A very special film will screen as part of the Bangalow Film Festival, preceded by a fascinating Q&A (avec moi) looking at old-school filmmaking.
Super Nature, created entirely on Super 8 film, shows a global community capturing intimate moments of nature using shared cameras, weaving their personal observations into story that celebrates Earth’s creatures.
Filmmaker Ed Sayers narrates the story (Super 8 has itself no sound), ultimately the by-product of a Super 8 film festival. The opening scene shows a colony of Norfolk Beach harbour seals, being, well, harbour seals, as Sayers explains he was inspired by a film about flamingos entered by a French man called Roger (Batteault).
He was ‘enchanted’.
Sayers explains how the film was made with cameras shooting footage in dozens of locations across the planet, but it’s just as much what is not seen that makes this film so exciting.
The film explores the finite nature of Super 8 – no instant reviewing, the limitations of the length of a Super 8 cartridge, and the importance of being absolutely aware of the seconds counting down as you shoot. You really don’t know what you have until it’s been processed – in a lab far away. Old-school.
A lot of the film literally looks and feels like a ‘70s home movie, but a really good one where the people are not people but animals, and the filmmakers really knew what they were doing – it is not at all quaint, and the insights of the shooters themselves are fascinating and often endearing – one cinematographer saying that the medium’s limitations gave them a sense of feeling closer to their subjects.
More harbour seals – and fade to black.
If you are a filmmaker, film student or film buff, Super Nature is a must, and for everyone else, this film is thoroughly entertaining and will send you away thinking and talking.
Super Nature screens at the Bangalow Film Festival on Sunday, 14 June from 5pm. Information and tickets can be found at: bangalowfilmfestival.com.au.
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