Studio Ghibli, those crazy cats who brought us Spirited Away, Grave of the Fireflies and the wildly awesome My Neighbour Totoro (that we screened this semester) have made a film based on some great fantasy novels, the Earthsea Quartet. Dendy Newtown are showing this for a very limited run of 10 days, so we thought we'd provide some impetus for people to get out and watch it while we still can!

Directed by Miyazaki's son and looking damned pretty indeed, I think it's well worth the *four* dollars that we'll be charging for admission.

Need more convincing? There'll be leprechauns! And Cocaine!

Maybe not. :(

But there will be fun to be had. Come along to our screening this friday (Paris, Texas!) and get a ticket so we can get some concrete numbers on how many are coming, but if you really can't make it, send me an E-mail at MintiemanATgmail.com We haven't been notified of the screening time, but we'll be going on Thursday the 24th, for a night-time-ish screening.

Also, the gelato afterward will be awesome ^__^

Trivia Night went well! Thanks for all those who came and hope you guys had a great time :).

Pictures are up! Check out the Photos section.

Cheerio,
Matt (Chiqui, Ole!)

Hey hey FilmSoc!

As promised, the FilmSoc trivia night is coming! It will be held on Tuesday 1st May, 6:30pm at Manning Bar. It promises to be heaps of fun, with plenty of free alcohol, entertaining trivia and inter-round games, and lots of prizes to go around! It will feature:

• Trivia from multiple areas, first and foremost film but also including music, history etc...
  
• Three (yes, thats 3) free drinks (alcoholic or soft drinks) per person to keep you fueled for the trivia madness.
  
• Cool prizes for just about everything! (who wouldn't want more free drinks :P). Includes film passes/memberships, dvds and more!
  
• And of course your favourite friendly filmsoc exec's running the
  show :)

Of course, as with our launch party the main thing is to socialise and meet more of your fellow FilmSoc-ians! Table bookings for large groups are preferred, so reply to this email telling us how many people you've got coming as a group. If your coming individually or with a few friends thats fine too, since you'll be paired up with others to form a table (and trivia + free alcohol is an excellent ice breaker!).

Please RSVP to usydfilmsoc@gmail.com

Details:
Time/Date: 6:30pm, Tuesday 1st May
Location: Manning Bar

Pricing:
Filmsoc Members: ($5 with access),
Non-Members ($8 with access, $10 without access cards).

Payment received on the night or can be paid at preceding filmsoc screenings.

I hope to see you all there
Cheers,
Anthony Krensel

Hello filmsocers

Happy Easter and all that...

Now, on to interesting stuff! Weeks 7 and 11 are the weeks that filmsoc screens an audience choice film, that is, a film suggested by you guys! So, if you have a film that you think is awesome and worth screening, let us know! We accept films from any genre or culture (so long as we can obtain a copy of it).

Current suggestions so far are:

• 'If...' (1968) Lindsay Anderson
• 'Persona' (1966) Ingmar Bergman
• 'La Dolce Vita' (1960) Federico Fellini
• 'Picnic at Hanging Rock' (1975) Peter Weir
• 'Paris, Texas' (1984) Wim Wenders
• 'Brazil' (1985) Terry Gilliam
• 'Huozhe' (1994) Zhang Yimou
• 'Blue Velvet' (1986) David Lynch

Now of course, we only have two slots so I'll tell you now that the executive will have to narrow it down a bit. Firstly, we narrow it down by how much support its got, so send your vote to the mailing list so everyone can know about it. If you are going to email a minor comment/vote about already suggested films, PLEASE just email it to usydfilmsoc@gmail.com so that everyone else doesnt have to suffer through "yeah that ones cool" emails... :)

Now there are a couple of other things to consider:

• The film should be somewhat different to the ones we are already showing (particularly in the weeks preceding and after it) to avoid a build-up of one type of film, for example in weeks 6 and 8 we have two films with child love/paedophilia themes. Three weeks of this will probably make us sick...
• Significance (both culturally and in film history).
• As always, mainstreaminess. That is, in general we don't want to show something that a) all our members have already seen and b) that is a recent release film and commonly available. In other words, we want to show worthwhile films that will expand our film experience!

Cheers,
Anthony

I added a section where I put all my favourite online shorts, hope you enjoy!

Also, I thought it would be a good idea to have an online database of shorts made by the members of FilmSoc, so if you want a film that you've made linked from the site, email the mailing list and I'll put it up!

