Titled THE PASSING BELL, it relates to a sister and her brother meeting again after years apart, reviewing their independent lives, assessing each other, and coming to terms with their mortality.
I'll update as the work progresses.
Keep safe....BK
Tuesday, 5 January 2021
Sunday, 13 September 2020
Film article and interview
I am indebted to Jason Quirk for this article and interview, in which he very kindly reviews the years of my film work, from editing to producing and directing. My thanks to Jason.
The interview covers three films,
A CITY'S CHILD
DOUBLE DEAL
DEPARTURE
Read, and any questions you have, please leave them here and I'll respond as soon as I can. Enjoy the show! BK
Interview:
A CITY'S CHILD
MAYBE THIS TIME
Monday, 23 March 2020
A nostalgic glimpse of life in the mid 1960's with the successful and popular pop group of the time, The Twilights.
The film was made as a pilot to sell the series to a TV Network, and was never intended to be screened. Made on virtually nothing, it follows the stylistic approach that was used in The Beatles films.
Sadly, the Network didn't see the value in this local production proposal, and the series never took off. But it was fun to make, and I think the Twilights give passable performances, given that there was virtually no rehearsal prior to filming and they were dropped into the deep end. Mary Hardy was known to Australian TV and theatre audiences as a great comedian and also a strong dramatic actress. Madeline Orr also was a talented actress, and created the original Madge Alsop in Barry Humphries productions. It is interesting to speculate IF the series had been commissioned, how it would have looked and if it would have been successful.
Enjoy ONCE UPON A TWILIGHT.
Now on DVD.
Friday, 17 January 2020
WHEN IS A FILM NOT A FILM?
For today’s filmmakers it might seems strange that
film distribution was ever difficult; streaming, downloading, DVD’s provide
endless outlets for viewers to see one’s work. But nothing really equates to
viewing a film in a cinema with all the ambiance created by a million
screenings of a million films.
Let me tell you a story, a story of distribution of my
film A CITY’S CHILD. The film was first off the rank after Liberal PM John
Gorton decided the industry needed some support. The Experimental Film Fund was
the first to receive funding and $6000 of that went towards production of A
CITY’S CHILD.
It’s conception and realisation I’ll leave for another
time, but I take you back to 1971; the film had completed and went on to screen
at various film festivals around the world. That is also another story for
another time; I’m dealing now with a year or so later when John Fraser, who at that
time was with Greater Union a film distributor in Australia.
John, who supported and believed in Australian films,
fought valiantly to have GU screen the film and eventually won, but it was
a hollow victory.
GU, not wanting the film, decided to claim it as invalid
under the quality clause of the
New South Wales Film Quota Act.
“The Film
Quota Act, full title the New South Wales Cinematograph Films
(Australian Quota) Act was an act of legislation passed in September
1935 that came into force on 1 January 1936. Under the Act it was compulsory
that in the first year of operation 5 per cent, of the films distributed in New
South Wales must be Australian productions, the percentage to increase yearly
for five years when it becomes 15 per cent.”
This despite being
produced in Melbourne with an all Australian cast and crew, with Federal Government
Investment (it was not initially a grant). Media reports on this forced GU to
relinquish their claim and reluctantly they agreed to distribute the film. After
a very limited release in suburban cinemas, the film was withdrawn. My eternal
thanks to John Fraser for his efforts (he also helped Brian Trenchard Smith
with the release of The Man from Hong Kong).
To achieve the cinema
release, the Australian Film Development Fund allotted $5000 towards costs for the
blowup from 16mm to 35mm; ColourFilm deferred payment of $5000 for lab work. The
total $10,000 I personally paid back. I also personally funded the 16mm prints
and freight to the various international film festivals, which then required a
physical print. There was no Government funding for this.
I suppose if
A CITY’S CHILD were to be made today it
may obtain distribution through the Art House cinemas, and I can understand the
business heads at GU at the time not wishing to take the film, which they probably
believed to be noncommercial, but their claim it was not Australian as a devious
way to not screen local product, revealed who their masters were at the time. “Hooray
For Hollywood”.
https://vimeo.com/363749594
However, now the
film is available online, so you have a chance to evaluate it. I hope you enjoy
it, if only for Monica Maughan great performance. Enjoy!
