Category: Smart Street Films News

GOING DOWN opened to full houses at the BAM cinema in Brooklyn, last Friday, May 9. American audiences, got the jokes, got the relationships, and dug the film. The atmosphere in the cinema was palpable. People who hadn’t heard about it were surprised and bowled over by what they saw. The bulk of the audience stayed for a Q+A with Director Haydn Keenan who was entertained with stories of adventures in the screentrade and how the film got made.

Box office and attendance were so strong the cinema immediately extended the season. Reviews on letterboxd are highly complementary.

The following night, Saturday, it was a preview screening at the American Cinemateque in Los Angeles which had a similar response. The film was introduced by Director John Hillcoat (The Road, The Proposition) and Colin Hay (Men At Work) and actor Gia Crides were in attendance. We are booked into 17 cities across America, and with the success of New York more bookings are expected. After 40 years, the film still has the energy, the in your face attitudes and soundtrack that resonate with audiences.

AFTER 40 YEARS –  OVERNIGHT SUCCESS

AFTER 40 YEARS –  OVERNIGHT SUCCESS

Indie U.S. distributor Muscle Distribution has picked up rights to our legendary left field feature GOING DOWN. The new 4K restoration launches theatrically in New York May 9, with other cities to follow.

After forty years, an email out of the blue has GOING DOWN finding a new audience. The email was from U.S. indie film distributor Muscle Distribution whose CEO Liz Purchell had found a VHS copy of the film in the remainders bin of a New York video shop. Fuzzy and faded as it was she fell in love with it. She really understood the picture. She got that it’s a movie for and about young women. Her company wanted distribution rights and they wanted to start with cinemas.

As luck would have it, at the same time, a couple of Australian industry angels were in the process of restoring the film to its former glory. Josh Pomeranz and his team at Spectrum Films and Peter Richards from The Grainery had pitched in their skills and services to bring the film back to life. Both liked the movie and remembered it fondly from its original local release.

Muscle Distribution CEO Purchell says she thinks the movie will resonate with young American audiences, “the relationships between the four girls and their concerns about life are universal”. Preview response has been strong and bookings from other U.S. cities are coming in. The film, which screened at the Sundance Film Festival, has never had a U.S. release. Details as we get closer to May 9.

NINGLA-A’NA 

To mark Invasion Day 2024 we’ve got our legendary tent embassy documenatry NINGLA-ANA in cinemas all round the country. See it the way it was meant to be seen – on the big screen.

NINGLA-ANA Screenings January 2024

Nova Carlton (VIC):                             5pm Friday January 26^th
                                                            5pm Sunday January 28^th

Royal Castlemaine (VIC)                    2.30pm Friday January 26^th

Dendy Newtown (NSW):                    2.15 Saturday January 27^th

Dendy Canberra (A.C.T.):                    2.15 Saturday January 27^th

Dendy Coorparoo (QLD):                    2.15 Saturday January 27^th

Wallis Mitcham (SA)                           1pm Friday Januray 26th
                                                            1pm Saturday January 27th
                                                            1pm Sunday January 28th

 We’ve several great movies dealing with the struggle for social justice for Aboriginal Australians. NINGLA-A’NA, TWO LAWS & PROTECTED are unique insights into the struggle and available on DVD from our catalogue.

THE YEAST IS RED

Now, for the first time comes a searing tale of revolution, sex and Gestetner machines.  
Torn from the pages of life, this recently discovered text, lifts the lid on the revolutionaries, cadres and part time insurrectionists holed up in The Bakery in Melbourne during the late 1960s.
With every move watched by the security services and the psycho sexual pressure reaching boiling point, this explosive tale is an unforgettable journey into the dark byways of dialectic materialism.  From the pen of hard hitting scribe and historian Ken Mansell here for your pleasure is the illustrated, digital, interactive edition of The Yeast Is Red.  
You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll stare in wonder at the adventures of the Monash Labor Club.
Using previous unseen research materials from our Award winning TV series PERSONS OF INTEREST, this unique document is free to down load, its even got end notes.  
In exchange we want you to buy the DVD of our series.
Do yourself a favour and buy PERSONS OF INTEREST here and maintain the rage.

March 2018:  Smart St has entered an agreement with ABC-TV to develop a documentary series for their digital platform.   
RETRO REPORT AUSTRALIA is a web-based series of bite sized high quality news documentaries.
Based on the U.S. version, currently hosted on the NEW YOR TIMES platform, RETRO REPORT will look at major news stories from the last forty years by producing stylish 10-12 minute films which summarise the news story, analyse the media coverage and using fresh interviews and research bring the story up to date casting light on policy making, Government and how the story’s consequences have affected us

In the increasingly hectic 24 hours news cycle significant stories often fade from view quickly.
What happened in the end; to the disaster, the corrupt behaviour, or the personalities who were so high profile for a moment. RETRO REPORT is the final draft on the biggest news stories and a timely addition to the news cycle.  
Using award winning producers, journalists and editors RR will go back over the source material, find eye witnesses and re-examine the news coverage to produce high quality short form documentaries

#makeitaustralian

With Conservative Governments and Foreign combines once again pushing for Australian quotas to be removed from local TV it’s probably an appropriate time to note that this struggle has been going on for more than fifty years and the local content we do have on TV has been hard fought for over those years.  

During the research for our award winning intelligence series PERSONS OF INTEREST we came across the film below in the Australian Intelligence & Security Organisation (ASIO) film vault.  
It’s a protest march organised by member of Actors Equity in 1956 to protest the lack of quotas for Australian content on TV and the consequent swamping of the airwaves with American product.  
ASIO’s interest in this was triggered by the fact that the Communist Party of Australia supported quotas for local content and in the illogical logic of the spymasters these actors were therefore a front for the Communist plot they never actually exposed.  This didn’t stop ASIO from opening files on Actors Equity, Leonard Teale and a number of others featured in this film.  
Sounds absurd all these years later but it’s a sober warning that if you don’t stand up for local production it can easily be smashed by those with no vested interest in it.
Check #makeitaustralian

You can pick up the boxed set of PERSON OF INTEREST here. 

Coinciding with the release of the feature doco on film critic David Stratton here’s an ASIO surveillance photo of David on his way to the Russian Embassy.  
ASIO decided that those interested in screening films from China or Russia had to be fellow travellers with the Communist Party.  
This still is taken from our award winning series PERSONS OF INTEREST.  
Note what a dapper figure David cuts.  
He always took pride in his appearance.

Our legendary Sydney street pic GOING DOWN has been invited to screen at VIVID Sydney 2017 in June.  
The festival is creating a pop up cinema in the Kings Cross Hotel at the top of William St.  
It’s screening on June 2nd @ 8pm.  
Should be interesting with much of the film shot within a stones throw of the venue.
More details to follow.