Film director Trevor Graham was eagerly anticipating coming to Castlemaine for this month’s screening of his new documentary film as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival.
To his disappointment, the Melbourne-based creative instead finds himself now stranded in Sydney.
But while NSW’s current COVID outbreak has put paid to his planned Castlemaine visit, Victoria’s own Lockdown Number 6 is not stopping the festival coming to Castlemaine – and far beyond.
In response to the current restrictions uncertainty, festival organisers have responded by changing up the order of the festival program to maximise both in-cinema and online opportunities for its audiences.
“This basically means that the online program (MIFF Play) has been brought forward and will run for the full duration of the festival
(August 5 – 22), while the in-cinema screenings will now commence later, happening from August 13 – 22,” a publicist told the Midland Express as the fest got going on Thursday.
Trevor Graham’s new doco Chef Antonio’s Recipes for Revolution featuresamong an enticing lineup of films scheduled to play in-house at Castlemaine’s own Theatre Royal as part of the festival.
“I had been scheduled to be in Melbourne right now but because of lockdown here I am in Sydney,” Graham told the Express via phone on Friday.
“I love Castlemaine and I had been really looking forward to coming down for a Q&A at the Theatre Royal,” the Sydney-stranded film director said.
Chef Antonio’s Recipes for Revolution tells an uplifting tale that takes audiences behind the scenes of an Italian hotel-restaurant staffed by youngsters living with Down syndrome.
“It’s not just about food but also about how food can be a vehicle for social change,” said Graham who worked on making the fly-on-the-wall style doco over three years, spending just over six months in total in Italy’s Piedmont region to make the film over seven visits between 2017 and March 2020.
“I think one of the strengths of the film is that I became another utensil in the kitchen so to speak,” he said.
“Some of it is very intimate, some of it is dramatic, and some of it is tragic.
“We left Italy just as it was going into total lockdown.”
Besides the at times intense interior world of the kitchen, the film also captures some of the beautiful northern Italian location in which it is set.
And, lockdowns notwithstanding, Graham has a tip for those who do get along and catch Chef Antonio’s Recipes for Revolution at the Theatre Royal on August 21.
“Make sure you can eat some Italian food after the film because you will get hungry after watching it!”
The 2021 Melbourne International Film Festival is in online August 5 – 22 and in cinemas August 13 – 22 and Castlemaine figures among the eight regional centres into which the festival has expanded this year.
