Tumbling from now on....

I've decided to switch to Tumblr. I don't really find the time to blog regularly, and Tumblr seems a more intutitive interface for sharing news, links, but most importantly pics (or galleries of pics). Please update your link - I'm http://rohanspong.tumblr.com/. Enjoy! x

'All The Way Through Evening'

In an apartment on 12th Street, a chatty mature woman sits in a cluttered room of sheet music that very few people remember. She tinkles occassionally at the piano as she speaks - any interview with the eccentric Mimi Stern-Wolfe is always punctuated by music. The Benson salons, as Mimi calls them, were a regular meeting of artists and composers in a downtown Manhattan loft owned by Eric Benson, her dear friend and musical collaborator. At this loft, writers and composers showcased new classical and populist musical works and an artistic community thrived. Amongst them were Chris DeBlasio, composer; Robert Chesley, critic and composer and Kevin Oldham, concert pianist and composer.

When the HIV/AIDS epidemic swept through New York, and indeed the world, in the early 1980s, each were infected and the majority of people who attended the soirees, including the composers themselves, were dead by the early 1990s. After these deaths, Mimi devoted much of her life to The Benson AIDS Series, an annual concert of works by composers who were lost to HIV/AIDS, which she performs on World AIDS Day.

Directed by Rohan Spong (whose first feature documentary, T IS FOR TEACHER was acclaimed by two Australian film reviewers as amongst "the best films of 2009"), ALL THE WAY THROUGH EVENING will follow Mimi as she prepares for one such concert - a small but proud figure, gallantly rousing a remembrance in the shadow of bustling Manhattan. Her interviews recount the glory days at the Benson Salons, the initial awareness of HIV/AIDS and provide a character portrait of some of the original composers. The film also includes touching interviews with some of the surviving family members and musical collaborators of these men.

Much of the moving music from this period is presented from Mimi's concert as part of the documentary. Kevin Oldham's Not Even If I Try sees a tenor lamenting his lost lover amongst a bittersweet piano arrangment. Robert Chesley's Autumn is based on a De La Mare poem (of the same name) and features a counter tenor who notes that there is now "silence where hope was". Perhaps the most evocative and well known of these art songs is Walt Whitman in 1989, a collaboration by poet Perry Brass and emerging composer Chris DeBlasio, in which the famed historical poet Walt Whitman arrives in the AIDS ward of a New York hospital in 1989, nurses a dying man, and transports his body away on a boat which sails "...all the way through evening."


ALL THE WAY THROUGH EVENING
English Language, 80 mins [approx]
DVCPRO HD 16:9 - Colour

Directed by Rohan Spong
Produced by Rohan Spong and Brad Heard.
In association with Downtown Music Productions

http://www.allthewaythroughevening.com

'All the King's Men'

Directed by Rohan Spong
Makeup by Helen Keegan
Cinematography by Rohan Spong and Simon Matthews
Props by Simon Matthews
Edit / FX by Rohan Spong

Starring Georgia Fields as 'Betty Blade' and Nick Barker Pendree as 'Sailor'.

Sept 10 2010.

Special Thanks to Warren Bowen, Ash Flanders, Phillip J Riley and Sue Jackal.

Taken from the album 'Georgia Fields' released October 9 2010.

Moonlite

Principal photography on Moonlite was wrapped at the start of May. It was a pretty gruelling shoot - 16 days, all on greenscreen, some 70 scenes and all in period costumes. We were very blessed to have an amazing cast (and bar one role, managed to secure all of my first choices). Amongt the finer moments on set to report - Barry Crocker stealing the show as the villainous Judge Redmond Barry, Tasma Walton as a drunk 1880s nymphomaniac, Val Jellay as a gun toting grandmother, Abby Dobson croons a barroom saloon number and Ian Roberts is a [ridiculously mustachioed] police assassin. In the leads, Richard Stables and Angus Grant have a great onscreen rapport and chemistry as Captain Moonlite and James Nesbitt respectively, whilst Sarah Bollenberg lurks as the mysterious Lady in Black.

Already there's a bit of press for the film beginning to appear which is very affirming - people are very interested in the story we are trying to tell and the very unusual way in which it is to be told.

Some links to images are here and here . There are also some interviews here and here.

'Something Borrowed, Something Blue'

Something Borrowed, Something Blue
Georgia Fields

Music Video
dir. Rohan Spong

Released March 2010

Premiere

Cantor Abelson performs Unter Dayne Vayse Schtern
in a studio in New York.


The Songs They Sang
****World Premiere****
Opening Night film at the Bayside Film Festival
7:15PM, 14th July 2010.
Brighton Bayside Cinema
Melbourne, Australia


The Songs They Sang is the untold true story of the amazing musical and artistic performances that took place at the Vilna Ghetto, Lithuania, during WW11. These performances brought hope to the Jewish people in the Ghetto whilst they faced the daily horror of genocide.

The film’s focus is on these remarkable songs and the music composed and performed by Jewish musicians, songwriters and singers primarily held in the Vilna Ghetto during the Holocaust. These songs and the music will be reprised and performed once again by professional musicians, survivors, family members of composers who wrote works during the Holocaust and a Cantor in New York.

In addition to this, Holocaust survivors and family members recall their experiences of Ghetto daily life, a partisan revisits the site of a mass grave in the Ponar forest, and the legacy of a talented lyricist is remembered during Shiva - the seven day period of mourning following his death.

Some of the inspiring figures profiled in the film include Shmerke Kaczerginski, one of the popular songwriters who wrote lyrics and organized musical performances in the Vilna ghetto. Along with Abraham Sutzkever, he risked his life during the war to preserve these writings and the music created to record life within the ghetto. After the war, Kaczerginski made it his life’s work to compile the songs and poetry created by people during the Holocaust.

