VIOLET - WORLD PREMIERE AT THE CANNES FILM FESTIVAL - CINEMA DES ANTIPODES

The short drama, VIOLET will have its World Premiere in this year's Cinema des Antipodes Program at the Cannes Film Festival.

Violet is just 17 and has been sent to a new school in the aftermath of a scandal involving her and a teacher. Struggling to make new relationships, she is lost and alone, and the only offerings of friendship seem to always come with strings attached.

VIOLET was directed by Craig Boreham and written by the prominant young screen writer Alice Bell. Produced by Sandra Levy and Graham Thorburn, VIOLET was a coproduction between the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) and the National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA) as the first chapter for the portmanteau feature film BEFORE THE RAIN. VIOLET stars Bonnie Sveen in the title role of Violet and Ryan Corr as Max and features a cast of up and coming new talent including Gabrielle Scawthorn, Annabelle Stephenson, Kenji Fitzgerald, Benjamin Barber and Shari Sebbins.

The Cannes Film Festival from 12 to 23 May, 2010
April 2010

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Bonnie Sveen in Before The Rain - Violet

BEFORE THE RAIN - WORLD PREMIERE AT DUNGOG FILM FESTIVAL

BEFORE THE RAIN, will have its World Premiere at this year's Dungog Film Festival. BEFORE THE RAIN, a collaboration between the Australian Film, Television and Radio School and the National Institute of Dramatic Art, combines four stories about young people facing crises as Sydney is surrounded by bushfires.
Prominent writers Alice Bell, Shirley Barrett, Judy Morris and Christopher Lee scripted the four stories - Violet, Steamboat, Legend and Nicky Two-Tone which were directed by AFTRS directors Craig Boreham, Christopher Johnson, Stephen De Villiers, and Nicholas Clifford.

The Dungog Film Festival runs Thu 27 - Sun 30 May, 2010
April 2010

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WILLIAM YANG - THE ART OF SEDUCTION - AWARD NOMINATION AND TOUR

William Yang - The Art of Seduction, was nominated for the National Film and Sound Archive Queer Film Festival Award at this year's My Queer Career Competition on opening night of the Sydney Mardi Gras Film Festival. The award will be announced by the National Film and Sound Archive in late 2010.
William Yang - The Art of Seduction is now screening with the My Queer Career finalist films at Brisbane's Powerhouse Museum and later to tour to Byron Bay, Katoomba, Newcastle, Wollongong and Wagga.
March 2010

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DROWNING TO PREMIERE AT FLICKERFEST

DROWNING, the new short film written and directed by Craig Boreham and produced by Anmaree J Bell will have its Australian premiere at this year's Flickerfest International Short Film Festival at Bondi Beach in January. DROWNING screens in the Australian Films in Competition Programme on the 14th of January and will be repeated on the 15th of January.

DROWNING is a journey through the final moments of childhood as two friends are dragged toward their adult lives. Realisations of their place in the world, their familial responsibilities and awakening sexualities shape the men they will become and their changing relationship with each other.

DROWNING was funded by Screen Australia and features up and coming Australian actors, Miles Szanto, Xavier Samuel, Tess Haubrich and Bren Foster.

Check out the Flickerfest website for details

visit the DROWNING website.
January 2010

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WILLIAM YANG (THE ART OF SEDUCTION) SCREENING AT MARDI GRAS FILM FESTIVAL

The short documentary WILLIAM YANG - THE ART OF SEDUCTION will premiere on the opening night of this year's Mardi Gras Film Festival in Sydney as part of the My Queer Career Short Film Competition Programme.

William Yang is a third-generation Australian-Chinese artist, born and raised in Queensland. He is best known for his documentary photographs and his narrative monologues with slide projections. Many of Yang's works examine his Chinese family history, gay identity or themes such as AIDS.

WILLIAM YANG - THE ART OF SEDUCTION is a personal and honest exploration of the artist and his work through his subjects.
January 2010

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DVD releases

Two of Craig's short films have been released on DVD in Europe

TRANSIENT, written and directed by Craig Boreham, is out now as a bonus featurette to the film END OF LOVE directed by Hong Kong director Simon Chung. The DVD is available in German speaking territories from DVD stores or from the distributors BILDKRAFT. Both films were selected for the Berlinale International Film Festival's Panorama programme.