PRIME VIDEO https://tinyurl.com/yy7qlnl2
UMBRELLA ENTERTAINMENT https://www.umbrellaent.com.au/on-demand/4377-citys-child-a-1971-vod-only.html
VIMEO https://vimeo.com/ondemand/acityschild1971
UMBRELLA ENTERTAINMENT https://www.umbrellaent.com.au/on-demand/4377-citys-child-a-1971-vod-only.html
VIMEO https://vimeo.com/ondemand/acityschild1971
From the Sydney Film Festival:
The best and most mature
of the Australian features is "A City's Child" produced and directed
by Brian Kavanagh.
Set in a middle class
suburb of Melbourne, the film, written by Don Battye, treats the loneliness of
a thirtyish spinster who, following the death of her carping, invalid mother,
builds a world of fantasy out of solitude and frustration.
Too often the director
appears uncertain of what to do next with a resultant loss of dramatic tension
and is prone to that all-Australian failing, the hammer-heavy delineation of
obvious symbolism. But on the whole Kavanagh achieves an admirable blend of
narrative elements and layman's sociology.
The subtle, knowing
performance of Monica Maughan as the central character is a further asset. Miss
Maughan constructs a cautious portrait of internal pain, of a woman alive but
incapable of living.
Kavanagh's website also
quotes this mention arising from the London Film Festival:
And Brian Kavanagh's
intense view of a lonely spinster in Sydney, finding kinky consolation in the
collection of dolls, " A City's Child," creates an errie atmosphere
which remained with me long after most of the festival's other films had been
and gone. Eric
Shorter, London Daily Telegraph, December 1st 1971.
And this notice by Ken
Quinnell in Nation magazine on 22nd January 1972:
There can be no mistaking
Brian Kavanagh's exceptional talent as a director. Throughout, the precision of
his camera placements, the flow of movement within the frame, and the exacting
performances serve perfectly the underlying ambiguity of events and produce a
masterpiece in miniature.
Monday, 30 December 2019
In
1969 I was Supervising Editor on Roger Miram's TV series, WOOBINDA - Animal
Doctor.
I met John Alaimo who
was script editing some of the episodes.
We became friends.
Some
while later John directed a TV film, SILO 15 and he asked me to edit the film.
SILO
15 was filmed in Sydney and starred
Jack Thompson
and Owen Weingott
Based
on the Award winning play by Gregory Marton
AWGIE
AWARD WINNERS - 1968
Major
Award Winner (Joint Winners) Colin Free Contrabandits: ‘Cage a Tame Tiger’
Major
Award Winner (Joint Winners) Richard Lane You Can’t See ‘Round Corners
(Television Serial)
Children’s
Michael Wright Skippy: ‘The Poachers’
Radio
Jocelyn Smith I-Day
Television
James Workman Contrabandits: ‘Target Smokehouse’
TELEVISION
– PLAY GREGORY MARTON SILO 15
Silo15
One hour Australian TV drama of a crisis in a ICBM bunker. Two United
States Air Force officers lose contact with the outside world and must decide
whether or not they should launch a missile.
Tragedy
at Missile Silo 15. When Air Force senior officer Captain Thompson,(Owen
Weingott) and Lt. O'Donnell, (Jack Thompson) enter missile Silo 15, they are
unaware of the drama they will experience when they lose contact with the
outside world and must make the decision as to whether or not they must fire
the missile. a decision that will end in tragedy....
Purchased by the BBC July 23, 1969. Transmitted
on BBC 2 September 2, 1969 at 9:10pm.
Purchased by NET (PBS), CBC, Canadian Broadcasting Company,
Texas A&M University, New York Public library.
Won the Award for Exceptional Merit ..1971 Philadelphia
International Festival of Short Films
John
continued on making many films, among them, in Spain, he Produced and Directed
THE
UNFINISHED VISION
a docudrama on ANTONI GAUDI.
