Two Flat Whites is continuing with it’s support of the Australian film industry & is delighted to provide you, our readers with a film review of one of the greatest Australian films ever made.

Looking for Alibrandi is my favourite Australian flick. The film is set in the inner suburbs of Sydney & tells the story of Miss Josie Alibrandi, a teenage girl growing up with the pressures of family, racism, womanhood, school & loss.

Even though this flick covers so many issues, unlike most coming of age flicks it is not heavy loaded. It avoids the constant bed hopping and zit horrors that are usually substituted for drama. Looking for Alibrandi has just the right mix of humour and drama to keep the film flowing.

Josie lives with her Mother in a small terrace in Leichhardt. She attends a Catholic School, where she is just entering the final year. Josie aims to take control of her life. She is intelligent & wants to turn over a new leaf this year and to get the right grades to go on to Sydney University to study law. Josie has a few close friends. She gets on very well with John; the school captain of the neighbouring St Anthony’s on whom she has a crush. And if all that wasn’t enough to cope with, Josie has to contend with the bigotry of her rich classmates, an interfering grandmother and as icing on the cake – Josie’s father who she has never met, moves to Sydney.

Looking for Alibrandi is a wonderful flick, well made & with plenty of twists not mentioned above. The star is Pia Miranda who is fantastic as Josie Alibrandi & her acting ability is enough reason alone to watch this great Australian film. The support cast of Greta Scacchi & Anthony La Paglia is also first rate. Do yourself a favour & watch this delightful piece of mastery light up your screen. The Director Kate Woods also did a superb job.

This May, the Next Wave Festival invites you to get closer to the future of art. With over 400 young and emerging artists from around Australia, the Festival presents two remarkable weeks of genre-busting new works across Melbourne.

Through 61 projects, the 2008 Next Wave Festival will infiltrate the city with visual art, performance, dance, new media, literature, hybrid projects and more. Next Wave’s artists will caress, confront and ensnare audiences with their fearless, multifaceted approach to making art: pushing the boundaries of existing media and creating some new ones in the process.

More than 50 artists from interstate and 5 artists from across the seas, as well as hundreds of local artists will converge on Melbourne to grab the arts industry by the seat of its pants and thrust it into the public domain with startling public projects, unexpected performances and invigorating discourse. The Next Wave Festival Club at the Mercat Cross Hotel will be buzzing with ideas throughout the day during the Polyphonic workshops and forums, and sparkling at night as artists, audiences and passers by come together to exchange ideas, dance moves and phone numbers every night of the festival.

Young indigenous artists come to the fore throughout the Festival, embracing modern arts practices including hybrid performance styles, collaborative writing, puppetry, digital technology, reworked classical theatre and photography to tell stories of identity and their people.

The 2008 Next Wave Festival will explore new ideas and, for a couple of weeks in May, plunge Australian art and culture into the future, and beyond.

LISTING INFORMATION
Dates: 15th - 31st May
Venues: Various venues around Melbourne, regional Victoria and beyond
Tickets: Most events are free. For the few ticketed shows check the Next Wave website for details.
Bookings info, show details and everything else: www.nextwave.org.au

Read about some of the highlights from fashion week here. Finally a return to the original energy and innovation we expect to see from one of the most anticipated events on the fashion calendar.

The schedule of over 60 shows produced many stars including Easton Pearson, Freidrich Gray, silence is golden and Konstantina Mittas. Front row celebrities were Miranda Otto, Mischa Barton, Miranda Kerr and Eve. Best forgotten were the “Don’t you know who I am, I don’t wait in queues” tantrums outside the shows, the “Don’t you know who I am, I must sit in the front row” tantrums inside the shows, goodie bag snatchers who stop at nothing to steal bags which don’t belong to them and that smell in The Cargo Hall….

As part of Two Flat Whites ‘Mega Month of May Giveaways’ & our first birthday celebrations, two of our favourite bands have joined the party. Two of Australia’s most talented emerging bands have embarked on a national tour called ‘The Less Talk, More Problems Tour’. Bluejuice & The Paper Scissors will be playing near you!

To win one of twelve albums from the bands, go to the below links & check out their tour dates & latest songs. All you have to do to win an album from Bluejuice or The Paper Scissors is to email your name & full address to info {at} twoflatwhites(.)com & tell us your favourite song. It’s that easy!

The Paper Scissors tour dates & songs

Bluejuice tour dates & songs

So get emailing to win one of The Paper Scissors or Bluejuice albums. Don’t forget to check out one of there gigs on there ‘Less Talk, More Problems Tour’. Entries close Saturday, 10th May 2008. Winners will be published the next day on Two Flat Whites.

Two Flat Whites celebrates its first birthday this month! Many of our friends have got behind us & have donated prizes for our ‘Mega Month of May Giveaways’. Over the month of May, starting this weekend, we will have lots of prizes to giveaway to our loyal Two Flat Whites readers. So watch this space!

‘Two Flat Whites’ is a network for Fashion, Design, Music, Art, Film, Food, Lifestyle, the Community, Writing and Small Business. Our network focuses on upcoming events and hard hitting interviews.

If you would like to be interviewed, further showcase your work or advise us of an upcoming event, we’ll help you get the word out there! With over 100,000 visitors every month this is the place to be - why not join the revolution!

