Blood Below the Skin | UniSC | University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia

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Blood Below the Skin

Wednesday 15 August
6-7.30pm
Free
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Join us for a free film screening presented in partnership with the Queensland Film Festival.

The Blood Below the Skin programme includes three short films directed by women that that draw on the emotional logic of music.

A million miles away
Directed by Jennifer Reeder (2014, 27 minutes)
An adult woman (the conductor) on the edge of failing and a pack of teenage girls (the choir) simultaneously experience a supernatural version of coming-of-age. The transformation is equal parts tense and tender. It unravels patiently to the infectious beat of an 80s era heavy metal anthem rearranged as a lamentation.

Amelia Rose Towers
Directed by Jackie Faarkas (1993, 11 minutes)
This is a modern fairy tale about a very tall girl who wanted to be small. As Adrian Martin (Filmnews) explains, "Amelia Rose Towers whose initials spell ART - faces off against an adversary whose initials spell MAN, after passing through surrealistic chambers and screens offering images of a personal identity that can never be reconciled. Camp, baroque, decadently theatrical, with a distinctly Warholian rap on the soundtrack, Amelia Rose Towers is filled with an acute atmosphere of fear and loathing, and a suitably perverse ethic of survival."

Blood Below the Skin
Directed by Jennifer Reeder (2015, 30 minutes)
This short narrative chronicles a week in the lives of three teenage girls, from different social circles, who form a bond in the week leading up to the school dance. Countdown to prom night is actually countdown to irreversible change for each girl. Two of the girls are falling in love with each other against all expectations and the third girl is forced to mother her own mother in the wake of her father’s disappearance. Each girl seeks comfort within the walls of her bedroom where the music blasting from the turntable provides a magical synchronicity between them all. The title refers to the secrets that girls and women keep just below their surface.