Synopsis

Sometimes painful memories die hard and forgiveness is not always at hand. The eternal triangle looms large in the lives of three elderly people. Loves and loyalties shift and waiver like wind-tossed willows.

Voice Actors:

(alphabetical order) Nadia Andary, Serge De Nardo, Peter Frank, Keiran King, Belinda Kirwan, Adam May, Nina Nicols, Giancarlo Salamanca, Angelo Salamanca.

Writer / Director’s notes by Angelo Salamanca

As a student of film theory and since making films, I’ve been fascinated by scenarios which tackle the milieu of the mundane against a backdrop of the epic. I recall as a teenager viewing for the first time such disparate films as Metropolis, Alphaville, The Conformist, Triumph of the Will, Le Regle du Jeu. What these fictional and documentary narratives offered was an insight into how the ordinary – given unusual circumstances and a tumultuous socio-political climate – may be sullied by the stain of corrupted and corruptible power.

            It’s this theme of how easily the psyche can jettison those principals which make us morally and ethically redeemable, that prompted the story for ReVivo.

            Over a period of seven years or so, ReVivo’s scenario and development were enhanced significantly by collaborating with Producer & Animator, Steve Middelton; Editor, Hayley Miro Browne; Sound Designer, Joe Looker; and by the fine work put in by the project’s committed voice actors.

Steve Middleton - PRODUCER & ANIMATOR

Steve Middleton has worked with artificial intelligence, robot technologies, compliant servomechanisms and virtual reality to create performance and installation art. His work has been referenced in many of books, journals and collections and takes pride in being cited in publications as diverse as David Stratton`s "The Avocado Tree", "The Cyborg Experiments: Extensions of the Body in the Media Age" (Continuum 2002), and Stelarc: The Monograph (2007).

Steve transferred his drawing skills to computers in the late 1970`s and tackled primitive virtual-reality animation techniques in 198, then later with other artists during the late 1980`s at the CITRI virtual reality research centre in Melbourne. He campaigned, with many others, as Unlimited Television inc. (TVU), to create the national communications planning infrastructure for Australian community television channel 31, and succeeded in 1987. He is a past President of Community Media Services Inc., a not-for-profit association helping communities make media.
Steve lectured at RMIT, in Melbourne during the 1990s, while gaining degrees in communications and information technology. Here, he began to integrate computer animation, music and video projections during performances at the Glasshouse Theatre in Melbourne during 1988 and 1989. A large mainstream audience came to the National Gallery of Victoria to see an installation of sixty-five video monitors called Crash Course made, with Rebecca Young, for Installation Publication and the Next Wave Festival of 1992.

In 1993 Steve created a feature-length animation with eight computers live in front of an astonished full house at the Valhalla Cinema, Melbourne (Cybertronic Psychorama: November 1993). He has been associated with electronic dance music since the mid 1980`s. He invented Don`t Shoot the Messenger, with Attilio Gangemi, to perform at dance parties. Using video projections, the size of a small block of flats, computer animation and analogue and digital effects to create massive visual installations, Don`t Shoot the Messenger toured Australian and European alternative music festivals and was exhibited at the Scienceworks museum of technology, Melbourne, in 1995.

Steve also worked with Adam Jaffers to produce the first world-wide internet telecast from Australia during the Experimenta Festival in 1994, and demonstrated internet-controlled television in Melbourne on Channel 31 / RMITV (Spectrum Interactive, eight episodes) in 1995.

He’s also performed at the Australian Film Institute awards in 1996, exhibited a series of robotic works in Australia and Europe from 1997 to the present and has lately worked with Stelarc to develop prosthetic and robotic devices for performance work.

Steve has worked extensively with animatronics in gallery spaces, as well as live with performance artists or experimental composers (including machine-generated compositions) in concert. He’s made two animated CGI feature length “live films” at the old Valhalla Theatre in Northcote. In addition, Steve produced a narrative piece at the NGV in the late 80s, spread over 60 or so monitors and which that had no beginning or end. None of these works fit comfortably into traditional genres.

Steve has a B.A. degree in Communications, an M.A by research degree in Animation and Interactive Media, and a PhD in the application of artificial intelligence and robotics in art.

Steve suffers from synesthesia brought about by a chronic nervous system disorder. He lives in tranquil semi-retirement with his wife Debra, a lawyer, in Melbourne, Australia.

Hayley Miro Browne - EDITOR

Hayley Miro Browne is a Melbourne based film editor with over a decade of experience in the feature film cutting room. She has worked as an editor on 14 features, many of which, during her early career, were as Jill Bilcock’s first assistant Editor/Co-Editor before graduating to lead editor. As Jill Bilcock’s 1st, Hayley worked on several features, notably Don’t Be Afraid of The Dark (Guillermo Del Toro), Red Dog (Kriv Stenders) and Blessed (Ana Kokkinos). Her Co-Editor debut was Driving Miss Daisy (2014 with Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones) followed by Shanghai Noir [‘Bao sou shen tan’] 2015 (Clara Law). Most recently Hayley has completed the picture edit for indie feature Life on Earth: Severance (Wee Arthur Films, in post-production), and Richard Gray’s latest production Robert the Bruce. Hayley has also edited several TC shows, video clips and short films such as AGONY: Guide to Life, An Open Letter to Uncle Edgar and several music videos – most recently Paul Kelly’s With the One I Love.

Joe Looker - SOUND DESIGNER

From getting his very first record, to his very first, brick sized ‘Walkman’, Joe Looker has surrounded himself with sounds of all kinds.  At the age of seventeen, Joe began DJing professionally while studying sound design and composition in Canberra at CIT.  He completed his undergraduate in film production at Deakin in 2009 and has been working in film, video and TV production ever since.  Sound design credits include The Boardwalk and The Last Babushka Doll, with Revivo and Everything In Between currently in post-production.  Joe has also worked extensively as a director, editor and camera operator and brings a solid knowledge and passion for film and sound to all of his work.