Sutzkever, a respected poet and scholar, wrote the startling lyric to Unter DayneVayse Shtern (Under the white stars), which reveals the spiritual resistance and position of faith of those inside the ghetto. In later life he wrote poetry in Yiddish and helped to keep a struggling language alive.

The film also includes an extended interview with Alexander Tamir, the last surviving composer of Vilna. His bittersweet composition, "Shtiler Shtiler" (Quiet, Quiet) reveals the perspective of children held in Vilna ghetto.

The documentary also considers the various people preserving such music and memories today: Sutzkever’s granddaughter who travels the world performing her late grandfather's text, an Italian musical arranger catalogues all known music from the Holocaust in a repository in Rome, a Melbourne composer and performer who busily arrange music from the Vilna ghetto to be recorded and performed before a contemporary audience, and a young Jewish community leader who reveals the struggles to retain the culture and language of his forebears in Lithuania today.

The film has been shot across 6 countries and in 5 languages, and is directed by Rohan Spong (the director of the critically acclaimed T is for Teacher).

Knackered

LAX. Bain of my existence, with its lack of powerpoints, grumpy staff and overzealous security. I don’t even have time enough to leave the airport and have a drink with friends. I’m on my way back to Australia though, so there certainly is cause to smile, despite my frustration.

I’m pretty knackered. 6 countries (and countless stopovers) in 5 weeks. Airport food, jetlag, several foot of snow, some pretty heavy camera gear, nearly three days worth of footage, a recording session in Manhattan and the bulk of The Songs They Sang is now filmed. There’s a few important loose ends I need to film in Melbourne, but for the most part, I’m ready to hit the editing suite.

In the last 5 weeks, I’ve met some amazing and inspiring people, heard inspirational and harrowing stories, listened to (and recorded) some beautiful music and survived -19C temperatures in Lithuania. It’s fair to say that the production of this particular project has taken me further geographically, technically and mentally than I have ever gone before, and has probably been the biggest challenge of my career (if not my life) to date. I’m feeling a little fragile, but am quietly satisfied that I managed to accomplish what I set out to do, if not more.

A big shout out needs to go to the people that helped me along the way, or offered accommodation – Hale and Yaara in Israel, Sean in Paris, Simon and the the community in Vilnius, (Mommies) Sylvia and Erma in New York and the cheeky boys of 2129 in Washington.

And of course, there’s been a slew of supportive people back home – the producers of the film, Pauline and Greg who set me on this journey in the first place and my long suffering mother who can find a webcam in just about any city (usually in order to check the weather). I hope the end result does you all, and the people of Vilna (those tragically lost, and those who survived to tell and sing their story) proud.


Alexander Tamir recalls composing Shtiler, Shtiler in Vilna Ghetto 1941, whilst interviewed
in Jerusalem, 2010.

Year in review

Wow. 2009 has been a bumper year. A feature documentary, five music videos, a commercial photoshoot, a photography exhibition, funding approval for another feature length documentary, pre production for a low budget feature film... T is for Teacher screened at a slew of film festivals (alongide Oscar contenders!), and remains a benchmark for future work I make. It has appeared as an honourable mention amongst best films of 2009 (!) here and here.

Ahead in 2010 there's the (international) shoot / edit / premiere of The Songs They Sang (I'm still only 50/50 on the title), the shoot and (hefty) postproduction for Moonlite and probably only a few music vids.... I think my hands will be pretty full.

I had hoped for maybe 10 music videos by mid 2010. I think my revised goal is for 6 (four down, two to go) + the completion of The Songs They Sang.

Amongst my favourate memories of 2009 - meeting the Long Islanders, lunch in LA, my mother overhearing transwomens unanimous support of the film in the ACMI women's bathroom, The Age naming the film a Top Weekend Pick, running amok on Hanging Rock, the Bayside screening (and woozy boozy after drinks) and (early) Christmas in Fitzroy and relaxing lakeside in Udaipur.

2010 looks pretty good already... Which is just as well... Because 2009 will be a hard act to follow.

3 + 2 = Mayhem

3 music videos. 2 feature length projects (a feature doc in production, and a feature film in pre production due to film in mid 2010).

There's a whole lot going on, on the radar of Rohan, at the moment. All the while, Im travelling, filming, photographing, writing. It's like my senses (along with my aspirations) have hit overdrive. It's like there's just not enough hours in the day to be knee deep in work. Surely this isn't healthy, but it certainly is thrilling.

Moonlite
A rollicking bushranger adventure tale, based on the Australian historical figure, Captain Moonlite. To be shot "graphic noval style" in mid 2010.


The Songs They Sang (working title only)
A feature length documentary about the music composed in the Vilna ghetto during the Holocaust, and the people who remember and perform such music today.


Something Borrowed, Something Blue
A music video for Georgia Fields. Kooky narrative about a woman who works in a mannequin factory. Completed and due to be released in March 2010.


Sinking Relation Ship
Another music video for Georgia (a B-Side type arrangement to Something Borrowed), to be released in March. A slow mournful sea shanty about love gone wrong, performed against an array of moody old school Hollywood style back projections.



Successional
A completely improvised super 8mm silent film / music video, shot guerilla style across Melbourne, to accompany Gemma Turvey's jazz track, Successional. Completed and due to be released in Jan.



In the meantime - I'm off to India. 3 weeks of filming what I please with a view to assembling something on the other side, with my spare time (assuming I ever have spare time again).

Exhibition

I will be exhibiting photographs as part of the Transmasculinities exhibition. The details are below.


Transmasculinities
Opening Friday 22nd January 6-8pm
Running from 22nd January - 6th of February, 2010.
Red Gallery
157 St Georges Rd
Fitzroy North VIC 3068
(03) 9482 3550