Hybrid non-fiction, audio visual community engagement, sound and music design by producer, filmmaker and musician, Andrew Garton.
Watch, screen or licence…
Non-fiction
KNOW ME [In Production]
Two filmmakers enter the forests of Sarawak, forty-two years apart. District Officer, Ian Urquhart, treks through primary rainforests, encountering the many indigenous communities who live in them. By the time the filmmaker, Andrew Garton, arrives many of the same forests have been logged and thousands of its people displaced. Both men share profound experiences through their footage and journal entries, poetry and music; interwoven they describe the plunder of Sarawak’s biomass and the resilience of its unique indigenous cultures. It is as if, for both Urquhart and Garton, the remaining forest and the few peoples who still live in them yearn to be known before no one is left to tell their story.
Writer/Director/Composer – ANDREW GARTON
AUTOCHTHONOUS [In Production]
The Universe is making music all the time. ~ Tom Waits
In 2015 five months of filming in India’s north-east resulted in more footage than would be needed for the feature writer/director Andrew Garton was producing there. Much of it depicts the banal, the ordinary, and the unseen. This is where most people live their lives, within the flotsam and jetsam of the every day; an India that has changed greatly in the intervening years. AUTOCHTHONOUS weaves these lives and seemingly mundane events and places into a sonic and visual meditation that sits between fast and slow cinema.
Writer/Director/Composer – ANDREW GARTON
LIKE WATER
Bruce Lee’s motto, “being water”, was adopted by Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement. It inspired a fluid, adaptive and mobile response when it came time to face the once-respected Hong Kong police force. Protesters encouraged each other to be Strong like ice; Flow like water; Gather like dew; Disperse like fog. LIKE WATER is a ‘recycled cinema’ essay drawing on archival footage found on YouTube and archive.org with artwork courtesy of Badiucao.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
Music – Lost Time Accident
Duration: 08:33 | Completed: 2021
Watch: Cinemata | Vimeo
PEER TO PEER
What can we learn from the poets, dreamers and coders that engineered a parallel internet that, by 1992, had email servers running in 72 countries? Peer to Peer takes a snapshot view of decentralised data flows as described by two generations of information communication rights peers.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
Producer – KING KATOY (EngageMedia)
Duration: 19:03 | Completed: 2021
FORGED FROM FIRE
Produced on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, a story of devotion and recovery as artists and blacksmiths the world over responded to the Black Saturday fires that devastated townships north-east of Melbourne in February 2009.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
DoP – MICHAEL WILKINS
Duration: 58:00 | Completed: 2019
Watch: Vimeo On Demand | GuideDoc | License
OCEAN IN A DROP
India’s invisible majority are poor yet literate in their own traditions and increasingly online. Ocean in a Drop is a film about these emergent online populations told by rural women and children, artisans and entrepreneurs.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
DoPs – JARY NEMO, ROHIT DHALL
Duration: 75:00 | Completed: 2017
Watch: Vimeo On Demand | GuideDoc | Cinemata | License
Non-fiction shorts
THIS CHOIR SINGS CAROLS
Once a year, in early October, around 60 people gather at the City of Whittlesea’s Fountain View Room in the northern fringes of Melbourne to begin 10 weeks of rehearsal for a single concert.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
Mentors – KATHERINE O’DONNELL, MATTHEW BERKA
Duration: 25:00 | Completed: 2019
Watch: License
RAMESHWAR’S SOOCHNA SEVA
In Bihar, on India’s border with Nepal, thousands of tribal villagers are unaware of the Government benefits they are entitled to. Rameshwar Prasad is on an information crusade to make sure they are.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
DoP – ROHIT DHALL
Duration: | Completed: 2018
RAGHAV AND KIREN
An illiterate but self-taught radio technician accidentally turned a wireless microphone into a transmitter. He began a pirate radio station in his village in Mansoorpur, India. Kiran received a university education and learned how to build solar panels and the circuits to power them. She fell in love with the Raghav, also known as the barefoot engineer.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
DoP – ROHIT DHALL
Duration: | Completed: 2018
A CHALLENGE IS A JOY
By August 2016 more than 170, Community Information Resource Centres were operating in 80 districts within 22 states in India. They provide Internet access where only radio has ever reached. Some of these centres are reaching beyond caste in spite of geographical and cultural challenges.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
DoP – JARY NEMO
Duration: 39:32 | Completed: 2018
WEAVING A SOCIAL ENTERPRISE
The ancient city of Chanderi, India, is home to four and a half-thousand cloth weavers. The city is consumed by the sound of looms. In a 15th century palace, a small group of weavers are breaking from tradition.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
DoP – JARY NEMO
Duration: 27:44 | Completed: 2018
THE SMART VILLAGE OF CHANDAULI
In 2014 Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg visited the village of Chandauli. It was said to be the first digitally literate village in India. What does a digitally literate village look like and what do digitally literate villagers do there?