The short horror spoof LOVE BITE, written and directed by Craig Boreham, is now available on the second volume of BOYS ON FILM, the short film compilation DVD released by Pecadillo Pictures in the UK.
BOYS ON FILM 2 - IN TOO DEEP, is available from AMAZON UK or directly from the Peccadillo Pictures online store.
December 2009

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SCREEN AUSTRALIA AND AZURE PRODUCTIONS PRESENT "DROWNING"

Production has been completed on the new Screen Australia funded short drama DROWNING, written and directed by Craig Boreham and produced by Anmaree J Bell of Azure Productions.

DROWNING is a a journey through the final moments of childhood as two friends are dragged toward their adult lives.

DROWNING stars Miles Szanto (best known for his roles in the ground breaking Australian television series LOVE MY WAY and THE ELEPHANT PRINCESS) AND Xavier Samuel (SEPTEMBER, NEWCASTLE, THE LOVED ONES, ROADTRAIN and the forthcoming TWILIGHT SAGA:ECLIPSE)

DROWNING will begin a festival release later in 2009. visit the DROWNING website.
August 2009

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Australia’s leading creative education institutions AFTRS and NIDA collaborate to produce a feature film.

For the first time, Australia’s national screen arts and broadcast school, the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) and Australia’s National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) have joined forces to create a feature film.

The film, One More Day, is a feature made up of four different stories, all set on one day, in the same 24 hour period, connected by a single metaphor, when the city is ringed by the threat of fires. This metaphor links and contains the stories as a whole.

Prominent writers Alice Bell, Shirley Barrett, Judy Morris and Christopher Lee have scripted the four stories - Violet, Steamboat, Legend and Nicky Two-Tone to be directed by four of the current AFTRS directors Craig Boreham, Christopher Johnson, Stephen De Villiers, andNicholas Clifford.
April 2009

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Arian Levanael in Seamen

CINEMA OF TRUE POISON - RETROSPECTIVE

This year's LesGaiCinemad Festival in Madrid will include a retrospective of short films directed by Craig Boreham. Presented by Fundación Triángulo the fesstival runs October - November annually and is now in its 13th year.

"If Craig Boreham's indie film career has a base that it stands upon, then without doubt it is the small but potent, Queercore scene that emerged from the fierce conflagration that was the Brisbane Punk and Post Punk scene spanning the late 1970's into the early 1990's." - Paul Andrew, Cinema of True Poison
Sept 2008

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SCREEN AUSTRALIA FUNDS PRODUCTION OF NEW SHORT

Craig Boreham is curently in pre-production, casting a new short with producer Annmaree Bell of Sydney based Azure Productions.  The team has secured support and funding from Screen Australia, formerly the Australian Film Commission, to create the new short, DROWNING.

DROWNING will feature a cast of Australia's bright new talents including Miles Szanto, Xavier Samuel, Tess Haubrich and Bren Foster.
June 2008

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LOVE BITE - INTERNATIONAL SCREENINGS AND DISTRIBUTION

Sydney filmmaker Craig Boreham’s short film Love Bite is sinking it’s teeth into the international film festival circuit with much success.  The short drama is a play on the traditional teen-coming-out-to-your-best-mate theme, where two boys hang out and smoke pot after school, and features newcomers Aidan Callabria and Will Field.

Since picking up the Independent Queer Filmmaker Award at this year’s My Queer Career competition opening the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Film Festival, Love Bite has been turning up on screens all over the world.  Kicking off at the prestigious London Queer Film Festival and New York’s Newfest the snappy short has also been selected to screen in festivals in Berlin, Madrid and Philadelphia and as part of a collection of four of Boreham’s earlier short works in the Connecticut Gay and Lesbian Film Festival. 

