Adelaide International Film Festival: In the Adelaide City region of South Australia

In recent years South Australia has seen a quiet renaissance in film making whether it's award winning movies like Philip Noyce's Rabbit Proof Fence or the latest offering from local Kent Town animator, Anifex.

The world premiere of Black and White Red All Over screened on Friday night as part of the Gala Opening of this year's inaugural Adelaide International Film Festival. From Greg Holfeld's cartoon noir to the real thing the South Australian film industry is alive and well - even if the story lines are sometimes anything but.

“Basically I thought it might be interesting to look at two really rotten bad guys who rob a country town bank. And it goes terribly wrong and then they pit themselves against someone who's even worse than they are and they don't know it.”

Little do they know it but life's about to take a gruesome turn for these two bad guys who've just kidnapped a seemingly mild mannered serial killer.

Local filmmakers Julian Halloran and Aaron Cartwright entered their short film in the recent New York Film Festival to critical acclaim. Shot around the back-blocks of Burra, “Bad Company” cost five thousand dollars to make, was shot on a small DV camera and edited on an eight thousand-dollar laptop computer.

Technology is revolutionising this industry as more and more South Australians focus their cameras on us.

In a Kent Town studio, filmmaker Rob de Kok and editor David Banbury put the final touches to what's been a three-year labor of love.

Their film “Damn Right I'm a Cowboy” has its world premiere at the Cinema Nova this Wednesday. It tells the story of the Hill Billy Hoot, Adelaide's answer to The Grand Ol' Opry. Every Monday night a bunch of local musos make their way onto the balcony of community station Three D Radio at Stepney for a live broadcast.

And along the way the cameras have recorded the stories of individual Hooters like Joff Rowntree, the winner of the 1948 National Yodelling Estedford, who wears chaps and Sante Fe boots. Due to illness Joff can't make it to many performances these days but he listens every week.

“He listens to it on his radio down at Victor Harbor and as he says right at the beginning of this show he can get it sometimes in the kitchen or down by the fish and chip shop. He has to drive down to the fish and shop and listen to it on the car radio.”

The film has been shot on a host of different cameras on a host of different nights.

“We shot super eight stock which I think was fourteen years out of date when we stuck it in the camera. We've gone for an interesting look.”

But the intention has always been to capture a local phenomenon.

“It's so hard to believe when you're under the culture of MTV and the rest of the people ruling the waves that the music that you actually might find most interesting is being made just around the corner probably in somebody's kitchen. The way that you might find home grown jam more interesting or the way you might find homemade instruments more interesting. It's like that. And it's something we have a lot of trouble believing these days.”

And you may have trouble believing that Adelaide really looked like this but it did and you can relive the days of the tram and Rundle Street long before the Mall in an hour long presentation called Screening South Australia on Wednesday at Cinema Nova and its free.

And on Wednesday night, for the kids and kids at heart, the Festival will screen this old classic.

“A beautiful print of a 1927 Fatty Fin which is now called The Kids Stakes. It's the story about Fatty Finn and his gang and Hector his goat. They're going in a goat race. And some members of the rival gang try to steal Hector and there's a whole chase sequence. It's about an hour long. It's a wonderful film.”

And later tonight David Gulpilil receives the Don Dunstan Award for his contribution to Australian film.

“And immediately after it at nine o'clock we're all going to wander down and see the screening of Walkabout, his first film which is going to be screened free at Elder Park.”

So from free classics to spaghetti westerns, complete with bowls of spaghetti, it's a feast of film at the Adelaide International Film Festival.

[Adelaide International Film Festival - At various venues - For details contact 08 8223 7873 - Festival ends March 7 2003] www.adelaidefilmfestival.org