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Ever since moviejuice's auspicious event debut "OUTSIDE" some 2 and a half years back, Adelaide's film landscape has been abundantly enlivened by the group's presence, as programmers and event presenters on the one hand, and filmmakers on the other. The core group of Louis Campbell, Shea Gallagher and Daniel Tune have been joined by others such as Emily Pottinger, Gabe Bath, Aubrey Winslow, Alex Hill, and Idris Kellerman Williams, in organising and presenting their events, and they have also collaborated with other film organisations such as the Adelaide Film Festival and independent groups like Unknown Pleasures and Static Vision, making their venture a truly broad-ranging and communal one.
The important thing about moviejuice is not just the existence of this activity (the films they make, the screenings they present), but the fact that they are Adelaide's only true "alternative" film presence. To begin with, they are steeped in an expansive love of the cinema (which is always the best basis for great filmmaking, and great programming too for that matter), and then they have great politics (with truly radical left-wing/progressive ideals and practices), and lastly they have great enthusiasm, curiosity and dare (naturally, because they are still under 30, but also essentially, in their character). They fly in the face of and challenge the increasing corporatisation of the film world in Australia. Whilst the mainstream talks of profile and profits, they talk of "transcendence" (see their manifesto).
The screening "SMORGASBORD", presented on September 6, 2025 at the North Adelaide Community Centre, was one of their best events, a collection of 8 short films drawing around 100 people, and graced by three visiting interstate filmmakers (Frazer Bull-Clark, Andréas Giannopoulos and Luke Skineki), as well as some of the local filmmakers (Gabe Bath, Emily Pottinger). For the record, here is the program presented:
FRIENDS OF MINE (dir. Andréas Giannopoulos, 2022)
MERMAID MAKER (dir. Hebe Sayce, 2021)
CLOCK WATCHERS (dir. Luke Skineki, 2025)
NOW LOOK AT THE PICTURES (dir. Emily Pottinger, 2025)
CARRION (dir. Gabriella Lee, 2024)
NIGHT WALKS (dir. Jacob Brinkworth, 2024)
TAIL OF CINEMA (dir. Gabe Bath, 2025)
SET TIMES (dir. Frazer Bull-Clark, 2022)
The suite of 8 films presented on the night were bookended by two beautiful little narrative films around unrequited love and heartbreak. Friends of Mine by Andréas Giannopoulos is a gorgeous-looking love triangle set in Melbourne's Autumn shot on 16mm, with its rich colours and vital texture. Giannopoulos invokes the Nouvelle Vague with his earnest but masked characters, intelligent as all hell, but awkwardly looking for love. Yes, it's a homage to the French '60s and '70s, but also full of contemporary verity. The acting is Bressonian at times, especially Alex Donnelly as our hero Lou as he tries to hold his emotions together, the characters always seemingly expressing their feelings through reflexive layers (stories, ideas, playacts). But then finally the touching original music by Oliver Miller pulls our (and the characters') heart strings and there is some joy, if only joy in sadness.
Friends of Mine
Set Times by Frazer Bull-Clark is a similarly tremulous film, again set in a world of young adults, this time in the alternative music scene of Sydney. No cinematic antecedents are evoked this time, the film is just a straight-forward naturalist film, observant and tender. For a music-world film, there is no grunge-shock of drugs or wildness, just the camaraderie and bonhomie of a group of alt. Gen Z friends enjoying their lives. Freyja Benjamin as our heroine Kat is a wonderful screen presence, full of heartbreak and uncertainty, but on the cusp of emotional closure and renewal. It's not quite a feminist film, but maybe we could call it a "women's film", in the vein of even something like Girlfriends (Claudia Weill, 1978).
Set Times
The overall program presented on the night indeed seemed to be comprised of 4 pairings of films, each pairing offering a different cinematic experience to the others. In the case of Clock Watchers (Luke Skineki) and Night Walks (Jacob Brinkworth), we are suddenly plunged into more subterranean worlds. Clock Watchers in particular is a freak film, made by someone, Luke Skineki, who comes across as an outsider visionary, someone who has seemingly come out of nowhere (no film school connections for example), and made a first film in a driven and naive way. Clock Watchers is like a progeny of David Lynch's Erasherhead (1977), an atmospheric and grainy Kafkaesque freak show, with harried shop employees and basement monsters and trash video aesthetics and plenty of absurdist humour. Suffice to say there's nothing else quite like it in Australian cinema at the moment (save the horror-trauma work of Saidin Salkic).
