Film collective Static Vision returns to cinemas with Metamorphoses, a cinematic celebration of change that features classics, oddities and some much-anticipated premieres.
It’s 2022, and cinemas are well and truly back.
It’s been a big year for the blockbusters — Dune, The Batman, Top Gun: Maverick — but the return to screens has also kickstarted film festivals, and the cinephiles at Static Vision couldn’t be happier. The independent cinema collective, known for their creative curiosity and bold programming, have previously curated festivals like the online-oriented Hyperlinks and the otherworldly Dreamscapes. They’re bringing their next program, Metamorphoses, to Hawthorn’s Lido Cinemas this October.
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“I think we’ve got a really good program this year,” says Conor Bateman, co-founder of Static Vision. Over the course of four days, Metamorphoses will explore ideas of change, evolution and transformation, presenting 16 features and 10 short films. “In Australia, we don’t have as many opportunities for thematic programming,” explains Conor, with the festival well in step with co-founder Felix Hubble’s take on their mission: to “expand what film culture in Australia can be, introduce some new ideas, reassess what everyone else is doing, and try and do something different, interesting, fun.”
Metamorphoses covers a lot of bases — there’s music, comedy, horror, aliens, roadtrips, and even a little edutainment. The opening night presentation spotlights the horrors of Cat People, screening Jacques Tourneur’s 1942 original alongside Paul Schrader’s 1982 reimagining. “A 40th and an 80th anniversary,” says Felix excitedly, “it seems too good to be true!” It’s not the only reason the twin films proved a perfect opener for Metamorphoses: “We’ve got adaptation and reappropriation of similar elements across two different films, but also we’ve got a remake, we’ve got stuff that’s made 40 years apart from each other, so you can see shifting cultural stuff, and we’ve got literal transformations in both of them!”
Saturday reflects on shifting mores: the afternoon opens with ‘70s detective parody Inspector Ike, continues with throwback variety show pastiche Give Me Pity, and closes out with the campy cahos of Everything is Terrible! Presents: Kidz Klub! The latter, an international premiere, is the latest from that LA-based editing collective, who construct their projects from long forgotten movies and dated video ephemera. Theirs is a vision steeped in metamorphoses, and Kidz Club! builds a potent, psychedelic film from old educational VHSs and direct-to-video kids films.
In some ways, it’s a process not too dissimilar from curating a thematic festival. The genres and moods of Metamorphoses are many, but as Felix and Conor tell it, there’s a unified spirit that runs throughout.
“Normally it’s the feeling of having found a diamond in the rough, or a gem,” says Felix of the films that make Static Vision programming. Conor describes their picks as having “a real hangout-ness to them,” fostering a casual watching experience. “It’s not necessarily demanding a huge amount of you, but that’s not to say they’re not films that are genuinely exciting.”
A little comfiness is always welcome on a hazy Sunday, and the Metamorphoses schedule includes Japanese anthology Made in Yamato, Canadian indie darling Therapy Dogs, Spanish Ufology tragicomedy The Sacred Spirit, and 1985 animated masterpiece Son of the White Mare, screening in recently restored 4K.
Static Vision have designed a film festival that channels a music festival: come for one film, hang around for a few more, stumble into some new artists and obsessions. If you’re not sure where to start, Felix spotlights Norwegian comedy-drama, Sick of Myself. “It’s from the producers of The Worst Person in the World — it’s about the actual worst person in the world,” he says with a smile. “It’s just come from Cannes… It’s about a narcissist who begins to take illegal Russian pharmaceuticals that start affecting affecting her appearance, because she feels ignored as her boyfriend finds more success in the art world.”
Conor recommends French-Bulgarian documentary Our Quiet Place, playing Saturday. “It’s about it’s a Bulgarian filmmaker who meets a Belarusian writer in Paris… the writer is learning French to write a novel about her father’s disappearance 15 years earlier, because she feels it’s too painful to even attempt writing it in her native tongue.”
Other highlights include Lux Æterna, the new experimental film from French provocatuer Gaspar Noé; Magnetic Fields, an acclaimed and largely-improvised Greek road film; Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem Redux, a remastered release of Daft Punk’s landmark music film; and Tales from the Gimli Hospital Redux, a 1988 cult hit with Lynchian tones, which is screening the international premiere of the recent 4K restoration.
Tickets to Metamorphoses: A Static Vision Festival in Melbourne are on sale now at metamorphoses.fest.melbourne.
