Tom Alber & Petra Leslie
Woman Driving
16
November 2017
16
Nov
2017
1
Dec 2017
Night Screen
Woman Driving
Tom Alber & Petra Leslie
16
November 2017
16
November
2017
1
December 2017
Night Screen
Cars are private spaces in public, a crucial intersection of personal space. In this work, an unidentified woman drives an early 90s model Subaru Forester across Melbourne at night. For the most part, the act of driving is silent, passive, private and inactive. It is the authors’ intention for the work to mirror these familiar feelings inherent in an everyday activity, drawing its viewers in and challenging them to inject new meaning and dimension into a seemingly banal and quotidian act.The filmmakers would like to thank Sherwin Akbarzadeh (DoP), Derry Sheehan (Producer) and Erica Dunn (Lead) for all their help on this project.
Cars are private spaces in public, a crucial intersection of personal space. In this work, an unidentified woman drives an early 90s model Subaru Forester across Melbourne at night. For the most part, the act of driving is silent, passive, private and inactive. It is the authors’ intention for the work to mirror these familiar feelings inherent in an everyday activity, drawing its viewers in and challenging them to inject new meaning and dimension into a seemingly banal and quotidian act.The filmmakers would like to thank Sherwin Akbarzadeh (DoP), Derry Sheehan (Producer) and Erica Dunn (Lead) for all their help on this project.
Petra Leslie
Petra Leslie is an award winning cinematographer based out of Melbourne and Sydney. She holds a BA in Media, Screen & Sound, has studied Latin American Cinema at Iberoamericana University in Mexico and holds a Masters of Cinematography from AFTRS.Previous to undertaking her Masters, Petra created a video work called Women Driving that screened in galleries locally, and her first short film Sleeping is Difficult premiered at the Human Rights Arts Film Festival in 2020. Her second short film Sunset Country, which she wrote, directed and shot premiered at the Melbourne International Film Festival as part of the 2021 Accelerator program. Since then it has screened at film festivals domestically and around the world.Petra’s work on Sunset Country shows her unique and sensitive approach to cinematography. Her thesis film is a slow and meditative reflection on the complexity of old age, loss and grief. As a cinematographer Petra is driven to not only create beautiful, well-composed images but ugly, banal, and uncomfortable ones. This was further explored in her Masters thesis which looked at how cinematography can create the cinematic Sublime.In 2021, Petra signed on to Glendyn Ivin’s Lost Flowers of Alice Hart as second unit DoP. In 2022, Petra worked as an operator and satellite unit DoP for her second Made Up Stories production. Petra works in long form, documentary & commercials.