The Human Rights Arts and Film Festival Australia

The fifth Australian Human Rights Arts and Film Festival (HRAFF) opened in Melbourne this week. Vinisha Mulani tells us more: 

What started as a group of friends brainstorming in a share-house kitchen six years ago, is now a national film festival in its fifth year, based at the Australian Centre for the Moving Image, has Margaret Pomeranz as a festival patron, includes a music festival, art exhibition, forums and the President of the Maldives doing a live Q&A.

But that's not the sole summary of its success - despite its escalation from the kitchen table to ACMI, the success and soul of the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival lies in its content and intent. As inspiring as the festival's establishment and growth, are its films.

From Wrinkles, a Spanish comical animation about Alzheimer's, to Buffalo Girls, about girls in a Muay Thai child boxing tournament, the films range in topics but are all consistent in how you feel when you leave the cinema. HRAFF films can catapult even the most cynical suit-clad individual into a state of inspiration to change the world for the better. (Just a heads up, Australian Volunteers International and Intrepid Travel - there may be an unexplained exponential increase of people lining up in front of your offices over the next month). The Island President is also a program highlight; an inspiring documentary about the president of the Maldives' and how he tackles his small nation's slow extinction in the face of climate change.

Whatever incredible film you choose to watch at HRAFF, you will have something to gain - whether it be inspiration to do something great, raising your awareness in something you had no idea about, or a window into the life of an individual on the other side of the world.

HRAFF's dates around Australia:
Melbourne 15 – 27 May
Canberra 28 – 30 May
Adelaide 29 May – 1 June
Sydney 29 May – 1 June
Brisbane 5 – 8 June
Alice Springs 8 – 10 June
Byron Bay 12 – 15 June
Perth 14 – 16 June

For more detail on the program in general and to purchase tickets: http://hraff.org.au/
Words by Vinisha Mulani

British India headline Red Bull Bedroom Jam this Saturday

Alice Springs has never really been known as a hotbed of music, but this weekend sees one of Australia's finest young bands head to town. In the midst of an Australian tour, British India have announced an exclusive date there this Saturday in order to headline Red Bull Bedroom Jam’s first round finale event – The Backyard Jam.

Red Bull Bedroom Jam is on a mission to discover the crème de la crème of teenage talent rehearsing in bedrooms across the nation. It is an online music competition that is searching – via webcam – for two Aussie bands aged 14-19 to give them the chance to record in either the US or UK, before playing on the biggest stages of their lives. This weekend's climatic Backyard Jam final will see four finalists say toodle-pip to the confinements of their poster-clad walls and get the opportunity to rock a live gig alongside British India. One band will then walk away with a mind-blowing music prize; a trip to London to record in Red Bull’s studios and a spot on the line up at the UK’s gnarliest rock festival, Download.

The four finalists have already topped the custom made online Buzz Chart and subsequently strummed their way through a live webcast performance. Now, acoustic singer/songwriter Scott Boyd, garage band Jagged Lies, four-piece rockers Welcome Wednesday, all from Melbourne, and ear-bleeding electro-thrash metal group The Sky’s The Limit from Alice Springs will all battle it out for the fantastic prize at the Backyard Jam event.

The good news for your band (assuming you are in Australia and fit the age-requirements) is that there is still time to be part of Red Bull Bedroom Jam. The second round of the competition that will send one band to LA this September is now live. All you need to do is upload a video of an original track to www.redbullbedroomjam.com.au and spread the word to encourage your friends and fans to hop online and generate some noise. The first webcast winner of the next phase will be announced on 2nd June. Get writing, get practicing and get uploading.

Like Red Bull Bedroom Jam on facebook and keep right up to date on Twitter.  
British India's other tour dates can be found at their website.

Mystery Jets - Serotonin

Considering how they used to create percussion from the sound of sawing wood and had the lead singer’s Dad on guitar, Mystery Jets are certainly a different proposition to the bunch of oddballs that first emerged from Eel Pie Island with dreams of being Pink Floyd, Genesis, King Crimson and Yes all at once. With Chris Thomas (Pulp, Sex Pistols, Roxy Music) as producer, third album, Serotonin, sees them take to the next level the shimmering, synth-drenched pop sound they alluded to in parts of their previous record, Twenty One.

Whether it is within the hooks and soaring chorus of opener Alice Springs or the soft rock of It’s Too Late To Talk there is heartbreak and yearning aplenty throughout Serotonin, but, rather than being delivered mournfully, it is done with upbeat charm. The romance may be doomed, but it is romance nonetheless and almost joyous in its chasteness. “Better to have loved and lost than to have lived and never loved anyone/ I'd stand in the line of fire for you/ I'd bend over backwards for you/ I'd do anything that you want me to do/ ’Cos I don't have nothing if I don't have you/ My love/ And it hurts cos it’s true.”

So catchy are their tunes, the Brits really deserve to be much bigger than they are and this polished offering might just take them into the consciousness of the mainstream. While its big-hitting songs don’t better the singles that Twenty One boasted, Serotonin is the band’s most well-rounded offering to date and bursts with guts, heart and honesty. Good as it is though, in its slickness it lacks some of the ramshackle appeal of their first two albums, and let’s hope that, in reaching a wider audience, Mystery Jets don’t completely eradicate their envelope-pushing quirkiness. After all, the ability to combine glorious pop sensibilities and genuine peculiarity is something that should be celebrated.