage – four minutes of the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York disembarking at St Kilda Pier in 1901 on an official visit to open Australia’s first Parliament,” she said

“Crucial scenes of the world’s first full-length feature film, The Story of the Kelly Gang, were shot on the site where Luna Park now stands. And throughout the thirties on the Novotel site, Frank Thring Senior’s Efftee Film Productions turned out feature films from his studios on the Esplanade, then regarded as the largest in Australia.

“Since then, St Kilda has continued to be a favoured site for film productions both big and small. The camera loves St Kilda’s fabulous bay views and funky street scenes. Despite the rise in rents, many actors also make St Kilda their home. Waitering jobs in local eateries no doubt keep a wolf or two from the door.”

St Kilda actor, Damian Walshe-Howling will compere St Kilda on Screen. Walshe-Howling stars in Three Months at Sea which will have its first Victorian screening at the St Kilda Film Festival at 9pm Friday June 8 at the George Cinemas. He’s lived in and around St Kilda all his life.

“I love St Kilda. It’s changed of course – it’s more expensive and there’s not an many artists as there used to be but it still has the bay and places like the Galleon, Dogs Bar and Scherezade, which connect to the heart of what’s St Kilda’s been,” Walshe-Howling said.

“St Kilda’s got an energy about it which draws in creative people. It’s always been a place where creativity has flowered.”

Walshe-Howling has just made his own short film, The Bloody Sweet Hit, which he says is very connected to St Kilda.
“The Bloody Sweet Hit unfortunately won’t be ready in time for this year’s film festival but it will definitely be entered in next year’s,” he said.

“It’s part of a tradition. I’ve been in so many films that have been screened at the St Kilda Film Festival that I’ve almost lost count. The last ones I appeared in were Saturn’s Return and The Umbrella Man.”

Owner of Dogs Bar and a sponsor of St Kilda Film Festival since 2002, David Carruthers said, “St Kilda and filmmakers go together like wine and cheese. When we ran ‘St Kilda Shorts’ short film festival two years ago, we were inundated with requests to show short films like Damian’s The Bloody Sweet Hit and we screened Kenny before it made it ‘big’! Over the years, the Dogs Bar has become a second home to filmmakers, actors and artists alike. Long may that tradition continue.”

One of the films being screened at St Kilda on Screen, Maggie Fooke’s Pleasure Domes, is an evocation of St Kilda as an Edwardian-era holiday resort – palm trees, pavilion, dance bands by moonlight and an architectural dreamscape. In 1991, she made a film about the struggle to save the Mandalay apartments and the Espy. Fooke also works as an artist and urban designer, creating the artworks on Acland Street and the rotunda in the St Kilda Botanical Gardens.

Fooke said she was delighted that Pleasure Domes was getting another airing twenty years later. “I now live in Fitzroy which reminds of the rough and tumble of the old St Kilda. St Kilda still looks beautiful but I miss all the characters on the street. I miss all the people who used to exist on the dole, who lived five to a small flat and spent their days on the street. Strata-tiling changed all that!”

Whatever the state of real estate, St Kilda Film Festival continues to weave its magic in all sorts of ways, says Cr Bolitho.

“Everyone is thrilled that Kenny, which got its start at the 2004 St Kilda Film Festival, is now being made into a TV series – Kenny – A World Tour of Toilets,” she said.

“Shane Jacobson, who plays Kenny the ‘knight in shining overalls’, used to be an event manager. He apparently had the idea for the film after years of dealing with portaloo companies like Splashdown. Shane and the crew shot some scenes at the 2004 St Kilda Festival, also produced by the City of Port Phillip. The resulting short won the best comedy prize at the 2004 St Kilda Film Festival, as well as being voted audience favourite.

“The connections don’t end there. Once Splashdown decided to fund Kenny’s transformation into a feature, the Jacobson brothers also filmed some scenes next year at the Pride March, also sponsored by the council.

“In 2005, the best of the St Kilda Film Festival program was shown in East Gippsland as part of a wider regional tour. A joking remark by the festival director, Paul Harris, persuaded the Jacobsen brothers to hold Kenny’s world premiere at the suitably named town of Poowong – a hugely successful move by all accounts. Fans of Kenny won’t miss out at this year’s Festival either – he features in the Festival’s trailer, now showing at cinemas all over Melbourne.

“The rest is history but the City of Port Phillip is delighted to have helped make it so. We’re very pleased indeed that Kenny was the highest grossing Australian film last year.”

For more information about the St Kilda Film Festival, go to: www.stkildafilmfestival.com.au/


Written by

Janet Bolitho
Mayor

and

Carmel Shute
Media Officer

City of Port Phillip

Council webpage: www.portphillip.vic.gov.au