Director – ANDREW GARTON
DoP – JARY NEMO
Duration: 11:00 | Completed: 2018
WIRELESS IN GUNA
Where once bandits roamed a one-eyed man maintains dizzying communication towers and women climb over walls to reach a computer class. Guna is home to an expansive wireless broadband network reaching communities in spite of considerable geographical challenges.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
DoP – JARY NEMO
Duration: 16:18 | Completed: 2018
THE MIGHTY WOMEN OF MUZAFFARPUR
If your village is suffering from domestic violence, alcohol and drug abuse, corruption what good can a single laptop do? With access to the National Rural Employment Guarantee website and a place to work it’s all Sanjay Sahni needs to mobilise the mighty women of Muzaffarpur.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
DoP – ROHIT DHALL
Duration: 07:27 | Completed: 2018
Watch: Cinemata | Vimeo | License
A TALKING DRUM FINDS REFUGE ON THE INTERNET
Twenty generations of the Khan family have played the Bhapang or ‘talking drum’, but their music and poetry are in decline. The rapid urbanisation of their village has seen a decline in their music and poetry. Few remain who can transfer the songs of their ancestors to forthcoming generations. But they have found refuge for the culture on the Internet.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
DoP – JARY NEMO
Duration: 13:25 | Completed: 2018
ERIN TAPPE STUDY
A study of Australian artist Erin Tappe’s Monsalvat exhibition piece circa 2016.
Camera, Music – ANDREW GARTON
Duration: 01:19 | Completed: 2016
Watch: Vimeo
KALUA SARAI
An ambient film captured from a roof-top apartment in Kalau Sarai, New Delhi, India.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
DoP – JARY NEMO
Duration: 08:03 | Completed: 2015
Watch: Vimeo
TOKYO HAIKU
A snapshot of impressions and inspirations from a three-week stay in Tokyo in 2009 whilst the earth rumbled below and the night sky lit, at that time, by a mostly nuclear-powered city.
Director, Camera – ANDREW GARTON
Duration: 05:33 | Completed: 2014
Watch: Vimeo
THE LIGHT SHOW
The Light Show is a non-fiction film about legendary projection artist Hugh McSpedden with an original soundtrack by Sun-Bus-5. The Light Show is an avant-garde mix of interviews and performances focusing on Hugh’s life in light that took place over four nights at the 2012 Melbourne Fringe festival. The Light Show is a glimpse into Hugh’s work with extracts from the 2012 performance highlighting his fluid and multiple projector arrays
Director – ANDREW GARTON
Music – Sun-Bus-5
Duration: 30 min | Completed: 2012
Watch: DVD & Soundtrack | License
Music Videos
RAT KANGAROO – THE DOWNFALL
The Downfall is available on EP02 on ratkangaroo.bandcamp.com
Director – ANDREW GARTON
Producer – RAT KANGAROO
Duration: 05:33 | Completed: 2020
Watch: Vimeo
RAT KANGAROO – SO & SO
Australian post-punk fusion trio Rat Kangaroo releases their fourth music video SO AND SO.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
Producer – RAT KANGAROO
Duration: 02:00 | Completed: 2019
Watch: Vimeo
RAT KANGAROO – WEIGHT OF THE HEAD
Filmed by members of the audience with mobiles and videotape at Red Betty, a bar just off Melbourne’s Sydney Road in fabulous Brunswick in 2018.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
Producer – RAT KANGAROO
Duration: | Completed: 2018
ANDREW GARTON – EMPTY
Filmed in India whilst on location for Ocean in a Drop, Empty appears on the Smitten Bridge album ‘Alone in Space‘.
