Chauvel Cinematheque loses curator

by Joseph Hull

The current curator of the Chauvel Cinematheque, Brett Garten, has been told his tenure will not be renewed, and that upcoming programs will undergo a change in direction.

Renowned for his daring and diverse programs, Garten has been operating the cinema since July 2006, and has screened nearly 300 shows, experimenting with animation, multi-screen films, educational films, occultism, short films, experimental media, and Golden Age Hollywood films.

The Cinematheque will change hands on March 9, to be curated by a ‘team’ of people, who according to musician Adrian Clement, risk undermining its renowned artistic integrity.

“The new program consists of ‘classic’ films and is startlingly weak on contrast in artistic vision and dedication of Brett Garten’s programs,” said Clement.

The cinema has also provided a space for experimentation, allowing musicians including Toy Death, members of Decoder Ring and Clement to score for silent films.

“It was always my vision to educate and inspire people and hopefully I had some sort of influence on the quality of local film culture,” said Garten.

“I knew the writing was on the wall when the Saturday screenings were canned a few months back and replaced with sessions of Madagascar 2, but it was still a shock.”

The final show under Gartens’ curation was on March 2 and was the final part of a program presenting multi-screen films. The first film of the night was Idaho Transfer, an experimentation drawing from Peter Fonda’s bizarre 1973 sci-fi film, with music mixed live on the night by Brad Maiden.

Following this, Journey to the Seventh Planet, was a twin screen presentation of the Z-grade Danish science fiction film, with a soundtrack combing elements of the original, mixed with ambient, electronic and experimental music.

Garten hopes such artistically diverse programs will continue under the new management, but feels skeptical about the direction in which the cinema is heading.

“If they want to make it more commercial, I’ve always found that it doesn’t really work – it was the things that were really out there that attract people,” he said.