Short films: Tankard and Mandic
Meryl Tankard's engaging documentary about poet Sandy Jeffs and her brilliant poems, which are the basis for a new work "MAD" which Meryl is currently developing, won the award for best music at the 2011 Bondi Short Film Festival. 
 
The songs, written by Elena Kats-Chernin, are sung mainly by Mara, with additional vocal performances by Celia Ireland, Maeve Ireland-Jones and Elena. Accompanying these performances are the composer on piano, Paul Cutlan on reeds, Cleis Pierce on viola, Llew on guitar and gittern and Azo Bell on musical saw. The soundtrack was produced by Llew at Electric Avenue studios with engineer Phil Punch.

Meryl's other screening at this year's WOW festival was her wonderful short film "Moth" which also features performances by Mara and Llew. "Moth" was nominated for best sound track and design at this year's St Kilda Film Festival.
 
The new short film "Scenes from a Farmhouse" is the first from Sydney UTS graduate director Miska Mandic. With fine dramatic performances, this powerful and compelling vignette set in pre-war eastern Europe examines grief, family and premonition.  Featuring some stunning bird sequences from Russell the Crow, and Luke Bacon's dark soundscape, Mara's haunting vocal performances take us to a chilling aural climax to match the stark visual finale.
Cast and Crew performance was at the Dendy Newton March 5, but we'll see this short at several film festivals this year.
 

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