Albie Thoms’ Palm Beach

OtherFilm’s Danni Zuvela presents a special screening of the surfer-themed experimental feature, PALM BEACH, a category-busting work from recently-deceased filmmaker Albie Thoms, one of the key figures in the Australian experimental film scene.

Surf films occupy a special place in Australian national cinema, projecting the popular image of a sun-worshipping culture of easy athleticism and casual sensuality. Albie Thoms’s experimental narrative film PALM BEACH subtly undoes these myths with three loosely-connected stories from the beachside underbelly – surfing mates trying to score drugs to sell; a teenage runaway shacking up with a mysterious American yachtie; and an out-of-work surfer dependent on his girlfriend for support. Shot in the ‘jewel’ of Sydney’s Northern Beaches over the sunny summer of 1978, the film’s episodic narrative is radically undercut by an innovative sound montage. Overlapping scene dialogue and layered audio from commercial radio and television broadcasts create an at-times parodic critique of both beach-obsessed Australian society and the conventions of narrative cinema.

As part of Anthology Film Archive’s SURFING AFA

Albie Thoms
PALM BEACH
1980, 88 min, 35mm. Print courtesy of the National Film & Sound Archive of Australia.

&

Albie Thoms
BLUTO
1967, 5 min, 16mm. Print courtesy of the National Film & Sound Archive of Australia.

Fri, July 5 at 7:00pm and Sat, July 6 at 9:00pm.

Reference
The Ubu Moment and Australian Experimental Film: Interviews with Albie Thoms