𝐁𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐌𝐎𝐋𝐊𝐎’𝐒 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐓 𝐅𝐈𝐋𝐌𝐒

𝑫𝒐 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒏 𝒕𝒐 𝒃𝒆 𝒂 𝒎𝒖𝒔𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝒇𝒐𝒓𝒆𝒗𝒆𝒓? 𝑰𝒇 𝒏𝒐𝒕, 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒆𝒍𝒔𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒖𝒍𝒅 𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒍𝒊𝒌𝒆 𝒕𝒐 𝒅𝒐?
📢"Music is my life and I can't imagine doing anything else. I would like to break into production and film scores."
(𝐵𝑟𝑖𝑎𝑛 𝑀𝑜𝑙𝑘𝑜, 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑇𝑖𝑚𝑒𝑠 "𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑏𝑜 𝑇𝑎𝑙𝑘𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑃𝑜𝑖𝑛𝑡", 𝐴𝑢𝑔𝑢𝑠𝑡 2003)

For the last few weeks we’ve been talking a lot about Placebo songs featured on the movie soundtrack. But, having a degree in drama, Mr. Molko has been also interested in other sides of filmmaking.
At the time of Placebo’s ‘Black Market Music” Brian worked on his first short film Sue's Last Ride. But do you know that in over a decade he produced another film with the same director?

📍𝐒𝐔𝐄’𝐒 𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐓 𝐑𝐈𝐃𝐄 (𝟐𝟎𝟎𝟎)
Sue's Last Ride is a short film, an American-French co-production, directed by 𝑵𝒊𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒔 𝑬𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒐𝒕𝒕, written by Nicholas Elliott and Bryan McCormack, starring Jenny Brown, Chris Bearne, Warren Ellis. Brian has been an 𝐞𝐱𝐞𝐜𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐞𝐫 of the film.
It’s a lyrical film combining a loose narrative about a young woman with a concert performance by the legendary Australian trio Dirty Three. Filmed at the Ottobar in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and Paris, the film premiered at the Amiens Film Festival in France in November 2001 and went on to screen at International Film Festival Rotterdam (January 2002) and Chicago Underground Film Festival (August 2002), among others.

🔎𝐃𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 is an Australian instrumental rock band, consisting of Warren Ellis (violin and bass guitar), Mick Turner (electric and bass guitars) and Jim White (drums) formed in 1992. The same-titled song, 𝑺𝒖𝒆'𝒔 𝑳𝒂𝒔𝒕 𝑹𝒊𝒅𝒆, which we can watch performed in the film, appears on the Dirty Three album Horse Stories (1996) that was voted by Rolling Stone as one of the top three albums of the year.

🔎“Fresh from a slot on Australia's gargantuan Big Day Out festival, Molko immediately got to work producing a documentary on folk-rock ruffians the Dirty Three. And Placebo's outrageous feather-boa turn in Velvet Goldmine turned a few Hollywood heads, as well.”
(𝑆𝑢𝑝𝑝𝑜𝑠𝑒𝑑𝑙𝑦, 𝑓𝑜𝑟𝑚𝑒𝑟 𝑃𝑙𝑎𝑐𝑒𝑏𝑜𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑙𝑑 𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑠𝑖𝑡𝑒).

📖𝑷𝒍𝒐𝒕
A car in the nocturnal streets of Ljubljana. A young woman obsessively describes the shaky relationship with her father to the man at the wheel taking her to a concert by The Dirty Three. As the music gets louder, so do the words.

We’re lucky to watch the film!
𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟏: https://bit.ly/2AwbcAK
𝐏𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟐: https://bit.ly/2VNAems

Unrelated but curious fact: during one of the shows in Melbourne, Australia, 𝐃𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐲 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐞𝐞 featured graffiti artists and their work around the city, and one of the walls was mentioned to have some spraypainted stencils by Brian.

Photo credit: Morten Holm

📍𝐈𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐔𝐒 (𝟐𝟎𝟏𝟒)
Icarus is an American short drama film written and directed by 𝑵𝒊𝒄𝒉𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒔 𝑬𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒐𝒕𝒕, produced by 𝑩𝒓𝒊𝒂𝒏 𝑴𝒐𝒍𝒌𝒐 (alongside some others), starring Rosie Goldensohn, Jim Fletcher, Greg Zuccolo.

Allegoric and mysterious film was premiered in March 2015 at the New Directors/New Films Festival hosted by MoMA and the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s.
📢"Short-form filmmaking often allows a single concept or artistic idea to come to life, and the programs of short films in the festival at times have poetic linkages among the titles. Innovation and fresh perspectives abound. Or, as [starring] Jim Fletcher observes in Nicholas Elliott’s delightfully absurd Icarus—after emerging nude from a frozen lake, seeking shelter at a nearby cabin, and looking over his host’s shoulder as she works on a site-specific sculpture of sorts—“You couldn’t make this anywhere else.”
(𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝐷𝑖𝑟𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑜𝑟𝑠/𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝐹𝑖𝑙𝑚𝑠 2015: 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝑃𝑜𝑒𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑠, 𝑁𝑒𝑤 𝐹𝑖𝑙𝑚𝑠,
𝑀𝑜𝑀𝐴 𝐵𝑙𝑜𝑔)

📖𝑷𝒍𝒐𝒕
In the heart of winter, a naked man comes out of the Hudson River and meets a young woman making a tapestry in an isolated cabin. Over the following days, two more men come out of the river and join them. The flow of desire between these four strangers remains unclear until a group of men arrives to take one of the newcomers away.

Director Nicholas Elliott discusses his short film (in Spanish)
👉https://bit.ly/3e1V2Ni

✨𝐃𝐈𝐑𝐄𝐂𝐓𝐎𝐑 𝐈𝐍𝐅𝐎✨
Film expert and critic, writer and translator, Nicholas Elliott is the correspondent for some New York magazines. Next to his writing, he’s also produced several short films and plays. His works are described as “filled with shameless sexual curiosity, rich shots of unadorned faces and bodies, thrilling surprises, nocturnal rush and aesthetically pleasing stills”.(𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑒𝑥𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑛𝑒.𝑐𝑜𝑚)

📢𝐍𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐨𝐥𝐚𝐬 𝐄𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐨𝐭𝐭: “The question of queer cinema is not one that is particularly important to me, certainly not in making this film. What is important is desire. I think that whether you’re making a film or whether your watching a film, desire is huge. It’s really too bad that over the course of film history homosexual desire hasn’t been transparently represented more often. Endless books and video essays have been made about how it’s been subterraneously represented, but it’s really only been the last ten or twenty years that we have gay role models to look at. I think that’s too bad for everybody; it’s especially too bad for young people who are kind of finding their view of the world to come in film … I think it’s important in film to be honest about desire and show the various flows of desire.”
(𝐵𝑂𝑀𝐵 𝑚𝑎𝑔𝑎𝑧𝑖𝑛𝑒, 𝑀𝑎𝑦 18, 2015)

Photo credit: Joseph Llanes

Photo credit pic 1: right top - Jamie Beeden, left bottom - Joseph Llanes; screenshots of the films / edit by Olga

Post by Olga