Cheerio,
Matt (Chiqui, Ole!)

Hey, valued members of filmsoc!

Now, I know I've been lazy with organising these film outings (personally, I'm blaming it on the lack of worthwhile films to go see), but I've finally decided on a film that is actually worth the effort.

The 300 is a film adaptation of the Frank Miller comic, loosely adapting the events at the Battle of Thermopylae. Now, for anybody who's seen Sin City, you know that adaptations of Frank Miller's work are visually spectacular, this one in particular being shot almost entirely on a bluescreen. Spartan King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fight to the last man against Persian King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and his army of over one million soldiers, while in Sparta, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) attempts to rally support for her husband. The story is framed by a voice-over narrative by the Spartan soldier Dilios (David Wenham). Through this narrative technique, all manner of fantastical creatures are introduced, placing *300* within the genre of historical fantasy.

Also, the Spartans kicked some ass and were pretty much the most hardcore motherfuckers in the history of the universe. That, in addition to the fact that we're going to go watch it on the freaking imax screen? Definitely promises to be one of the more visually spectacular things you'll see this year. Come! You know you want to!

Tickets are $11.50 if you have a concession card, meeting at 6'O Clock in front of the venue on Friday the 13th. How Ominous. Afterwards, we'll get some ice-cream/food/whatever, discuss the movie, and talk about what we'll do a group outing for next.

All that I ask is that if you're coming, or think you will be coming, send
me an email at Mintieman@gmail.com so I have a good idea of how many people I should be expecting.

Oh, and Happy Easter!
Min Taec Kim (Vice Prez ^_^)

Congratulations to all entries to Hairy Guerilla 2007 for making it one of the best on record! Also congratulations to the UNSW entries that pwnd our main prizes (>< I promise we'll come and pwn yours!).

Anyway, entries and winners are now up at the 'Film Competitions' Tab near the top of this page. Also all entrants please bug me for mini-dv tapes, dvds and Hairy Guerilla DVDs (each entrant gets one for free, for anyone else we may have to charge you a small fee so we can afford to conscript cheap Chinese DVD burning labour).

Photos of the night will be uploaded soon! Apologies for the blurry/bad pictures in advance, my camera has its own personality.

Cheerio,
Matt (Chiqui, Ole!)

Hello all,

It has come to my somewhat limited attention that the 6th of March is a public holiday (good friday!). This was going to be our screening of Life is Beautiful, but due to this issue it will be cancelled unless an alternative time/venue is found.

Note that this decision was not made simply because a public holiday is possibly inconvenient for you folks - we have just been informed that our room booking is invalid, and thus there is no possibility for us to use the room!

My biggest apologies guys. Hope no one joined the society just for that! :P

Cheers,
Anthony

HAIRY GUERILLA HAS BEGUN!

The shortest (that I'm aware of) fun film comp on campus is under way!The theme this year was chosen by Felix Lawrence and Brendan Markey, and can be used as either a stimulus for your entire film, or can just be incorporated randomly (so long as its clear to the judges!). And the theme for this Hairy Guerilla is...

WATER

Keep in mind the election issues this weekend if you want to :).

Important Issues for all entrants

• Make sure the theme is clear!
  
• The film MUST be LESS THAN 10 minutes. Don't make 4 minute credits!!! (Its been done :S)
  
• Films are best submitted in dvd format. More information about what formats we can stretch ourselves to take will come out on Saturday. Worst case scenario we can usually take mini-dv format or VHS.

LATE ENTRIES/CONFIRMATIONS!

NOTE TO ALL TEAMS: Some teams have confirmed their existence but not yet provided contact details or a full list of team members. Please do so ASAP.

If your still wanting to enter, thats totally fine! Just send an email to usydfilmsoc@gmail.com with a team name, list of team members, contact phone number and contact email address. I personally am entering and won't be able to start my film til the weekend anyway so theres no real disadvantage in entering late :).

If you are looking for more team members or a team to join, let me know and I'll see what I can do.

Cheers,
Anthony Krensel

If you have joined filmsoc but are not receiving filmsoc emails, there are one of two problems:

• We have not added you to the mailing list (perhaps your email was mispelt on data entry).
• You have not accepted the invitation to the mailing list (an email from yahoogroups, which you need to accept in order to start receiving filmsoc emails).

Regardless, if you can't resolve this situation then please just email usydfilmsoc@gmail.com with name, access card ID number, SID, and of course email address, and we will add you to the mailing list and an invitation will be sent out promptly!