MELODRAMA / RANDOM / MELBOURNE! is an experimental feature film, part two of a Fil-Aus (Filipino-Australian) trilogy. All three films use the sentimentality of cinema to explore Filipino identity in Australia. Part one, I am JUPITER I am the BIGGEST PLANET, is a silent film; part three, MAGANDA! Pinoy Boy vs Milk Man, is a Filipino exploitation film. MELODRAMA / RANDOM / MELBOURNE! is a documentary, drama and ‘glorious cinema-o-ke’, that explores the intersection of gender and race through fragmented images set to pop-punk tunes.
My work has always been about the marginalised and those on the fringes. I wanted to highlight a side of Australia not shown in film narratives. I wanted to show the CBD of Melbourne and all its Asian influences. I wanted to take a pencil to the jugular of broken masculinity and highlight the long-suffering experiences of some of the women of my heritage.
Aries Santos says in the opening scene: ‘I am a female filmmaker, a documentarian. It’s how I define myself. That’s my identity.’ My one certainty in all this is that I, Matthew Victor Pastor, am a filmmaker—it’s my identity.
MELODRAMA / RANDOM / MELBOURNE! will have its Australian premiere in October at the 2018 Adelaide Film Festival, as part of the ‘Australian New Wave filmmakers’ program presented by Bill Mousoulis (founding editor, Senses of Cinema).
Matthew Victor Pastor is an Australian filmmaker of Filipino heritage and a graduate of the VCA, where his short film I am JUPITER I am the BIGGEST PLANET won Best Director for a Masters project (Narrative).