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roughcutfilm.bsky.social
ROUGH CUT
@roughcutfilm.bsky.social
An independent publication for film reviews, interviews, and reflections.

Based in Naarm/Melbourne.

roughcutfilm.com
"Happiness, community, and fantasy are no less present in spaces like this."

Sydney Leoli Reyes draws on the sights and sounds of four Filipino masterworks, which screened in October and November as part of the @melbcinematheque.bsky.social Lino Brocka season.

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At the Cinémathèque: Lino Brocka’s Scenes of Defiance
Sydney Leoli Reyes draws on the sights and sounds of four Filipino masterworks, which screened in October and November as part of the Melbourne Cinémathèque’s season ‘Marx, Melodrama and Marcos: Li…
tinyurl.com
December 19, 2025 at 10:01 PM
"The picket line [...] becomes not just a place of protest but of community and shared knowledge."

Maudie Osborne on SALT OF THE EARTH, a blacklisted 1954 film that dramatised the real events of a New Mexico miners' strike with women at its centre.

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Hold the Line: The Feminist Legacy of ‘Salt of the Earth’
In this 1950s collaboration between blacklisted filmmakers and miners’ rights activists, women are key to the fight for workers’ liberation.
tinyurl.com
December 5, 2025 at 12:18 AM
“I still want to remind people that this is a collective ritual.”

Oscar Bloomfield talks to Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul about being present, hearing music everywhere, and revisiting his first short, BULLET, ahead of a rare Sydney screening next week.

tinyurl.com/3yp5njay
“Cinema as a Recorder of Humanity”: An Interview with Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Oscar Bloomfield speaks with the visionary interdisciplinary artist about his very first film, hearing music everywhere, and being present.
tinyurl.com
October 21, 2025 at 2:57 AM
“There is an archive that is lost, but there’s an archive that replaces it, which is made in the present.”

Indigo Bailey talks to Palestinian filmmaker Azza El-Hassan, whose work KINGS & EXTRAS screens at our Bridge of Solidarity fundraiser event Oct 11.

tinyurl.com/y3pmu75w
Out of the Ruins: An Interview with Azza El-Hassan
The Palestinian filmmaker, writer, and liberatory archivist discusses buried histories, resisting the temporality of the news cycle, and her upcoming documentary, ‘The Lost Film of My Mother.’
tinyurl.com
October 6, 2025 at 12:26 AM
"Kerr’s stop-and-go career momentum and the film’s aspirations as a somewhat conventional sports biopic create a friction, placing excess weight on the shoulders of its movie star attraction."

Read Kevin Bui on Benny Safdie’s THE SMASHING MACHINE.

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Review: Hitting Rock Bottom in ‘The Smashing Machine’
In director Benny Safdie’s first solo feature, Dwayne Johnson embodies the contradictions of mixed martial artist Mark Kerr with a strikingly light touch.
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October 4, 2025 at 12:09 AM
On Oct 11, we're co-hosting a mutual aid benefit screening of Azza El-Hassan's KINGS AND EXTRAS: DIGGING FOR A PALESTINIAN IMAGE & Jean-Luc Godard and Anne-Marie Miéville's HERE AND ELSEWHERE (ICI ET AILLEURS) in partnership with writer Dylan Rowen and Static Vision.

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Gaza Fundraiser: Kings and Extras - Digging For A Palestinian Image + Here & Elsewhere
<p><strong>STATIC VISION AND ROUGH CUT PRESENT</strong></p><p>A mutual aid benefit film screening of Azza El-Hassan's <em>Kings and Extras: Digging for a Palestinian Image</em> (2004) &amp; Jean-Luc G...
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September 23, 2025 at 7:22 AM
Our first piece in collaboration with the Emerging Writers' Festival x @melbcinematheque.bsky.social is a work of short fiction by Laetitia Um—a response to the Cinémathèque's recent Seijun Suzuki season that explores the troubled psyche of a side character in BRANDED TO KILL.

tinyurl.com/mu2ajak9
At the Cinémathèque: ‘Stranger Desires’
In a work of short fiction commissioned as part of our collaboration with the Emerging Writers’ Festival, Laetitia Um unearths latent desires in Seijun Suzuki’s ‘Branded to Kill’ (1967).
tinyurl.com
September 11, 2025 at 1:28 AM
Rough Cut is proud to be partnering with the Emerging Writers Festival and @melbcinematheque.bsky.social to publish three responses to Cinémathèque seasons by emerging writers during EWF 2025 and beyond.