Director, Composer – ANDREW GARTON
Duration: 06:30 | Completed: 2018
Watch: Vimeo
ANDREW GARTON – SMUG
ANDREW GARTON – CHASING THE SUN
‘Chasing the Sun’ by Andrew Garton and Roy MacGregor. Includes 8mm footage shot in South Africa by Joe MacGregor in 1965.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
Duration: 05:55 | Completed:
Watch: Vimeo
Community
THE POWER OF US
The culmination of 33 interviews with community leaders from Melbourne’s north eastern suburbs interspersed with videos responding to a callout for self-produced shorts. Produced for the City of Whittlesea’s Refugee Week 2020 programme, regional Victoria, Australia.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
Duration: 11:41 | Completed: 2020
Watch: Vimeo
THE ARCHIVISTS
The Archivists was created in collaboration with a local community and the stories that they shared with choreographers Katrina Rank and Sasha Leong.
Director – KATRINA RANK
Camdera, Editor – ANDREW GARTON
Music – KERRY CLARKE, ANDREW GARTON
Duration: 12:33 | Completed: 2019
Watch: Vimeo
STUPENDOUS
Stupendous describes through movement and observation a group of dancers who ready themselves for a thirty-second performance they will make within, what appears to be an empty theatre. Each of the dancers lives with Parkinson’s Disease.
Director – ANDREW GARTON, KATRINA RANK, PARIS WAGES
Producer – KATRINA RANK, PARIS WAGES
Duration: 07:49 | Completed: 2019
Watch: Vimeo
REFUGEE WEEK – PORTRAITS
Produced for Refugee Week 2019, commissioned by City of Whittlesea.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
Duration: 03:13 | Completed: 2019
Watch: Vimeo
STOP THE POPS
An animated educational film for Pacific Islander school children. The film describes the toxins that are inhaled when non-degradable rubbish such as plastics are burnt. The film was a co-production between Mirranda Burton Animation and Secession/Films for the Secretariat of the Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP).
Writer/Producer – Amber Carvan (SPREP)
Animation, Character Design – Mirranda Burton
Sound Design, Music Edit – ANDREW GARTO
Voiceover – Filomena Va’asili
Duration: 03:13 | Completed: 2016
KNOWING YOU KNOWING ME – PARENTS AND BUBS
Come Dance with Us, community dance workshops delivered by Ausdance Victoria supported by the City of Whittlesea.
Director, Camera, Composer – ANDREW GARTON
Duration: 03:22 | Completed: 2017
Watch: Vimeo
KNOWING YOU KNOWING ME, DOREEN ADULTS
Come Dance with Us, community dance workshops delivered by Ausdance Victoria supported by the City of Whittlesea.
Director, Camera, Music – ANDREW GARTON
Duration: 04:34 | Completed: 2017
Watch: Vimeo
HOME MOVIES #1
Home Movies was an audio/visual story-gathering and story-telling installation for communities eager to bridge present generations with their past and rekindling a sense of place inclusive of cultural origins.
Director, Music – ANDREW GARTON
Duration: 09:30 | Completed: 2014
Watch: Vimeo
THE SUPER HEROS OF BARRY ROAD
An audio-visual sampling of stories, family photos and Super 8 film shared by people who lived full, hard-working lives at a time when most families had a piano and others spent their weekends in the bush, at picture theatres and dance halls. Produced with the support of the Barry Road Community Activity Centre and the Community Cultural Development Department, City of Whittlesea.
Director, Composer – ANDREW GARTON
Duration: 03:22 | Completed: 2014
Watch: Vimeo
WELL BREAD
On a cheerful August day in 2014, around 150 people from the City of Whittlesea’s multicultural community gathered at the Barry Road Community Activity Centre in Lalor. They came to share culinary skills, stories and revel in the distinctive aroma of freshly made bread. Presented by the City of Whittlesea in partnership with the Whittlesea Community Leadership Network, supported by the Victorian Multicultural Commission.
Director – ANDREW GARTON
DoP – MICHAEL WILKINS
Duration: 14:31 | Completed: 2014
Watch: Vimeo