Seizing the day

Jack's memorial service was on Friday. I was the MC, and managed to hold it together right until the end. It was the final photos of Jack, taken on his and Dee's honeymoon and set to a Nick Cave song, that set me off.

I was crying as I made my closing comments to the vast crowd that had gathered to celebrate a life lived to the full.

That's something I took from the memorial, and from all the wonderful words that were said about Jack - that he seized the moment and lived every day like it was his last.

Here's to doing the same.

Last night was the program launch for the Melbourne International Film Festival. There's some fascinating films in the program (which will be made available to the public with The Age this Friday), and everyone will have their own favourites, but here are just some of the films that have caught my eye so far:

• The Red Riding trilogy, a film about the Yorkshire Ripper murders in 1970s-80s Britain, screening in a new package called Vengeance is Mine, films that turn on the theme of retribution;
• Blessed, a new film by Ana Kokkinos (of whose The Book of Revelation, the less said the better) and screenwriter Andrew Bovell, based on the remarkable play Who's Afraid of the Working Class by Bovell, Patricia Cornelius, Christos Tsiolkas and Melissa Reeves;
• The closing night film Bran Nue Dae, an energetic Indigenous road-movie musical directed by Rachel Perkins;
• The opening night film Balibo by director Robert Connolly, about the Australian government's complicity in the murder of five journalists by Indonesian soldiers in East Timor in 1975;
  
• An Englishman in New York, in which John Hurt once more dons the role of England's stately homo, Quentin Crisp;
• Steven Soderbergh's two-part epic about the revolutionary Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, Che;
• and the black and white Bulgarian noir thriller Zift, which screens in another new package of films, The End of Europe: New Balkan Cinema.

There's a lot more to write about, which I'll do after I've had more time to devour the festival program properly.

Other things I haven't had time and/or energy to blog about lately include:

• The re-launch of The Store Room Theatre last Wednesday night (check out the theatre's website for details of the 2009 program - some great-looking shows are coming up!);
  
• The final monthly installment of the Anarchist Guild Social Committee show at Trades Hall Sunday week ago, which was a fantastic collection of original sketches by some great local comedians; and,
  
• The latest Last Tuesday Society at Yah Yah's last week, at which I happily hooted with mirth; and which sadly was the last installment of the event until September, as Rich is going to Edinburgh and Bron’s working on her solo show for Melbourne Fringe.

Oh yeah, and I finally caught up with Barely Contained, the new show from Circus Oz on Saturday night. A full review coming soon!

Tonight, if you're free, come and check out FULL TILT - The Talk Show at the Arts Centre at 6.30pm in the State Theatre foyer: the second in a series of free forums I've curated and am presenting. Tonight we talk about non-verbal language in performance - dance, circus and more.

And as soon as the forum is over I'll be racing straight home to watch episode one of Torchwood: Children of Earth on UK TV at 8.30 pm. It promises to be one hell of thrill-ride through some dark sci-fi and government conspiracy territory.

I can't wait!