Clock Watchers
Jacob Brinkworth's Night Walks is the opposite of trashy and wild, it is slow art cinema à la Pedro Costa's work, lost souls wandering through the night. In this case, we see two solitaires, a man (filmmaker/sound recordist) and a woman (actress), who walk or sit reflectively in the night (or in lit buildings), occasionally connecting. Or mis-connecting one could say, as they don't even know each other's names, beings stripped of identity and purpose, blank souls traversing the loneliness of the long-distance night. As much as I am familiar with this kind of cinema (and indeed have made such a film myself, my alt. vampire film A Nocturne in 2007), Night Walks failed to come to life for me, it was just lacking an edge or counterpoint or insight.
Night Walks
moviejuice's own power couple Emily Pottinger and Gabe Bath presented new short films of theirs. Bath in particular is on a veritable roll at the moment, seemingly energised by the great reception his mini-feature Ships that Bear (2023) received in the last couple of years. His 2nd feature is close to completion, as well as his Honours short film at Flinders Uni. In the meantime, he presented his new short film Tail of Cinema at this screening. We see Bath himself perform in the film, as a Cat Man in Hong Kong, walking around and petting his fellow cats in a cat cafe, in what is a delirious, kaleidoscopic, psychedelic film, full of brilliantly alchemical visual effects and backwards voices to boot. The second half of the film is calmer, as Bath becomes the Immigrant Cat, now in Adelaide, and forlorn like a Wong Kar-wai character. This is the film of the year so far, a strong follow-up to his previous Hong Kong short film, the delightful Young Lady Gets Her Suitcase Stolen in Hong Kong (2024).
Tail of Cinema
Pottinger's Now Look at the Pictures is a collage film shot in Hong Kong, a bricolage of pop culture items and found items, like Bath's film also treated with visual effects and a layered, experimental soundtrack. With skulls and hand-cuffs spotlighted against a black background, and backwards music providing accompaniment, Pottinger's film has a dark and nightmarish tone to it at times, but at other times it is a tender and sad capturing of fleeting moments, with old family photos intermingling with all the detritus and whiz-bang of Hong Kong. The idea of "fleeting images" is actually doubled in the film, as we read a title card at the end saying that most of the images Pottinger filmed on a Super 8 camera didn't come out, the cartridge having jammed in the camera. Yet the film makes us feel like we have seen them, because we have felt the hand holding that camera (and the eye looking through its viewfinder).
Now Look at the Pictures
To complete the smorgasbord variety of the evening, there were also a couple of animations in the program, by Hebe Sayce and Gabriella Lee. Sayce's Mermaid Maker is a very charming film, one of enchantment and horror. Set in the everyday world, with the protagonist being a carefree ordinary woman, Sayce introduces a magical element, a special potion labelled "Mermaid Maker", which delights our heroine, until she realises it works a little too effectively. A highlight of the film is the sound design, which features cute vocalisations by the heroine, which were performed by Sayce herself.
Mermaid Maker
Gabriella Lee's Carrion is a similarly-themed animation (revolving around the ocean) to Mermaid Maker, but quite different in that it is not a simple narrative film, but a complex weaving of moments and activity, as we see various fish and other sea creatures feasting on the dead carcass of a fallen dragon. It's impressive in the sense that every shot is quite different, with a different mise-en-scène, and with different creatures and movements and colours. It also has a hand-made and individual kind of sense to it, clearly the design and execution of Lee herself, taking on the task of trying to create a whole world in a 3-minute short.
Carrion
The evening overall was complemented by another great zine produced by the moviejuice team, this time by Gabe Bath, Emily Pottinger and Shea Gallagher; great comic illustrations on sale (all funds to Gaza) by the artist Wok; and also two musical acts, Jem, a charming indie rock solo singer, and Awnings, quite an extraordinary band with a noisy sound and incredibly complex time signatures and arrangements (who utilised film images behind them in a clever way, as a counterpoint to their music). A great night overall!
STAY TUNED for more moviejuice events as the year unfolds, including at the Adelaide Film Festival.
Here is the Moviejuice Facebook page, and you can also contact them through this email here: moviejuicefestival@gmail.com
Bill Mousoulis is a Greek-Australian independent filmmaker since 1982, and a programmer and critic. He is the editor of the Pure Shit: Australian Cinema website.
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