Sydney Film School, Siren Visual and Director Maya Newell are pleased to invite you to the special screening of Richard on Tuesday 16th September at 6:45pm at the Chauvel Cinema, Paddington, in celebration of the National DVD release on 18th September.

Maya Newell will be introducing her ground breaking film that she made as part of her studies at Sydney Film School, and that pays tribute to a true Sydney ‘identity’. To mark this special occasion, complimentary drinks will be served after the screening in the foyer, a wonderful opportunity to meet one of the new faces of Australian filmmaking and to get involved in one of Australia’s fasted growing film communities.

Maya Newell’s first full length documentary Richard (50min), is a stark, bittersweet and at times humorous portrait of Richard Blackie – consummate eccentric, toy collector and former Michael Jackson impersonator – whose public obsessions and private torments are laid bare in this devastating portrayal of the last few months of his life. This local Sydney identity made headlines when he took his own life in July 2006. What few people knew at the time was that a 17 year-old student filmmaker had developed a curious friendship with Blackie. She had gained access to this most private of private characters and his extraordinary and utterly bizarre toyshop, and was filming his life and the obsessions that drove him, when he took his own life.

Date:                Tuesday 16th September 2008

Time:                6:30 – 6:45pm

Venue:              Chauvel Cinema, Cnr Oxford St & Oatley Rd Paddington