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Film Cutting A Splendid ARC:

Back in 2006, beloved Canberra (nay Australia) institution the National Film & Sound Archive was one of few film archives in the world without its own on-site cinema to showcase its extensive and deeply historically important collection of films. Under the then-directorship of Paolo Cherchi-Usai 2007 saw the birth of ARC CINEMA. Under the guidance of David Boden (Manager of Access, Research and Development), Quentin Turnour (Chief Cinema Programmer), Cynthia Piromalli (Assistant Cinema Programmer), Trevor Anderson (Theatre Manager and, I’m told, a man instrumental in Arc’s construction), Reece Black (Chief Projectionist) and Greg Rooke (Projectionist) Arc Cinema has blossomed into an important cultural landmark that hosts a wonderfully eclectic snapshot of human life through film. 

At the dawn of 2012, I caught up with the ever-affable Cynthia Piromalli to discover the cinematic sights and sounds we have to look forward to for the year ahead.

“American Movie Treasures is on again in 2012,” Piromalli reveals, “which is a program we run with the support of the Embassy of the United States to bring Canberra audiences classic American cinema from film archives the world over. The first part of the season will be an Elia Kazan retrospective, kicking off with A Streetcar Named Desire outdoors in February then continuing with other classic Kazan titles in March/April and more US director retrospectives later in the year. 

“For the warmer months [and we use that term loosely these days] the Arc Outdoors screenings continue every Saturday night in the courtyard with Spinal Tap, Taxi Driver and Monty Python and The Holy Grail. We’ll also be running free Australia Day screenings including rarely seen films from the NFSA Collection including a featurette by Ken G Hall made in 1939 called Gone To The Dogs and a few of shorts in Bonza, Darra Dogs (by Dennis Tupicoff) and Down, Rusty Down by John Curran featuring Noah Taylor and Bob Ellis playing a pack of stray dogs. Plus we’ll have the 2011 box office hit Red Dog.”

The Australian flag will continue to be proudly flown as the year progresses, it seems, including a pleasing look at the world of Melbourne punk in Autoluminescent.

“We’re showing Australian director Ivan Sen's new film Toomelah in an exclusive season during February; the film screened a couple of times at last year's Canberra International Film Festival to packed audiences. And of particular interest to your peeps, I think, is the exclusive season of the new documentary Autoluminescent: Roland S. Howard which is screening from February 3.”

But it’s not all about celluoid from a sunburnt country. Arc Cinema will continue to showcase films old and new from around the world.

“The 2012 Alliance Francais French Film Festival will again be co-hosted at Arc Cinema  - including opening and closing nights - from March 14 to April 1,” Piromalli confirms, with news that the full program will be published in just over a fortnight at www.affrenchfilmfestival.org/default.aspx . “We will again be co-hosting the 2012 Canberra International Film Festival in late October/early November,” Piromalli continues, “and we will also be hosting the 2012 Japanese Film Festival in November which always has an excellent line-up of new and classic anime, brilliant action films and incredibly shot dramas from this amazing film culture. Further to this we also hope to bring a regular anime program to Arc this year, with the support of the Embassy of Japan.”

Of course an Arc NFSA program would not be complete without examples of the dawn of cinema, which will be ably demonstrated this year by the Autumn Silents season.

“Now this is where Arc shines!” Piromalli enthuses. “We're one of the few cinemas left in Australia that can run silent film at correct variable speeds with live musical accompaniment. We will be screening rare films from archives around the world, shown as they were originally; as they should be seen. This happens in the first two weeks of March, including some outdoor screenings early in the month.” 

All this should have cinephiles suitably salivating for the months ahead. I ask Miss Piromalli if there’s anything else she’d like to add before we part ways.

“That's about as much detail as I can offer, given we have only just programmed until April,” she reveals. “However we can promise - oh yes, promise - our usual year-long fare of exclusive seasons of new films, director retrospectives from around the world showcasing some rarely seen films from some of the best known filmmakers, our regular Sounds On Site program of music documentaries, the old cult title, new and classic Australian cinema every Saturday at 2pm and all with most films shown on - egad! - real film!”

To keep up with Arc Cinema’s terrific program you can sign up for their newsletter for the odd ticket giveaway and trailers of upcoming films at http://www.nfsa.gov.au/arc/ or email arc@nfsa.gov.au, search for them on Facebook and Twitter or keep a beady eye on these pages for news.

