NEW FILMS FROM THE AFW FILM LAB

ACMI’s Art+Film Program Presents:
Artist Film Workshop

6.30pm, March 17th, 2026
ACMI Cinemas, Fed Square,
Flinders St, Melbourne.

Tickets and program found here.

"Our selection of films explore landscapes that shape our reality; from the vast beauty of the natural world surrounding us, to the practical manmade structures we have built upon it, the composition and movement of our own bodies, and the acetate surface of a film roll manipulated by human hands to set the stage. The camera lens becomes an experimental tool that moves beyond explicit narratives, drawing us into the nuances, memories and tensions held within these topographical interrelationships. Use of sound, colour and pacing between shots are a few of the devices these filmmakers embrace to create their immersive terrains."
–  Michaela Bear & Ella Cawthorn, Co-curators, ACMI.

FILMS:
 

Agoda Asleep at Home
dir. Lucas Haynes, 5 mins, 16mm
A sleeping mother looks after a decaying house. As we move through each room, we are met with new objects and new friends, off screen. She is scrolling through Agoda to find the best hotel.

Bolognaogna
dir. Bryce Kraehenbuehl, 5 mins, Super 8
Round and round we go through the historic city. Shot on Super8, Bolognaonga utilises hyperlapses to highlight the unique architecture and patterns formed throughout the historic city of Bologna.

Cradle & Step
dir. Max Schoeman, 5 mins, 16mm
Two friends discuss and improvise repeated movements for the camera

Gay Cowboy
dir. Giorgos Efthiminou, Iannos Lianos, Sebastian Vaccaris, 2 mins, 16mm
And so after much deliberation, the gay Cowboy presented the settings and configuration for the different stages on painting, bleaching, swallowing, riding & haliding whilst chewing a delicious spanakopita.
Who is the Gay Cowboy? When did the Gay Cowboy appear? How did the Gay Cowboy deliberate in such an elegant and pugnant matter? This film has none of the answers for the questions presented.

Heimþrá eða Nostalgía
dir. Melody Woodnutt, 7 mins, 16mm
"Like the doctors before them, poets and philosophers failed to find a precise location for nostalgia...a metaphorical journey seemed like a homeopathic treatment for human longing...".
– Svetlana Boym, The Future of Nostalgia
Inspired by intense synesthesia and shot while living in a deconsecrated church on the edge of the Greenland Sea, these negatives have waited over 10 years to become a film.

I Go Down to the Shore
dir. Georgia Spain, 10 mins, 16mm
At the same time every morning, on the same small stretch of beach, the Cremorne Ocean Dippers submerge themselves in the icy waters off the south-east coast of Lutruwita (Tasmania).
With my mother being one of these cold water swimmers, I have witnessed, and partaken, in the quiet wonder of this daily ritual. I go down to the shore is a love letter to this daily practice and the people who enact it.

Kata Tjuṯa, West of Uluru
dir. Dianna Barrie, 5 mins, 16mm
Looking at the present, as though the far future were dreaming of its ancient past – an 'iconogenic' vision of Australia.

Mistake Me for Anybody
dir. Camille Perry, 2 mins, 16mm
A 16mm film informed by the expansive nature of queer relationships and bodily autonomy. This film was processed by a plant-based developer and the sage used was grown in my garden.

Passing Place
dir. Oscar Lush, 6 mins, 16mm
It is hard enough arriving without time, let alone to understand somewhere with somewhere else in mind; life as landscape passing from the back of a moving car. Shot over a single afternoon on the Isle of Mull, Scotland.