Culture on screens

TWO multimedia events will finally take place at the Cultural Exchange at the Beehive, after months of rescheduling due to COVID-19.

Multicultural Arts Victoria and Wartatjarrang Bendigo Local Aboriginal Network will host a Short and Sweet short film screening on Friday, and a smartphone documentary workshop on Saturday.

Both were initially a part of the COVID affected Central Victorian Indigenous Film Festival in late May.

MAV Bendigo creative producer Forest Keegal said the events will be a chance to celebrate the cultures of First Nations and people of colour.

“It’s great to be able to welcome people back in now and I think the performers are ready to do their thing, and it’ll be really nice for the audience to be able to come and have that experience as well,” she said.

The Short and Sweet screening will showcase films made on smartphones, in partnership with Cinespace.

Indigenous woman Maurial Spearim will present her short film, with her own live performance accompanying.

“Then we’ve got a really amazing projection art piece that’s been created exclusively for this event and that involves some live performance as well some dances, they danced and filmed it and they’re going to perform live with it,” Ms Keegal said.

“That’s a really exciting crossover between projection art and live performance. The whole concept that they’ve taken the footage before the event was cancelled but it relies on this performance element.”

The workshop on Saturday is exclusive to First Nations and people of colour and offers the chance to learn how to make a 60 second documentary using just a smartphone.

“You don’t need a Hollywood budget to be involved in film and things have really changed in the last 10, 20 years, everyone has a video camera in their hand and it’s about harnessing that and opening up some of those possibilities,” Ms Keegal said.

Ms Keegal said Friday’s screening event will be a great chance to celebrate Aboriginal and Torres Strait cultures.

“Because we mostly work with people from a multicultural background at MAV it’s really important to provide an experience of solidarity with First Nations artists and to celebrate them, so our newly arrived people get this sense of whose country we’re n and who we are,” she said.

For more information, check out the Cultural Exchange at Bendigo Beehive on Facebook.