The Brisbane Festival has been running since 9 September and didn’t end until 30 September 2017.
There has been lots of free events and we spent a fun evening at the Little Creatures stage watching and singing along to live performers on Sorority Sisters Night before heading to QPAC to watch a play.
The schedule was packed with singers and bands and all for free.
There were also various acts around the Southbank Parklands area including singers, hula hoopers, dancers which were well worth stopping for a few minutes to enjoy.
The Blind Cinema
The concept behind the Blind Cinema is that the participants sit in the dark wearing blind folds whilst a child sits behind them describing what is happening during a movie they have never seen that was specially recorded for the event.
REVIEW:
The event was weird and cool all at the same time. You are told to put your blindfold on when the screen goes white and then the children come in. They sit in the row behind you and there were lots of creaking chairs as they took their seats and a few nervous giggles from the audience.
A tap on the shoulder to tell you which side the children were on and it began. The movie was mainly silent, no words and a few sound affects like creaking doors. You have three children talking to you one after the other and it was really interesting hearing their descriptions of what was happening.
At some points the commentary was crazy “the egg is growing bigger and bigger, the egg is now a feather” so you wondered what on earth was going on.
Unfortunately you don’t get to see the movie afterwards but that also makes it very intriguing as well.
I would recommend this event if it comes to your town.
Terror
In this event which is being held at QPAC the audience becomes the jury whilst a pilot is tried for the murder of 164 people on a plane which was shot down by the pilot because it had been hijacked and was heading towards a football stadium containing 70,000 people.
I was flicking through the guide for the Brisbane Festival when I spotted this show. Being a Lawyer I am also interested in this kind of event and so I quickly booked the Aussie and I tickets.
REVIEW:
The play did not really accurately portray the Court system I have experienced in England or Australia. It is a German play though so that may explain the differences. I also thought that the way the lawyers and defendant spoke to the Judge was really unrealistic, most likely for the “drama”.
It was good to hear all the evidence and they did to an extent explain the law, that in the circumstances what the pilot did was unlawful but that there was no legislation dealing with what should happen to the pilot if he did shoot the plane down. The defence was that morally the pilot had no choice (which I did agree/understand and would hate to be in those circumstances) rather than on a legal basis.
After the interval we were to be asked to vote. I was interested to see what the “jury” thought. I had previously asked the Aussie what he thought I would vote and he guessed correctly “guilty” (shocker I know!). The Aussie thought not guilty. I then listened to the discussions going on around me which confirmed the verdict was likely to be not guilty.
We all voted using the keypads that had been provided and the verdict was about 185 guilty and over 400 not guilty. The verdicts worldwide can be found here. The pilot has been overwhelmingly found not guilty so far.
Afterwards the cast explained that the law did not appear to support the pilots actions but it is curious to see what the general public, who would be your jury if you were on trial, thought in those circumstances.
Overall I would say that Terror is worth watching. It will really test your views on morality and gives an insight into what being a juror entails.