Gaudi
was a Barcelona-based Spanish architect. His free-flowing works were greatly
influenced by nature. He is famous for being the face of Catalan architecture.
Many of the signature remarks in Barcelona, for example, are his work.
His
greatest masterpiece is sadly, unfinished. And that is La Sagrada Familia. The
cathedral in Barcelona is still unfinished, and talks are it will be sometimes
in the 2020s.
Gaudi
was fond of nature, and his work is inspired by his love of natural design and
modernism. His works have highly individualized and one-of-a-kind style.
This
documentary focuses mostly on his unfinished work, the Sagrada Familia.
The
story of the lost film.
Antoni
Gaudi was a Barcelona-based Spanish architect. His free-flowing works were
greatly influenced by nature. He is famous for being the face of Catalan
architecture. Many of the signature remarks in Barcelona, for example, are his
work.
This documentary focuses mostly on his
unfinished work, the Sagrada Familia.
Antonio Gaudi….The Unfinished Vision
Barcelona, Spain 1973
Director/Script writer John Alaimo
Filmed on location in Barcelona Spain.
Selected to be shown out of competition at the Cannes Film
festival 1974.
Chosen to be shown at the Spanish Institute’s Salute to Spain week in
New York city, celebrating Spanish culture.
Film was screened on November
15,1974. Event was under the patronage of Prince Juan Carlos and Princess
Sophia of Spain and United States president and Mrs. Gerald Ford.
Purchased and shown on Catalan TV3, 1974.
In 2009 the film received the prestigious designation of "
Cultural Patrimony of Catalunya" making it an official part of Catalan
culture.
WATCH THE FILM
LAST
WALTZ ON A TIGHTROPE
LOUISE
FLETCHER, TONY MUSANTE TO WALTZ ON TIGHTROPE IN PITTSTON
The
Morning Call
Oscar-winner
Louise Fletcher ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest") joins Tony
("Toma") Musante in Pittston next week as shooting begins on a new
public television drama written by Scranton University professor Dr. William
Zahler Jr.
Interiors
will be filmed at the studios of WVIA-TV (Channel 44), the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton
area's public television station. The Commerce Department's Pennsylvania Film
Bureau is working with WVIA to locate mansions in the area suitable for
exterior shooting. The story, however, is not set there, but at an unnamed
location not germane to the story.
In
the one-hour telecast, Musante will play a down-and-out writer who re-enters
the life of an eccentric former actress (Fletcher) after many years to
investigate a mystery from her past. Producer/director John Alaimo says that
any supposed resemblance to the film "Sunset Boulevard" would be
strictly a surface one, and that "Last Waltz on a Tightrope" goes in
different directions entirely. "It's a very good play, not abstract at
all," he added."
One hour TV drama starring academy award winning actor Louise Fletcher
best actress for the film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
and TV actor Tony Musante.
Program was purchased and aired nationally on PBS on April 14 at 10pm,
1986 and shown on all Pa state PBS stations over 100 station across the
country.
John is currently in Pre-Production on a documentary on George Catlin,
the American painter, who specialized in
portraits of Native Americans in the Old West.
John Alaimo, a good filmmaker and a good friend.
Friday, 27 December 2019
MAYBE THIS TIME
I'm happy to say that a long lost film I produced is now available for streaming. The reasons why the film was lost for so long are many and I will elaborate on them in the future. For now, MAYBE THIS TIME (1981) received seven AFI Nominations, including Best Film, Best Actress, and won Best Supporting actress for Jill Perryman.
The AWGIE Winning script was written by Anne Brooksbank & Bob Ellis. Directed by Chris McGill, DOP Russell Boyd, Music Bruce Smeaton. Editor Wayne Le Clos.
Enjoy the trailer.🎞
And watch the film.
PRIME VIDEO https://tinyurl.com/rzvp3jj
VIMEO https://vimeo.com/ondemand/maybethistime1981
UMBRELLA https://www.umbrellaent.com.au/on-demand/4379-maybe-this-time-1981-vod-only.html
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080311/##
Monday, 21 October 2019
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