Bellarine Times
Tuesday 24 August 2010
VOL 3. No 34
www.bellarinetimes.com.au
FREE WEEKLY
The band played, the sun shone and Portarlington celebrated! Portarlington Business Development Association chair, John Rae, and Member for Bellarine, Lisa Neville, were among the guests to enjoy the view from the restored rotunda. Turn to page 9 for details and more photos. Photo: ALISON MARTIN
WORLDWIDE BY ALISON MARTIN
PORTARLINGTON filmmaker David King has secured a place in the worldwide spotlight, with his latest ‘ultralow-budget film’ set to hit big and small screens. New York-based international distributor, Troma Entertainment, has picked up King’s ‘80-minute quasi sci-fi film, PURGE, and will launch it at the 11th Melbourne Underground Film Festival this week. The self-funded project, described by King as ‘an experimental, narrative film aimed at the avant garde end of the arthouse market’, will then be screened at the BUT Film Festival in Breda, The Netherlands in late September and released via DVD and selected pay/ cable television networks. In spite of a profound hearing impairment, King is the writer, producer, director, co-cinematographer, production designer, sound designer, editor, and also responsible some of the visual effects in the sought-
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after film. “Being a kind of jack-of-all trades was common among underground/independent filmmakers back in the 1970’s and I tried to keep that creative, can-do spirit alive on PURGE,” he said King said his films were not created as a calling card for Hollywood but admitted he liked the idea of a film he made earning enough money so he could concentrate on making films or video art – and PURGE could be that film. “PURGE is set in a parallel universe where people are artificially created by genetic engineering companies and programmed for roles in life. Intercut with mock commercials, news reports, and current affair interviews, the fragmented story tells of the trials and tribulations of a young woman who is unable to assume her pre-ordained role as BDSM mistress-slave and forced to join an illegal underground organisation to survive,” he explained.
The storyline idea for PURGE developed when King was finishing his last quasi sci fi short film The Job, which screened at more than 14 international film festivals. King said the film was shot on digital video in Melbourne over two years with cast and crew working at weekends and the odd weeknight evening. The post production process was then completed in Portarlington and Melbourne over two years. He has already started work on his next project; a screenplay which combines ideas from Clockwork Orange, The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, and Delicatessen, without copying any film. King, grew up in Geelong, now lives in Portarlington with his partner, Andrea, and eight-year-old daughter, and was one of the first people in Geelong to make short narrative 16mm films during the film industry’s renaissance in the 1970s. PURGE will screen at 8.30pm at Docklands in the Melbourne Underground Film Festival on August 26.
Photo: MICHAEL CHAMBERS
WED 2-4ft building, W 12° THU 3-4ft building, W/NW 12° FRI 3-5ft+ quality W 12° SAT 3-4ft easing SW 14°
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