ACT Writers Centre:

2012 is bristling with a diverse range of invaluable workshops for writers of all levels at the ACT Writers Centre. I caught up with Communications Officer Kimberley Gaal  to find out exactly what’s on offer, as well as the bountiful benefits of becoming a member.

Can you give me a run down on the workshops?

Our first two workshops coming up in February are about how to sell your book to an Australian publisher so it’s looking at if from the business perspective. One of them is actually a free workshop that we’re running with support from Writing Australia which is specifically for writers from a non-English speaking background. The other one is open to everybody. We try to run it every year but it tends to be every two years as Rhonda Whitton, the woman who runs it, is a very in demand woman. It’s just brilliant. She wrote the book that is our ‘go-to’ whenever anyone has questions about submitting to publishers.

Following on from that are two editing workshops held specifically because we want people to say ‘this is a new year, and the year that I want to turn my writing from a hobby into something more’. But in order to do that people have got to let go of the idea that writing is just the creative process and they have to be able to look at it with a little bit more of an objective eye.

Every year we schedule editing workshops for the beginning of the year. You should write because you love it, because even with the absolute best writing there’s never quite a guarantee that you’re going to end up published and even if you are published there’s no guarantee that your next book will be published. Very, very few writers have that 100% guarantee. So you should do it because you love it and then you’re going to be guaranteed to enjoy it no matter what, but the next step up from there that we’re trying to explain to people the importance of is that if you want to be published and if you do have that dream – even if you want to self publish which is becoming more and more viable – you need to look at it as a profession.

What other topics do they cover?

Following on from the editing workshops we’ve got all the workshops that focus on the creative side of writing. We find people don’t give themselves permission to just love writing and love learning about writing. Some of our most popular workshops are the ones about ‘how do I get published?’ and some of our most popular events are the ones where we have publishers and agents come and talk and that’s wonderful but none of that’s actually going to be any good if you can’t actually write well. Good writers really appreciate learning from other good writers.

What is the format of the workshops?

Workshops tend to be between ten and 12 people. Each tutor has their own style. We want to make sure that everyone who comes to our workshops are getting value and are really getting something that they can appreciate. We have a new thing in place again this year that we started last year called Tuesday Chats, more informal lunchtime sessions that are held on Tuesdays. New tutors must do a Tuesday Chats first so we know that they’ve got some experience and charisma and are alright at talking in front of groups, and then they have to submit a workshop plan so they’re all proper workshops.

The majority of them tend to be relaxed and the tutors are very good at reading the room and working out what people want. Very few of them that I’ve come in contact with will have their set sheet and ‘this is my guideline I will do this, this and this’.

Tutors differ in their use of creative exercises. Some will be 50/50 with them talking and then the creative exercises, while some will vary more one way than the other.

What are some of the benefits of being a member of the ACT Writers Centre?

Members get generally about a $60 discount on every workshop. Members also get invited to member-only events, and they get discounts on our other services like our manuscript appraisal service. They get invited to join our Invite A Writer database, which is a database of members that are freelance writers and editors. We are very selective about that because writing and editing is a profession as well as a craft, and a lot of people work really hard to be really good at it. It’s not something that you can go and do a 12 month course in editing and then call yourself an editor. We meet a lot of people who don’t understand that so we’re trying to use Invite A Writer to really stress the importance of putting in the hard yards.

Members also receive 12 issues a year of our magazine, which has come a long, long way in the last couple of years. Each issue contains articles which are all on a theme. Last year we ran a series called How did I get here? which was a serious of Q&As I did with people who were writers who wrote for a living. So people who always knew that they loved writing. 

It’s one of those things… In high school in particular, if you’re good at science you go on to uni and you do science. If you’re good at maths you might go on to do engineering. But if you’re good at writing it’s a good skill but it’s not considered a ‘thing’. So a lot of people leave high school and they go on to uni or TAFE and they might do a creative writing course and that’s fantastic, we recommend it thoroughly to do one if you’re passionate about it but it’s not one of the things where you leave with the job of author. It just doesn’t exist. And a lot of people don’t quite understand that so we put out that series to give them the idea that you can find jobs that are about writing that are actually about writing. It’s something that you can actually love and it can be a skill that you can nurture and it can take you places. You just have to sometimes look beyond what’s right in front of you.

So we’re looking at ways to encourage young writers but also people who have always had that dream of writing and that love of writing but have never been able to either have the confidence to take it anywhere or really know where to go. We’re trying to give them both inspiration and excitement and enthusiasm but also the reality of the situation. 

For more information head to www.actwriters.org.au .