We'll kick off with the fest on Sep 11—watch this space! 💌🎥📝

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EWF at the Cinémathèque - Emerging Writers' Festival
Three writers absorbed by the inter-disciplinary, creatively respond to three unique seasons at Melbourne’s coolest film society: The Cinémathèque.
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September 2, 2025 at 7:43 AM
“This film is an artefact, and that’s how I wanted to make it; that’s how I want it to feel.”

Michelle Huang speaks to PASA FAHO director Kalu Oji about collaboration, intergenerational love and learning, and refusing assimilation.

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Piecing it Together: An Interview with ‘Pasa Faho’ Director Kalu Oji
Michelle Huang speaks with the filmmaker and TEN DAYS collective member about collaboration, intergenerational love and learning, and refusing assimilation.
tinyurl.com
August 28, 2025 at 10:41 AM
"I saw this very narrow version of Hollywood, and I didn’t like it."

Emily Browning talks to @connordalton.bsky.social about the joys and anxieties of her most formative roles, from her breakthrough in GHOST SHIP to her latest turn in the homegrown rom-com ONE MORE SHOT.

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“Embracing the Possibility of Failure”: An Interview with Emily Browning
The Australian actor reflects on the joys and anxieties of her most formative roles, from her breakthrough in ‘Ghost Ship’ to her latest turn in the homegrown romantic comedy ‘One More Shot.’…
tinyurl.com
August 19, 2025 at 2:40 AM
Reposted by ROUGH CUT
This piece from Indigo Bailey @roughcutfilm.bsky.social is essential reading, especially ahead of MIFF kicking off.

roughcutfilm.com/2025/08/08/c...
Closing the Curtains
Indigo Bailey on resisting the film industry’s regime of complacence.
roughcutfilm.com
August 8, 2025 at 3:29 AM
"The current escalation of Israel’s genocide in Gaza is a critical juncture which marks blatant cultural as well as humanitarian crises—including a crisis for the moving image."

Indigo Bailey on rejecting regimes of silence and complicity in the Australian film industry.

tinyurl.com/3jud2hwh
Closing the Curtains
Indigo Bailey on resisting the film industry’s regime of complacence.
tinyurl.com
August 8, 2025 at 4:06 AM
On the site today, Philippa Hawker interviews the prolific screenwriter, director, and Cahiers du Cinéma critic Pascal Bonitzer about his new art world-set feature THE STOLEN PAINTING.

Now in Australian cinemas courtesy of Palace Films 🖼️

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Historical Imagination: An Interview with Pascal Bonitzer
Philippa Hawker speaks with the prolific critic, screenwriter, and director about his latest art world-set feature, the intuitive turns in his career, and collaborating with auteurs including Jacqu…
tinyurl.com
August 1, 2025 at 1:01 AM
"Seyrig's performances [...] teeter on the threshold between person and place."

Jamie Jungyoon Tak writes on LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD & MURIEL, OR THE TIME OF RETURN, which screened together as part of the recent Delphine Seyrig season at the Melbourne Cinémathèque.

tinyurl.com/nnu7uw8y
At the Cinémathèque: On Delphine Seyrig, Alain Resnais, and Remoulding Memory
In two Resnais films screened this June as part of the Melbourne Cinémathèque’s season ‘Rebellious Muse: Delphine Seyrig as Actor, Director and Activist,’ Seyrig wavers between the mislaid past and…
tinyurl.com
July 7, 2025 at 10:14 PM
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June 16, 2025 at 3:06 AM
Indigo Bailey interviews Palestinian-American writer, director and actor Cherien Dabis about her miraculously executed drama ALL THAT'S LEFT OF YOU, which she was forced to recreate in exile after five months of preparation and construction in Palestine.

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Filmmaking in Exile: An Interview with Cherien Dabis
Indigo Bailey speaks to the ‘All That’s Left of You’ writer-director about its epic road to completion amidst the escalation of Israel’s genocidal regime, channelling real-life solidarity and grief…
tinyurl.com
June 13, 2025 at 7:49 AM
"A crisis can be very fecund."

Andréas Giannopoulos speaks to filmmaker Athina Rachel Tsangari about her latest feature, HARVEST,
which follows a Middle Ages farming community as it descends into turmoil.