Love Bite has also been snapped up by film distributors Frameline in the US and Salzgeber & Co Media in Europe where it will be released on a DVD compilation of short horror films later in the year.
June 2008

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Aidan Calabria and Will Field from Love Bite

LOVE BITE - PREMIERE SCREENING

Craig Boreham's new short film "Love Bite" has been selected to screen in next year's "My Queer Career" the opening night showcase of Australian and New Zealand short films that will open the 2008 Sydney Mardi Gras Film Festival. Written, directed and produced by Boreham, "Love Bite" is described as a "short supernatural coming out film" and stars Aidan Calabria and Will Field.
"Love Bite" will again screen in Melbourne in early March as part of the Melbourne Queer Film Festival.

My Queer Career will be held on Thursday 14th February 2008, City Recital Hall, Angel Place, Sydney
Dec 2007

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SCREENING

Transient screened at this month's 7th Annual Bondi Short Film Festival Bondi Beach held at the Bondi Pavillion.

Best Film went to "Saturday Night Newtown, Sunday Morning Enmore" directed by Christopher Johnson
Best Cinematography went to Ben Jasper for Azure Productions' "A Quiet Spot"
Nov 2007

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TRANSIENT PICKED UP BY BILDKRAFT

Craig Boreham's short film Transient has been purchased by Berlin based distributors Bildkraft. Transient will be included on an upcoming DVD of shorts released by the company and also receive cinema release throughout German speaking Europe (Germany, Austria, Switzerland)
Sept 2007

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Rick Viede as, Lamè Doe Ray in Stray

STRAY SCREENS IN THE U.S. AND EUROPE

The short drama, Stray, codirected by Craig Boreham and Dean Francis, has just picked up a North American distribution deal and two prestigious screenings in the United States. “Stray” will screen at the prestigious NewFest - The 19th New York Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, & Transgender Film Festival, May 31-June 10 and then goes on to play to audiences at Frameline31 - San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival.
Stray has also been picked up for distribution in the US and territories by Frameline Distribution.

Stray will also feature in the XPOSED international queer short film festival in berlin later in June.

Craig and Dean worked with young people from the youth support organisation, Twenty10, to produce Stray.

Other screenings:
Mardi Gras Film Festival 2007
Melbourne Queer Film Festival 2007
Newtown Flicks Film Festival 2007
Newtown Film Festival 2007 – Finalist

Stray is a contemporary retelling of the classic tale of the City Mouse and the Country Mouse, Stray follows the story of Mouse, a teenager who leaves his home in the country in search of his place in the world. Along the way he is exposed to the seedy underbelly of the city and the people who live there including the broken drag diva Lame` Doe Ray, who takes him under her wing. Will Mouse be led astray and consumed by the drug soaked landscape of the ghetto? Stray was co-produced by Metro Screen's Youth Unit, Channel Free and Twenty10.
May 2007

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Craig Boreham picked up the Best Independent Work Award at the recent Newtown Flicks competition for his film Transient.

Judges consisted of a panel of experts including film makers Darren Ashton, Karen Colston, NAFA director Tony Chu, actress and singer extraordinaire Genevieve Lemon, Sydney Morning Herald film critic Gary Maddox and Stephen Bennett of Pacific Artists Management.
April 2007

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STRAYING HOME AND FAR by Harley Dennett
extract from article in The Sydney Star Observer

The queer young people of Twenty10 Youth Support have many stories to tell and, as Craig Boreham at Channel Free discovered, they are not shy about telling them to the world.

Boreham teamed with Dean Francis to direct the short film Stray. The two Sydney directors met with the young people weekly in the later months of last year to workshop ideas and develop a storyline from their experiences.
“They were really open and comfortable putting their stuff out there, excited about being able to tell their stories,” Boreham said. From those workshops the film’s story developed, telling of the ordeal of Mouse, an inexperienced gay country boy coming to the city and being taken advantage of by the characters who live there.

“It’s about being on the street, disenfranchised and being the target of homophobic violence, being given drugs, which leads to a date rape scenario. It was about consequences, being aware of what can happen,” Boreham said.
“A lot of the kids come from the country and have a real sense of being isolated,” he said. “Inevitably they discover the problems with the city’s gay ghetto, problems with being vulnerable and inexperienced and young.”

Lead actor Aiden Calabria was himself one of those Twenty10 subjects.
“A lot of it was Aiden’s story, having similar experiences. It seemed like an obvious choice to cast him,” Boreham said.