We also have writing opportunities on the site. Anything from fashion, design, music, entertainment, politics, food, film, news of the day & just about anything in between! So if you would like to write an article, shoot us an email. You will find the details at Two Flat Whites.

It’s not too late to get onboard. If you would like to support our ‘Mega Month of May Giveaways’, please email us at info {at} twoflatwhites(.)com

Happy Birthday Two Flat Whites!

Two Flat Whites - Discovering, promoting & nurturing Australian talent!

Sure we’d all love to be a restaurant reviewer, but the hard-working judges insist it’s not all beer and skittles. Apart from enduring expanding waistlines, as a third of this year’s entries were from regional NSW, the judges spent more time driving lonely country roads than actually eating. It seems that country towns are no longer just pit stops where one picks up a meat pie and a Fanta before continuing the trip.

Hundreds of restaurants made the cut to be featured in the guide and naming the best of the best is not an enviable job. But these brave souls packed their notebooks and antacids and hit the road, finding the year’s most impressive restaurants and industry professionals.

Tetsuya’s Sydney ‘Restaurant of the year’

Tetsuya Wakuda works hard to stay at the top of the national - and international - restaurant scene. His complex French/Japanese food and consistently high standards make Tetsuya’s an easy choice for restaurant of the year.

Foveaux Restaurant and Bar Surry Hills ‘Best new restaurant’

Foveaux is a bit off the beaten track (head away from the buzz of Surry Hills towards Central Station), but ex-Banc chef Darrell Felstead saw the potential of this old sandstone warehouse. The subsequent success of his sultry modern European diner - though it may have surprised Crown Street snobs - has made this award well-earned.

Astral Pyrmont ‘Vittoria chef of the year - Sean Connolly’

Whether you’re a gambler or an anti-pokie puritan, there’s a damn good reason to go to the casino these days with Astral crowning Star City. Chef Sean Connolly’s modern French menu brings an extra dollop of luxury to this most hedonistic of destinations, and his dramatic cuisine has not gone unnoticed.

Darley’s Katoomba ‘Best regional restaurant’

This Lilianfels Resort restaurant has been up against some tough competition, as country NSW continues to offer screeds of amazing eateries that put many of their city cousins to shame. But this Katoomba fine diner sets the bar pretty high and has scooped the award for this year.

‘The Josephine Pignolet best young chef award - Daniel Hong’

The Josephine Pignolet award is a particularly big leg up for chef Daniel Hong, who receives a flight to Europe and the chance to work in some of the continent’s finest restaurants.

Is it best to be a dreamer or is it best to be a doer? Actually, it is helpful to be both.

In all great creations, the idealistic exists with the pragmatic in elegant proportions. A dream is of little value unless you put action into it, and action won’t get you very far unless there is meaningful purpose behind it.
Allow yourself to dream grand, magnificent dreams that express the deepest essence of who you are. Then let those dreams pull you steadily through the practical, nuts-and-bolts work of making them real.

Work through each day with diligence and persistence, doing what there is to be done. And as you do, stay close to the dreamer that always lives within you. As a dreamer, you can envision a world and a life with no limits. As a doer, you can focus on something that has never existed before and make it real.

Let your most treasured dreams focus your actions and let your actions express your dreams. Be both a dreamer and a doer, and dive deeply into the multifaceted treasure that is your life. Have your say by submitting a comment or emailing Two Flat Whites.

The Blue Rinse Society is a self made and distributed magazine with its first ever issue OUT NOW. Find it on various street corners and lovely shop floors. “We are the best tangent magazine in Sydney just for you”.

Our fabulous crew who work hard but are also very playful include Jaime - Editor/Creator, Steph - Editorial Assistant, Frances - Creative Director and ‘al la’ Nonda - PR & Scout Management. Our contributors for this issue include: Anna, Rania, Sinead, Claire and Isabella. A tap on the back for you smarties.

Want a copy? All you got to do is give us your name and address and we will send you a copy pronto. We do charge postage and handling - $5 within Australia, $7 outside of it. You can also join our mailing list where you automatically get a copy everytime a new issue comes out. NICE!

Do you dream of being a published writer? Enter Australia’s richest and most prestigious award for an unpublished manuscript.

The Australian/Vogel Literary Award is Australia’s richest and most prestigious award for an unpublished manuscript by a writer under the age of thirty-five and has launched the careers of some of its most successful writers, including Tim Winton, Kate Grenville, Gillian Mears, Brian Castro, Mandy Sayer and Andrew McGahan (pictured).

Vogel-winning authors have gone on to win or be shortlisted for other major awards, such as the Miles Franklin Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Booker Prize.

$50,000 cash prize in 2008
To celebrate 50 years of Vogel’s in Australia this year, sponsors Vogel’s increased the cash prize from $20,000 to $25,000. Allen & Unwin matched this – bringing the total award prize money for 2008 to $50,000 plus normal royalties from sales.

Entries are now open for 2008
Entrants must be below 35 years of age and must normally be residents of Australia. The manuscript submitted should be a work of fiction, Australian history or biography and must be an original work, entirely by the entrant and written in English. For more information, read the conditions of entry.

For more information, read the conditions of entry.

Download The Australian/Vogel Award entry form for 2008 (PDF).

Entries close 31 May 2008.