
Within the world of theatre the rehearsal room is a sacred space -- the private domain where boundaries are pushed, risks taken, mistakes made, vulnerabilities exposed and, at its very best, magic created. It's not a place into which the public is often, if ever, invited. Until now; In The Company of Actors features an ensemble of Australia's finest actors, including Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving, as they prepare to perform the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Hedda Gabler, at the prestigious Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. Opening night is just five weeks away and the pressure is on.



Within the world of theatre the rehearsal room is a sacred space -- the private domain where boundaries are pushed, risks taken, mistakes made, vulnerabilities exposed and, at its very best, magic created. It's not a place into which the public is often, if ever, invited. Until now; In The Company of Actors features an ensemble of Australia's finest actors, including Cate Blanchett and Hugo Weaving, as they prepare to perform the Sydney Theatre Company's production of Hedda Gabler, at the prestigious Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York. Opening night is just five weeks away and the pressure is on.
2007-06-10
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From a rehearsal room in Sydney through to opening night in New York, a company of actors reveals the magic and struggle of creating theatre.
A look at the entire process of creating and developing Patrice Chéreau’s third staging of "In the Solitude of Cotton Fields" by Bernard Marie Koltès with Pascal Greggory and Chéreau himself. From the first reading around the table through the first contact with the performance space, rehearsals and lighting to opening night, the entire creative process unfurls in front of our eyes. The film shows us the evolving and ongoing dialogue between Greggory and Chéreau, a dialogue full of crises and magical moments of harmony and insight via which the truth, intensity, complexity, mystery and depth of Koltès’ text gradually emerge to form an implicit bond between these two men. The film also shows Chéreau directing rehearsals for Mozart’s "Don Giovanni" in Salzburg, revealing both the unity of and profound differences between his opera and theater work.
7.3A documentary covering the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney.
0.0A provocative and ironic pamphleteering documentary about the making of Christoph Schlingensief’s Nazi-'Hamlet’ (2001). Both a media event and a form of political action Schlingensief let ex-neo-Nazis play themselves. His provocation in so-called Nazi-free Switzerland was not appreciated and when he added fuel to the flames by calling for the local political party SVP to be banned, his media offensive made front-page news far beyond Switzerland.
0.0The vexed question of how to live an artistic life is illustrated in DISAPPEAR HERE, the story of Australian 90's alternative group Glide and founding songwriter William Arthur - in an atmospheric, texturally rich exploration of thwarted ambition in the independent music scene of 1990's Sydney. This extraordinary artist and the shifting sands of the music industry are revisited by band members as well as Aussie music industry luminaries including Tim Rogers (You Am I), Jamie Hutchings (Bluebottle Kiss), Peter Fenton (Crow) and Jane Gazzo (ABC's Recovery and Triple J). DISAPPEAR HERE is a completely independent production which was directed, shot, edited and written by Ben deHoedt.
0.0Story of Annette Kellerman, the international swimming vaudeville and silent screen star whose life story inspired the MGM classic Million Dollar Mermaid starring Esther Williams, which featured lavish Busby Berkeley scenes.
Documentary focusing on 25 year-old actress Jane Fonda as she and her director Andreas Voutsinas prepare a stage play called The Fun Couple for Broadway.
4.7A film about the cultural evolution of the Sydney beach side suburb of Maroubra and the social struggle faced by it's youth - the notorious surf gang known as the Bra Boys.
0.0A backstage and on-stage look at Nicki Minaj's career during the Pink Friday Tour, festivals, and more.
0.0Sydney in Time is a rich and powerful story that charts the evolution of Sydney from its early years as a colonial outpost through to its emergence as a dynamic world city. The one-hour documentary looks back at the people, places and front page stories that have shaped a great city and helped define Australia.
0.0The teams are Wests and Manly. The year is 1978. Manly are the new face of rugby league and have won the premiership three times in the last decade. Wests have to look back to 1952. Then a new coach takes over at Wests. Roy Masters coins the phrase — the fibros and the silvertails — to describe the struggle of the western suburbs against the elite of the city’s north and east. The season will become a war of words off the field and a battle on the field. The game will be overshadowed by violence and refereeing controversy. At the start, Wests and Manly are just two teams among many. By the end, they will be bitter rivals. Fibro and silvertail will be part of our language. And everyone will have two teams — their own team and the team playing Manly. This is the story of one of sport’s classic feuds.
0.0Documents the Cockatoo Island Dockyard occupation and industrial actions of 1989.
5.7A documentary about the lives of actors in the Sakura-tai theatrical troupe, which had arrived in the island of Hiroshima to begin preparations for the staging of a play just before the atomic bombing.
0.0Pistolteatern in Stockholm, Sweden, was a leading experimental scene in the mid 1960s, comparable to the Living Theater in New York. In the years 1964-67. Pistolteatern produced theatre plays, exhibitions and happenings at a very high pace. The name, Pistolteatern, comes from two of creators, PI Lind and STaffan OLzon.
0.0In Sydney, Australia, Jason King, a security guard and a part-time ghost hunter, has spent decades searching for his absent father. When this personal endeavor crosses paths with a police investigation, an unspeakable family secret comes to light.
0.0In a decaying Soviet-era retirement home, a vibrant group of elders cling to life by staging Shakespeare. Yet loneliness lingers beyond the theater’s doors, until drama begins to blur with reality.
6.5For 'Et les chiens se taisaient' Maldoror adapted a piece of theatre by the poet and politician Aimé Césaire (1913–2008), about a rebel who becomes profoundly aware of his otherness when condemned to death. His existential dialogue with his mother reverberates around the African sculptures on display at the Musée de l'Homme, a Parisian museum full of colonial plunder whose director was the Surrealist anthropologist Michel Leiris.
8.0The story of a nation coming together around Indigenous athlete Cathy Freeman who delivered when it mattered on the greatest stage on earth. 20 years on, Freeman sheds light on one of Australia's proudest moments. In 49.11 seconds, Cathy Freeman's win at the 2000 Sydney Olympics brought Australia together as a nation.