Your Kontinent is a multicultural arts festival with over five years of history in Richmond. If you haven’t heard of it before, then you’re in good company.
Apparently before its current reiteration as the some-what unwieldy Your Kontinent: Film and Media Arts Festival, the festival spent a few years under a different name. Here’s the reason why they’ve rebranded:
Your Kontinent is a variation on the term “Urkontinent” coined by German scientist and geophysicist, Alfred Wegener, for Earth’s first continent – the first single, unbroken landmass. If it were to exist today, this continent would contain a rich mosaic of ethnicities and cultures co-existing in one place. Guided by this powerful vision, the Your Kontinent: Film and Media Arts Festival reflects Cinevolution’s vision of an integrated, socially cohesive society which not only accepts, but embraces, difference.
I attended an event on closing day: an unconventional dim sum brunch while watching Red Obsession, as part of their special Screen Bites series. The logistics showed off experience of the organizers, which progressed smoothly from start to finish. As with most festivals, Your Kontinent evolved mostly around volunteers, but the registration was brisk and the plates were served hot. I also appreciated the true multiculturalism of the audience, as benefitting a festival like this and a diverse suburb like Richmond.
While the pairing wasn’t perfect – Red Obsession is a documentary on the wine market in China – and the film was a bit overly long for the setting, the novel way of combining food and culture made it worthwhile.
The festival is now wrapped, but you can keep in touch with the festival on Facebook or through the organization’s website.
About the Film
Red Obsession
Australia • 2013 • Documentary • 79mins
Director: David Roach & Warwick Ross
Language: English
A film about power, money and economics bottled with tradition and integrity, Red Obsession depicts the wine market and its shift away from its European home to Chinese shores. This hard hitting documentary illustrates how changes in global markets challenge the economic integrity of luxury goods, specifically wine from Bordeaux. Historically linked to the shifting fortunes of global economies, Bordeaux wines face unprecedented demand from China’s emerging wine market. The reality of China’s new and powerful growth has created an almost unrestrained financial power that is able to move the world’s future, and we are given a glimpse of this power in action as it swallows up the wine fields of Bordeaux.
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