“I think they all got a lot out of the process of actively telling a story, acting out the story that is distilled from their own experiences. That’s a really powerful thing,” Francis said.
Stray will premiere as part of Queer Screen’s I Can See Queerly Now.
Feb 2007

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Transient Screens On Logo
Craig Boreham's short film Transient is currently screening on Logo, the new digital network from MTV Networks and Viacom for the LGBT community in the US in the second season of The Click List: Best in Short Film. Transient, a poignant story of love and loss, will screen as part of a series of shorts presented on LOGOonline, on the Logo channel and in a special edition of the show on Logo On Demand. visit http://www.logoonline.com to tune in.
Nov 2006

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In Production
Craig is currently working on a new short project in collaboration with Sydney director, Dean Francis. "Stray" is being produced by Channel Free, Metro Screen's Youth Production Unit and Twenty10 - Gay and Lesbian Youth Support.

The short drama, due for release in early 2007, was written in collaboration with a group of queer homeless youths in Sydney, drawing upon their own experiences and bringing their stories to the screen through both acting and forming the production crew under the mentorship of Dean and Craig.

"Stray" also features queer Sydney performance icon Rick Viede (Crazy Richard, I Can't Even Think Straight) as the drag queen Lame` Doe Ray (pictured).
Nov 2006

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My Queer Career - Mardi Gras Film Festival
My Queer Career judges Miranda Dear from ABC TV, Oscar-winning director Adam Elliot and Mark Gooder from Icon Film Distribution gave Melbourne based, Pete Goodwin the best sound award for And Everything Nice. "and Everything Nice" was co-directed by Sydney directors Craig Boreham and Peta Jane Lenehan.

My Queer Career is a prestigious short film competition for Australian and New Zealand filmmakers attracting a diverse array of entries from around the country. This competition has helped launch the careers of many queer filmmakers, and has international status as a source for high quality, contemporary Australian and NZ queer film. The competition opens the annual Mardi Gras Film Festival.
March 2006

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Craig attends the Berlinale Talent-Campus
Craig will travel to Berlin in February to attend the Berlinale Talent Campus, a summit of the most talented up-and-coming filmmakers, that is part of the Berlin Film Festival.
Selected from over 3,600 entrants, Craig is one of five Australians participating in master classes and learning from world class experts in all aspects of filmmaking to build up international networks with other emerging filmmakers.
Experts in the program include Win Wenders (Paris, Texas), Michel Gondry (The Science of Sleep, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), Charlotte Rampling (Swimming Pool), Anthony Dod Mantle (Cinematographer, 28 Days Later).
Feb 2006

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Booth screens at the Artrage "Sex" exhibition in Perth
extract from review in Real Time magazine
“Artrage - SEX: slippery viewing - Anna Kesson”

The corporeality of desire is explored further in Craig Boreham’s Booth, a sensual video of a male peep show. Inverting the idea of a Mulvey-esque male gaze, Kane (the dancer) becomes an extremely sexual and finally orgasmic object for the men in the booth and the viewers in the gallery. I am implicitly caught up in the voyeurism and erotics at work onscreen, a fantasy of sexualised masculinity that gyrates, pulses and finally climaxes. As the men ejaculate, and the camera zooms in, I am reminded of the viscerality of sex... SEX explores the ambiguous intimacies of sexuality and the erotic. The exhibition goes beyond simply delineating the fluidity of these interactions, excavating the exchanges, fantasies and even ordinariness of what constitutes our experiences of sexuality.

Artrage, SEX, The Adultshop.com Erotic Art Award Exhibition, Bakery, Artrage Complex, Perth
Dec 05

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MORE ACCLAIM FOR GAY DIRECTOR by Ian Gould
Sydney Star Observer - Issue 799 - Published 19/01/2006
Gay Sydney director Craig Boreham has won more accolades

SYDNEY FILMMAKER CRAIG BOREHAM'S WORK WILL AGAIN STAR IN THE MARDI GRAS FILM FESTIVAL, AND ONCE MORE HE'LL MISS THE SHOW.

