Locals get a short burst of fame
ELSTERNWICK bar manager Maryska Zielinska has stepped into the spotlight as one of eight residents from the City of Glen Eira to be featured in a new mini-documentary film that premiered last week.
Polish-born Zielinska, who settled in Melbourne in 2009, works at the After The Tears restaurant and vodka bar next door to the Classic Cinema and was filmed at work and relaxing in her top-floor apartment in the same building.
“We filmed in the bar, in the restaurant and in my living room – it was very exciting,” says Zielinska.
“It will be only a short walk to see the end result when it is screened at the Classic.”
The documentary film, titled 8K Radius, is the brainchild of Classic Cinema owner Eddie Tamir and award-winning director Clayton Jacobson, who made the acclaimed 2006 film Kenny starring his brother Shane.
The result is eight short films, each under four minutes in length.
However, it was screened as a 20-minute film to launch the Glen Eira Storytelling Festival on June 18, but each short will be shown separately before feature films at the Classic in coming months.
Tamir says the idea for 8K Radius evolved as a result of wanting to tap into the everyday stories of local people.
He believes that the essence of a local cinema is a communal place of storytelling and wanted Classic patrons to be the stars of their own cinema.
Tamir called on Jacobson, whom he describes as a master storyteller in the humanist tradition, to bring the documentary film idea to fruition.
Jacobson explains: “I’ve always loved short-form documentaries that give you a fleeting window into someone’s world. Elsternwick and the surrounding eight kilometres is such a rich hotbed of contradictions and curiosities and the perfect place for such a project.”
Among those featured are a barber who has worked in the area for three decades, a milliner who makes burlesque lingerie, a dog walker and an athlete.
Zielinska, who is Jewish, has not seen the completed film and missed the premiere screening because she had already booked a holiday in Fiji.
Tamir has developed the Classic into a five-screen cinema since he bought it in 1999.
Enquiries: www.classiccinemas.com.au.
REPORT by Danny Gocs
PHOTO of director Clayton Jacobson (left) during filming of the documentary.
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