Tuesday 5 March 2019 5:51pm
Like a modern-day slashing of Diego Velázquez’s Rokeby Venus, the film Terror Nullius by Sodajerk wants to grab public attention through an act of protest.
Just as a suffragette’s act in 1914 damaged a high cultural treasure, so the 55-minute film – which will be screened in Dunedin this Friday – can be seen as staging an attack on the canon of Australian national cinema, Media, Film and Communication Associate Professor Catherine Fowler says.
Using footage from numerous beloved films, including Australian classics such as Picnic at Hanging Rock, Mad Max, Crocodile Dundee and Lantana, the New-York based, Australian-born creators (siblings Dominique and Dan Angeloro) re-edit and digitally insert people into places where they should not be, questioning who belongs in, and to, certain landscapes – in one scene flesh-eating sheep make an appearance at Australian bicentenary celebrations.
Associate Professor Catherine Fowler
“Creating a feminist slasher/horror, Sodajerk turn the colonial declaration that Australia could be terra nullius – nobody’s land – into a nightmare, in which creatures and victims turn on perpetrators.
“By gathering around this screening on International Women’s Day we want to create a time for reflection about continuing inequalities, many of which are addressed in this film and by others like it,” Fowler says.
The film’s 2018 release attracted controversy, and its scathing critique of Australian masculinity, refugee policy and the country’s treatment of indigenous Australians led the Ian Potter Cultural Trust – which had contributed $100,000 to the project – withdrawing support for the artwork.
Following the screening University of Otago academics Dr Rebecca Stringer (Gender Studies), Associate Professor Fowler and Dr Rosemary Overell (Media, Film and Communication) will discuss the video in relation to feminist protests past and present, activists in the (film) archive and both the joys and horrors such projects could bring.
‘Terror Nullius’, screening and discussion panel, Friday, 8 March Fri 6:30pm, Dunedin Public Art Gallery – enter via the Moray Pl entrance.