Accessible Arts / arts + disability NSW

Red Day at the Cake Factory

Red Day at the Cake Factory is the work of actors involved in Reelability, an initiative created by Sunnyfield and the Manly Youth Council involving mixed ability actors, film makers and directors based in Sydney’s Northern Beaches. The work was created as part of the 2010 annual 24/7 Youth Film Festival in conjunction with Sunnyfield, over a period of three film sessions, and was both created and produced in and around Manly.

The film is set in a local cake factory, where the workers, feeling overburdened by their domineering supervisor (Jake Bush), finally take matters into their own hands and unleash some of their own discipline on their bullying managers. The content is drawn from the theme of the 2010 festival: time (or lack of), and is featured throughout the film through both its narrative, as well as its use of clocks, schedules and alarms. Red Day at the Cake Factory is homage to the classic silent film. The characters use physical comedy and slapstick to provide a storyline that employs humour as a form of protest as well as an insight into what time means to different people.

The film is a milestone in the work of Reelability because it was featured, for the first time, in the public screening of the 24/7 Youth Film Festival. In 2011 the group will undertake the challenge again, but instead of accepting an allowance to film over three sessions, the group will aim to complete the entire seven-minute film within 24hrs. The public screening of the 2011 entries will take place later this year.

Written by Jessica Miller AART.BOXX committee