Screens this weekend at Sydney Film Festival.

tinyurl.com/mswspzrz
“Cinema is Undead”: An Interview with Athina Rachel Tsangari
Andréas Giannopoulos speaks to the inventive filmmaker about her punk anti-Western ‘Harvest,’ reckoning with the machinations of history, her experiential creative process, and her fears and hopes …
tinyurl.com
June 7, 2025 at 4:55 AM
In the latest entry of his Screen Play column, Austin Lancaster wades into a world of vulgarity—the "nasty, cheap, and gratuitous"—with indie game NIGHT AT THE GATES OF HELL, which riffs on the gauche greats of Italian horror, Lucio Fulci & Bruno Mattei.

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‘Night At the Gates of Hell’ Games Horror’s Maestros
Austin Lancaster explores the rough-hewn indie game’s resonances with the cinematic nightmares of Lucio Fulci and Bruno Mattei.
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June 6, 2025 at 9:12 AM
Screens in Naarm this Saturday night alongside the BBBC Coming to the Edge symposium!
June 5, 2025 at 5:25 AM
Reposted by ROUGH CUT
The Melbourne International Film Festival lights up screens from 7—24 August.

This year, we’re inviting you to Look Closer at stories from near and far.

Your first look at #MIFF2025 lands tomorrow morning at 11am. Subscribe to Widescreen to stay in the loop: miff.com.au/subscribe
June 4, 2025 at 7:33 AM
"Histories of making and handling with both care and violence manifest in scratches, time codes, rips, grain, and skipping frames."

Alex Williams rounds out our BUFF coverage with a reflection on Palestinian filmmaker Kamal Aljafari's A FIDAI FILM.

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Sabotaging the Archive: ‘A Fidai Film’
Screened at the inaugural Brunswick Underground Film Festival, Kamal Aljafari’s resounding work of documentary bricolage implodes Zionist ideologies from deep within.
tinyurl.com
June 3, 2025 at 7:14 AM
SCREENING THIS WEEKEND AT BUFF 🔥

Charles Carrall speaks with Leon O'Regan, the restorer of Charis and George Schwarz’s pioneering sex films.

They discuss lifting them from obscurity, Australian censorship, and the couple’s hardcore artistry.

tinyurl.com/mr3779sh
Arousing Discovery: An Interview with ‘The Lost Sex Films of Kings Cross’ Restorer Leon O’Regan
Charles Carrall speaks with the restorer of Charis and George Schwarz’s pioneering sex films about lifting them from obscurity, the history of Australian censorship, and the couple’s hardcore artis…
tinyurl.com
May 31, 2025 at 3:09 AM
"Cinema is no conveyer belt, no this and then that. It’s only now and now and now."

Indigo Bailey surveys a trilogy of microbudget miracles from Adelaide collective Moviejuice, screening at the inaugural Brunswick Underground Film Festival this Saturday.

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On Moviejuice’s Microbudget Revolutions
Indigo Bailey spotlights Daniel Tune’s inspired debut feature ‘Malls,’ which screens alongside the works of his Moviejuice comrades, Gabriel Bath, Aubrey Winslow, and Jack Langford, at the inaugura…
tinyurl.com
May 27, 2025 at 11:49 AM
Kevin Bui presents a star study by way of the latest MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE instalment, tracing Cruise's persona from "enigmatic movie star" to "intensely devoted action hero [...] willing to put his own life on the line" for our entertainment.

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Review: ‘The Final Reckoning’ is an Unwieldy yet Fascinating Star Text
The ‘Mission: Impossible’ franchise’s latest instalment is a faltering joyride, which nevertheless offers valuable reflections on real-world spectacles.
tinyurl.com
May 26, 2025 at 10:13 PM
As part of our Summer Sacraments program in March, Indigo Bailey spoke to writer-director Laura Citarella about her 2011 feature debut, OSTENDE.

Now live on the site, their conversation looks at the film's many echoes across Citarella's rich oeuvre.

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A Fiction of Echoes: An Interview with Laura Citarella
Indigo Bailey speaks with the multi-skilled El Pampero Cine filmmaker about her debut feature, ‘Ostende’ (2011), and its reverberations throughout her oeuvre.
tinyurl.com
May 25, 2025 at 7:34 AM