Scopofile: The Last Breadbox Press

Published Tuesday, May 4th, 2004: Arts Hub, the online home for Australia's arts workers.

Australian-born Sam Voutas was raised in Beijing, where he lived for eleven years.
Now showing as part of 'REAL: Life on Film' festival - Australia's only film festival
screening contemporary documentary films - his documentary film 'The Last Breadbox'
has already enjoyed selection at the Detroit, Florida, Amsterdam,
and Seoul documentary festivals. The film has also garnered international distribution
with Toronto-based BuzzTaxi in 2003. Arts Hub is pleased to be able to run this filmmaker's
recollection of how it really was to make an international documentary on the stirling sum
of two thousand Australian dollars.

My tale begins on virtually every main street in Melbourne. There you would find me,
in the early mornings, slipping envelopes under the doors of businesses: noodle shops,
consulting firms, massage parlors, you name it. The letter inside the envelope was simple:
for just fifty dollars you could have your name in the credits of my upcoming film.
This film, I said optimistically, would screen at film festivals around the world.
What a great deal! Or at least I thought so at the time. And so I waited patiently
for responses to my letter. Nothing. In fact, I'd lost money on
all the local stamps and envelopes.

But first a few words on my idea. The entire project, a documentary aimed at
the 52-minute television slot, was based on a gamble. China was bidding for
the 2008 Olympic Games, and while it was against some heavy competition from
Toronto and Istanbul, I believed China, with the world's largest population, could not lose.
Australia was still buzzing with the Sydney Olympics, so if China won the Games,
perhaps I ought to be there to capture it. As an Australian who had only made films
in Melbourne, heading to another country for a shoot seemed like a giant risk.
Not only would the film have to be in Mandarin, which luckily I could speak, but I would be
without the usual comforts and support networks back home.
Nonetheless, I decided to make a documentary from the average Beijinger's perspective:
life in the lead-up to the Games decision. And my hero would be the cab driver.
But where was the cash to get me there?

Enter Lady Luck. Within a few weeks I had two grand, courtesy of a best tertiary film prize
at the Riverina Flickers Film Festival in Griffith, New South Wales. It just so happened that
two return tickets to Beijing at the time were selling for exactly that price.
Within a month my producer, Melanie Ansley, and I were in Beijing. We had no crew,
no characters, only a camera and a microphone. But we were there!
We quickly met up with Australian expats, many of whom worked in media,
who helped give us pointers on where to find characters and music for the film.
Soon Melanie and I were hailing as many cabs as we could in order to meet characters.
We decided on three: a fish lover who was lucky to be alive, a retired mian di (breadbox) cab driver
with a good chip on his shoulder, and a gutsy female driver with a real independent flair.
Now Beijing needed to win the Olympics.

On the day of the decision I was carefully prepared. I had enough stock and batteries to cover
what would be a long and grueling shoot. But I could not have guessed what would happen next.
Melanie and I had begun frequenting a shoebox noodle house, where we could eat
to our hearts' content for one Australian dollar. That day we decided to try something different
and had the pork dumplings. Cut to later that night, a few minutes before the announcement -
and the climax of our film (months of work had led to this moment). Melanie is looking green.
She quickly departs the shoot, and as Beijing wins she groggily enters a cab, lying flat across
the back seat on her belly. 'Go on without me', Melanie says. And the door slams shut.

But I got the footage. The scenes from Tiananmen Square that night were simply astounding:
thousands of flag-waving citizens converging at one location in an eruption of euphoria.
Chairman Mao was there, hovering over the Forbidden City, as was MTV.
And me, I was there too. Somehow I doubted whether there would have been such support
in front of the Town Hall on Swanston Street when Melbourne won the Games.
It certainly meant a lot to people, but this much?

The film, The Last Breadbox, did end up screening at festivals around the world.
And it did get a distributor. As for me, I'm now far less enthusiastic about putting
envelopes under doors. And the producer, Melanie, she's currently at the Hot Docs film market
in Toronto, seeking funding for our next project, Shanghai Bride. Due to the support
from a country Australian film festival, a film in China was made.
So it's appropriate that The Last Breadbox is back in Australia to tour.