A place among the finalists at short film competition My Queer Career should be welcome news for any gay director, but the accolade prompted mixed feelings for Sydney filmmaker Craig Boreham. For the second year in a row, Boreham will be forced to skip the Mardi Gras Film Festival opener because of engagements in Berlin. “It’s a bit of a bummer, especially because My Queer Career is the opening night, and it happens at the State Theatre, and it sounds like it’s a really big event and I keep missing it,” Boreham told Sydney Star Observer.

The director heads to the German capital next month to take part in the Berlinale Talent Campus, a week-long film program where 500 young directors learn from acclaimed international filmmakers. Boreham won a place in the prestigious program partly on the strength of Transient, the tale of failed gay love that won the audience choice award at My Queer Career last year. But its director missed the State Theatre showing because Transient was screening around the same time at the Berlin International Film Festival.

Boreham’s My Queer Career entry this year is And Everything Nice, which he co-directed with Peta Jane Lenehan. Set and filmed in Sydney, the seven-minute movie tracks a schoolgirl as she follows a more popular classmate around for a day. “It’s just basically her observing and working out her own identity through following somebody else,” Boreham said. “It’s about gender and identity basically.” Boreham and Lenehan made the film after a workshop with a group of 11- to 16-year-old girls at Channel Free, which runs sessions for young people as part of Paddington film centre Metro Screen. The workshop participants provided ideas for And Everything Nice, which the co-directors turned into the film.

And Everything Nice will be among 11 Australian finalists vying for an award in My Queer Career next month.
About 60 Australian and New Zealand directors entered this year’s competition.
Jan 06

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Transient Nominated for Teddy Award
Craig Boreham's short film Tranisent has been nominated for the Teddy Award for Best Short Film. The TEDDY Awards is the official queer award at the Berlin International Film Festival and is now in it's 19th year. At the Berlinale, films with gay, lesbian or transgender content have always been an integral component of all its sections. Every year some 40 films from the different sections of the Berlinale compete for the three TEDDY awards.

Previous Teddy winners include Pedro Almodóvar, Gus van Sant, Derek Jarman, Todd Haynes, François Ozon, John Cameron Mitchell.

The nominees this year are:
- HOI MAYA by Claudia Lorenz
- THE INTERVENTION by Jay Duplass
- TRANSIENT - by Craig Boreham
Feb 05

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Gay love in transit
By Tim Benzie
Sydney Star Observer Issue 750 Published 3/02/2005

FROM SYDNEY TO BERLIN, ONE LOCAL
DIRECTOR ALREADY HAS HIS QUEER CAREER
SORTED.
Director Craig Boreham won’t be attending the screening of his short film on the Queer Screen Opening Night – but he has an impressive excuse. Boreham will be in Germany, where Transient has been selected as part of the BerlinInternational Film Festival. “It’s such a bummer because I’ve been dying to see it at the State Theatre and I have to miss it. I have to go to Berlin, so it’s not too bad,” Boreham told Sydney Star Observer. Transient is one of nine finalists in the My Queer Career competition, which this year is held as the Mardi Gras Film Festival’s opening night event. The video about a failed love affair is only nine minutes long but is set in two countries: Australia and Vietnam. “It’s about a couple who meet when they’re living and working in another country, so they’re aliens within that landscape,” Boreham said. “They have this really intense relationship ... and then they have this desire to go back to their own country and be normal. And it’s when they do that that things start to erode.”

Although a work of fiction the film stars Boreham and his real-life partner Phoenix Leonard as the gay couple – casting prompted by a recent overseas trip. “I was travelling in Vietnam and thought I should set it here and do it here, because it was just so beautiful and I really wanted to start capturing it on film. Phoenix was travelling with me – he had no choice but to be in it!” Boreham said.

Once back in Sydney, Boreham employed the services of Ian Roberts as the narrator – his character’s inner voice. “All my friends freak out when they see it, they think that’s not your voice,” he said. “But I wanted that sort of tone in the voice that almost hypnotises you when you hear it, and he has that. He’s got a great voice.”

Transient was funded by the NSW Film and Television Office’s Young Filmmaker’s Fund and will screen at the Berlin International Film Festival in the Panorama section of new works. Transient screens as part of the Queer Screen opening night My Queer Career Awards.
Feb 05

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