LEISURE
Single channel digital video, colour, stereo, 13 minutes
synopsis
Two women traverse around one another in a motel; a guest retiring to leisure, and a housekeeper resisting it.
screening enquiries: mia@mia-forrest.com
film festival selections
Queensland Film Festival
Channels (Australian Video Art Festival) at Australian Center for Moving Image
Aesthetica Short Film Festival
Revelation Perth International Film Festival
cast + crew
motel guest: deirdree wallace
housekeeper: danxia yang
director / producer / editor: mia forrest
cinematographer: ben cotgrove
production designer: samantha herriman
production coordinator: meg o'connell
original score & sound design: samuel pankhurst
mastering engineer: joe talia
makeup artist: billie westonewestonmakeup.com/
1st ac: erin o'shiel
sound recordist: mary duong
Leisure frees itself from dramatic narrative; long takes of insignificant details and events become the films’ operative subjects, in which the surplus of reality complemented with the accrual of duration, offers a mundane dramaturgy, if you will.
By channeling the simple effect of a minimal-hyperrealist style, Leisure relishes in the literal depiction of routine (non)events of the leisure body and the labor body engaging in their respective quotidian circumstances, such as relaxing in the hot tub or cleaning the toilet. In representing everydayness through the quotidian details of two womens’ contrasting lives, I am investigating ordinary lives - the routines that no-one pays attention to, registering these minimal moments, so that when we see them we acknowledge our own “everydayness” and evaluate what we are doing with our own lives.
SYNOPSIS
A lavish thug poaches an exotic young trophy-boy and smuggles him into City Crush. When our would be ivory concubine escapes during his own sale he must navigate the desolation, boredom, and deviant lust of the locals.
film festival selections
Diametrale (Innsbruck, Austria)
Short Waves Festival (Poznan, Poland)
8th Cairo Video Festival (Cairo, Egypt)
Aesthetica Short Film Festival (York, UK)
Byron Bay International Film Festival (Byron Bay, AU)
BLOW-UP · Chicago International Arthouse Film Festival (Chicago, USA)
Atlanta Underground Film Festival (Atlanta, USA)
Cannes Court Métrage – Festival de Cannes (Cannes, FR)
AVIFF-Art Film Festival (Cannes, FR)
Alchemy Film & Moving image Festival (Hawick, UK)
Speechless Film Festival (Minnesota, USA)
Awards
Hong Kong Arthouse Film Festival (Hong Kong) - Best Experimental Film
Most Outstanding Director - Griffith University
cast
stolen trophy boy - harry piaggio
priest - gene von banyard
breakdancing thug in red tracksuit - yukon snakes
curious bunny lover - john stefulj
daytime infomercial addict - patricia petersen
crew
director, producer, editor: mia forrest
cinematographer - jason klaassen
production designer - alex hodgins
original score +sound designer - samuel pankhurst
1st ad - jason fitzgerald
1st ac - corey donaldson, rachel sieger, gayle wedemeyer
gaffer - josh long, ricky collier-waiomio
sound recordist - jackson scott, mircha mangiacotti
adr recordist and foley artist - mary duong
makeup - billie weston
jcolourist: Joe lancaster at chop shop post
stills photographer - joshua ochoa, adam briggs
Commercial for 2015 Australian Hairdresser of the Year Dmitri Papas' salon Papas & Pace
director / editor MIA FORREST
producer DENNY RYAN
dp / colour grade JEREMY VIRAG
model KELLY HOCKEY
soundtrack LAWRENCE ENGLISH ["if i dream may it be in fits"]