Home › Volume 7 › Number 12
Reviews and Previews

VCA students graduate to the big screen

Volume 7 Number 12 December 12 2011 - January 8 2012

Petit Rat – Merethe Tingstad (Graduate Diploma Animation, 2011)
Petit Rat – Merethe Tingstad (Graduate Diploma Animation, 2011)

Film connoisseurs can catch a glimpse of the state’s best up and coming filmmakers when graduating students from the Victorian College of the Arts’ School of Film and Television showcase their works on the big screens at ACMI this week from 15 to 17 December.

Films from previous graduate screenings have received popular and critical acclaim and expectations are similarly high for this year’s participants.

Highlights from the program include:

  • Gladys Ng’s Ying & Summer which tells the story of overcoming loneliness in the crowded urban landscape of contemporary Melbourne.
  • Jonathan Leahy’s NorthKids – an urban love story about two teenage best friends wanting to take the next step, set around the inner north of Melbourne and its skate parks.
  • And, Merethe Tingstad’s Petit Rat. This animated short film, set in Paris around 1880, is the story of a group of young female dancers at the Paris Opera Ballet who go by the name of Petit Rats. Poorly paid and trained under strict rules, only a few rise to fame.


David Price, Head of the School of Film and Television, says the annual showcase of graduate screenings represents an important time for these emerging filmmakers, before their exposure on the national and international film festival circuits.

“The graduating students will present an engrossing selection of short films across different genres, showcasing fresh new filmmaking talent to the Australian public.”

Films from last year’s graduate screenings which have performed strongly, receiving world-wide and local attention for the film-makers, include Justin Olstein Adam’s Tallit (2010) nominated for the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Award for Best Short Fiction Film.

Andrew Kavanagh (At the Formal 2010) won the 2011 Melbourne International Film Festival ‘Transmission Films Award for an Emerging Australian Filmmaker’; and Kwik Fix (2010) written and directed by Kelly Hucker made its world premiere at the Cannes Film Festival Short Film Corner.

Ariel Kleiman’s 2009 VCA film Deeper Than Yesterday won the International Jury Prize in Short Filmmaking at Sundance this year after winning two awards at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival. Deeper than Yesterday also won China’s most prestigious foreign short film award at the 9th Beijing Film Academy’s 2009 International Student Film and Video Festival.

The VCA has launched the careers of numerous acclaimed filmmakers, including David Michod (Animal Kingdom), Michael Henry (Blame), Justin Kurzel (Snowtown), Jonathan Auf der Heide (Van Diemen’s Land), Richard Gray (Summer Coda), Gillian Armstrong (Love, Lust and Lies) and Oscar-winner Adam Elliot (Harvey Krumpet, Mary and Max).

Premiere screening dates: 15 – 17 December
Venue: ACMI Cinemas, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Federation Square, Melbourne
Bookings: www.acmi.net.au or 03 8663 2583
Program details: http://vca.unimelb.edu.au/events?id=280