ABOUT OVERSHARE MULTIPLEX

Featuring the debut short film by Oscar-winner Kathryn Bigelow (Psychological operations in support of unconventional warfare, 1975) on 16mm, local cartoonist Grant Ionatán (HTML flowers), Francesca and Mica Levi’s Colour of Chips (2018), Meriam Bennani and Orian Barki’s 2 Lizards (2020), and an international selection of films curated by recess.

Testing Grounds is proud to present Overshare, a free video festival within the Queen Victoria Market Precinct and alongside Fringe Festival Park, in collaboration with Garden Reflexxx and recess. Over 16 days there will be offerings of hands-on workshops, installations, community film events, open mic film nights, premieres and outdoor screenings, with a festival bar. Across two levels of Testing Grounds Emporium this multiplex will feature international programs alongside local emerging video artists and filmmakers aiming to bring people together to watch, share, reflect and collaborate.

From Naarm based resourceful cinema pioneers T00 Much W0rld interrogating and then auctioning off their production hire and distribution company to Kalampag Tracking Agency + Saluhan offering a program of Filipinx/o food and films to the official premiere of Garden Reflexxx’s feature film Grape Steak, to toilet-stall video installations, a five-metre outdoor screen program, a nightly bar, and the presentation of a never before seen Kathryn Bigelow short film from 1975, to a workshop smashing VHS tapes and weaving the film with an octogenarian Canadian recycling artist Evelyn Roth, to scratch film workshops with Lucy Kostos, immaculate corpse collaborative film workshops with Garden Reflexxx, contemporary film workshops with hot girls Enoch Mailangi and Priya Leigh all aimed to connect intentionality with impulse. Also: an open mic night (bring your own 16mm to iPhone homemade film nights), evenings with Cinema Con Nhà Nghèo, Ten Days Collective and Electric Eels Film Company and a very special evening with Fox Maxy for the Australian premiere of her film San Diego in front of a giant collaborative multi-screen ‘airdrop’ ceiling installation of night sky footage collected in the square outside.

ABOUT THE TEAM

Overshare Video Festival is curated by Garden Reflexxx and recess; creatively produced by Lana Nguyen; and hosted by Testing Grounds.

ABOUT RECESS

Co-organised with Olivia Koh from recess [recess.net.au] – an online platform showcasing contemporary moving-image works. recess promotes and facilitates new modes of artistic production, output and access to video and film works locally (based in Naarm, Melbourne) and internationally.

For the International Program recess facilitates screening events by local diaspora collectives alongside selected works by international collectives and artists. The program draws links between local and overseas practices to make present the common concerns of artists working both 'here' and 'there'.

ABOUT GARDEN REFLEXXX

Garden Reflexxx is the creative partnership of film-obsessives Jen Atherton and André Shannon working predominantly with trans/queer artists. Operating as an intermedia group their productions are informed by community art practice and industry-critical theory in a search for natural bridges between independence, interdependence and arthouse production.

Exhibitions, collaborations, writing and festival selections have included Spectacle Cinema, pornfilmfestival Berlin, SEVENTH gallery, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Firstdraft, Dead End Film Festival, Museum of Contemporary Art, Seventh Gallery, Verge Gallery, Powerhouse Museum, Slamdance Film Festival, The Lincoln Centre, Performance Space: Day For Night, Dancehouse, Vancouver Art Gallery, Soft Centre, Cement Fondu, Soft Stir. They also produce and co-present Movies Movies Movies a weekly film commentary show on FBi Radio. They will be presenting their first feature film Grape Steak as part of Overshare Multiplex.

ABOUT TESTING GROUNDS

Located at Market Square in the Queen Victoria Market Precinct, Testing Grounds operates across an outdoor public space as well as two locations on Queen Street (Testing Grounds Emporium + TG Development Space) provides infrastructure for creative practices including art, performance, design and education.

Testing Grounds is a welcoming place where people at all stages of practice can test, develop and share their work in public. The infrastructure can be used to present new work, run workshops or community activities, and host festivals or events.