Flickery fest

The last few nights, I’ve been attending the Flickerfest, which is now touring Alice. This is one of the good things about Alice – as a regional centre, it gets more than its fair share of travelling cultural events, more so than places like Orange or Wangaratta, I suspect. It seems this is a by-product of the place’s strong interest and participation in the arts and culture industries, and maybe, just because it’s such a central, exotic destination.

So Flickerfest in Alice – roll up, and spread a blanket or a swag, spray on some aerogard to ward off the macro-mossies. Then lie back and enjoy the novelty of hearing French, German and Spanish spoken, and catching glimpses of other people’s lives and imagination from around the world, beneath the desert stars. The screen has been erected in the lawn area adjacent to the Araluen, pretty much where my former, former boss’s ‘ladies’ were charged about a year ago, for indecent exposure while practising their traditional dance. (Last year some of the ladies crept in and sat in the grass at the side of the screen, chortling away, no doubt at the folly of the balanda (sorry, don’t know the Anangu word for non-Anangu).

I went to the first couple of nights of Flickerfest alone – one of the good things about being a singleton is, I guess, that you can just be selfish and do what you want. I mean, I’ve spent whole weeks in the past, luxuriating in a film festival. But I couldn’t lure my friends here to the fest until Sunday night. Unlike previous friends I’ve had, y’know, black-turtleneck-garbed, introspective types who thought nothing of spending hours reading Badiou or Zizek in a dimly lit café, my friends here tend to be social workers, teachers and lawyers who don’t feel quite the same level of necessity to see absolutely every film that comes to Alice as I do. But going by yourself isn’t such a bad thing as you end up talking to other people you only know vaguely rather than just chatting with your friends.

Anyway, that being said, Flickerfest this year has turned out largely to be a good thing. Last year when I went, and I don’t think my perspective was jaundiced by unaccustomed heat prostration, I wasn’t that impressed by Flickerfest. (I still don’t really like Harvey Krumpet, that Aussie animated short that won the Oscar either last year, though I’m glad of course that ‘we’ won it – thought the film was way too heavyhanded in its pc content.) I think that short films are hard to pull off, in the way that short stories are, in that you can’t rely on a longer narrative to cut you a bit of slack. You have to get things pretty well spot on, or it’s too obvious when you’ve stuffed up. The temptation to be twee or flighty also seems to be something of a trap for the short film maker.

So, I was pleasantly surprised this year as most of the Flickerfest offerings have been very good indeed. A particular favourite of mine was Yu Ming is Ainm Dom, a story about a Chinese boy who decides he wants to live in Eire, learns Gaelic – and is flummoxed when no one can understand him, except for one old man in a pub. It was of special significance to me, as I learn Irish Gaelic in third year Uni – and when I went to Eire, none of my relatives could understand me either, though I think it was more to do my pronunciation! My Irish flatmates poured scorn on this activity, as they had been forced to learn Irish at school…a bit like my encounters with les jeune francaises, (pardon my French), who thought it a terrible thing to be forced to study philosophy in high school. Whereas I would have been quite happy to study both Irish and philosophy at school…

Talking to M last night at the Fest about La Sequence Silverstein, a film about a man undertaking a genome screening….’That’s what’ll happen to you,’ I said, ‘A [his partner] will make you undergo genome testing to make sure you don’t carry too many genes for Asperger’s syndrome.’ M [groaning]: ‘Yeah, she will too, before she’ll let me breed with her.’

Tjilpi: Thanks for the reassuring news about the maintenance on the Todd.

Nick: I’ll send out a change of details email and all will be revealed. (Seems like there’s something in the wind for Virgos re: career at the moment!)  And yeah the speeches -- I also spent a lot of blood, sweat and tears, speech-writing for others, often at the eleventh hour, only to have them decide in a fit of pique on occasion that they weren't going to give that speech after all, as they were too busy/didn't like so-and-so in that organisation/were 'allergic to Canberra', and so forth.

Angus: Some YADS (i.e. Young Democrats) I once knew told me that NSD actually had brown curly hair.  Weren't her wedding photos in the papers vile!  (And why did she always go out with such sepulchral looking men?!)

Troppo: I wrote a post which puts the case against Helen Garner’s Consolation – and also picks up on the issue of diminished responsibility.

And there’s more: sorry folks, can’t resist another potshot at NSW Health…I knew I smelt more than just a rat on Ward 9 (wouldn’t have been surprised if a literal Orwellian rat had been there!)

Comments

[Tjilpi]

Steep learning curve coming up! "Balanda" is Top End "creole" aka "kriol" for Hollander. Anangu probably never discovered a Balanda this far inland. Although - and get this - Centralian Cats are Dutch! After the Batavia went down the cats escaped. Arrente people, when asked, say that cats came from the west. They were here before any whitefella. DNA experts have confirmed that cats in WA DNA as Rotterdam cats to this day. They were here before Capn James Cook set sight on the South East Coast!! Tjilpi.

[Tjilpi]

*Oops! DNA studies have confirmed that Feral cats in WA have the same Balanda DNA as Rotterdam cats do - to this day! Feral cats south-east of a line drawn from Cairns to Perth are simply English Moggies - a totally different DNA line - probably containing feline Aspergers! Either way, they are both good bush tucker. Tjilpi.

[elsewhere]

Thanks, Tjilpi. Interesting to know the derivation of 'balanda' -- I knew it was from the Top End; the 'Hollander' bit makes sense.

I saw a documentary on feral cats a couple of years ago that argued all the feline DNA out here pointed to English moggiedom rather than the Rotterdam cats. But perhaps this is new research?

One of my cats was watching the doco (unusually for him, as he rarely watches TV) and he was most interested in the mating call of the female feral feline.

[Tjilpi]

PS...Arrernte, Arunta, Aranda, Arrenta....just remember to roll your "r"s, as in Scots...and remember the Patrol Boat HMAS Arunta.

'Anangu' is the "people name" of the Pitchis - Pitjatjanjarra - mainly top end SA.

The Aranda are a separate 'tribe' - sometimes still at war with the Pitchis.

My dictionary uses 'arelhe' or 'tyerrtye' as the "people name" given by the Arunda to themselves. Nobody uses it in the popular press, which has sexified the use of 'Anangu' as if it applied to all Aboriginal persons in CA.

The word for "L'Etranger" in Aranda is "mperlkere".

The English orthography for Aranda is derived from German. The Lutherans set up the first language-translation-post in CA at Hermannsburg. Ever since, we Anglos have had to pronounce our "e"s as "a"s! Say "Arrernte" as "Arunta" and you can speak German!

I'll get off your case soon! Tjilpi.