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Richard Baron: My cousin lived at Lanfranchi's and the space was closing at the same time. I needed to make a three-minute film for a course I was doing, so I borrowed a camera and rocked up one day. I thought the whole thing would be easy and started to film everything I could, which is pretty much the worst way to make a documentary. I just pulled the camera out of the bag and pressed 'record'. I had never shot anything before. The whole thing ended up taking me three years. You can actually see the production value increase throughout the film.There are so many intense stories from Lanfranchi's: all the garbage, avalanches of cockroaches falling on people while they slept, people hurting themselves and flinging poo around… How come that didn't show up more?
I have a whole reel of poo stories. Yes!Where is it?
When you start talking fecal matter in your doco, you are gonna devalue the rest of it. Maybe not in everyone's eyes, but… it wasn't really central to the story. You can only say so much in an hour.That's very mature of you. I also liked that you included a lot of the not-so-good stuff that happened: hippies talking nonsense, that gore-core hip hop group who looked like Insane Clown Posse.
Suicidal Rap Orgy. Yes.Most people would have tried to glorify it but you give it a Spinal Tap feel at times.
Well, you've gotta have some crap stuff with the good, usually. That was what was great about Lanfranchi's. People were allowed to be crap, and good things often followed.Lanfranchi's Memorial Discotheque - The Documentary is screening on Friday the 27th of August as part of the Melbourne Underground Film Festival
