Nigel
Buesst
b. April 30, 1938, Melbourne,
Australia.
BIOGRAPHY:
After graduating B Com from Melbourne
Uni in 1960, Nigel Buesst sought work in the British film industry.
He worked at Shepperton Studios as an assistant editor and on
various other freelance assignments before returning to Melbourne
in 1962 to work for the ABC at Ripponlea.
Since then he's worked
in various capacities, as film editor, cameraman, sound recordist,
producer and director. He was particularly active in the '60s
Carlton scene, made manifest in the doco Carlton
+ Godard = Cinema.
He spent
thirteen years as a lecturer at Swinburne Film and TV Dept. and
five years as Director of the St Kilda Film Festival. He currently
operates a small video editing establishment in North Carlton,
the Sunrise Picture Co., and retains an undiminished enthusiasm
for the medium in all its forms.
CRITICAL
OVERVIEW:
Nigel Buesst started out with a biopic
about Squizzy Taylor and has returned to the form on several occasions,
fascinated perhaps by the excitement and variety of other people's
lives. Subjects have been Benny Featherstone, a memorable
bandleader of the '30s, and Gerry Humphrys, the lead singer of
The Loved Ones.
There have been numerous shorts, mostly on 16mm
and in collaboration with others, and a few features, the most
ambitious being Compo in 1987. This filmed version of a
play by Abe Pogos was screened at the 1989 MIFF and sold to BBC
television.
Nigel's main influences have been filmmakers who
have achieved magic on minimal budgets, ranging from the British
Free Cinema movement through to the French New Wave, to Andy Warhol
in New York, Raul Ruiz, Werner Herzog, even the Dogma crowd. But
he concedes that magic on any budget is alluring, like Mulholland
Drive or Punch-drunk Love.
Interview with Nigel Buesst(2011)
Gerry Humphrys: The Loved OneTRAILER (2000)
FILMOGRAPHY:
Bonjour
Balwyn
Fun Radio
(1963, 12 mins, B&W, 16mm)
The
wonderful world of 3UZ radio.
The Twentieth
(1966, 27 mins, B&W, 16mm)
A jazz
convention in Sydney.
The Rise
and Fall of Squizzy Taylor (1968, 50 mins, B&W, 16mm)
Melbourne's
Napoleon of crime.
Dead Easy
(1970, 50 mins, col, 16mm)
Melbourne's
early mass murderers.
Bonjour
Balwyn (1971, 55 mins, B&W, 16mm)
Short
feature about a magazine publisher.
The Destruction
of St Patricks (1971, 8 mins, B&W, 16mm)
About
the preservation of our heritage.
Come
Out Fighting
Come Out
Fighting (1972, 50 mins, col, 16mm)
Short
feature about an Aboriginal boxer.
Daryl
Turner Film (1975, 12 mins, col, 16mm)
The
work of a talented young artist.
Jacka
VC (1977, 45 mins, col, 16mm)
Doco
on First WW hero and St Kilda Mayor.
Death
of a Princess "Part Two" (1980, 6 mins, col, 16mm)
Satire
on a news event.
Jazz Scrapbook
(1983, 70 mins, col, 16mm)
History
of early Australian jazz.
Compo
(1987, 82 mins, col, 35mm)
Comedy
on life at a workers compensation office.
Benny
Featherstone - Prince of Good Fellows (1996, 66 mins, col,
video)
Doco
on a musician.
Gerry
Humphrys - The Loved One
Black
Sheep Gather No Moss (1997, 12 mins, B&W, 16mm)
Historical
fantasy.
Global
Village (1998, 14 mins, col, video)
Experimental,
mocks the urge to communicate.
Gerry
Humphrys - The Loved One (2000, 66 mins, col, video)
Doco
on '60s muso.
