Grass + Live Score by ZÖJ

01 May 2026
07:30pm - 09:00pm
GA $45.00 | Concession $35.00 | RMIT Students $25.00
The Capitol
113 Swanston St, Melbourne

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Coming to RMIT's The Capitol, ZÖJ (Gelareh Pour and Brian O'Dwyer) brings new life to a landmark silent film, crafting a live score that fuses past and present in a journey across sound and image. This performance is not mere accompaniment; it is an act of translation, of reawakening. Every note, every pause, folds you into the landscape, asking you to see, hear, and feel differently. This is cinema made live.

Grass: A Nation's Battle for Life (1925) is a pioneering ethnographic film by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack (creators of King Kong) and Marguerite Harrison. It chronicles the epic migration of the Bakhtiari people of Iran; families crossing snowbound mountains and wild rivers with tens of thousands of animals. Nearly a century later, the images remain astonishing: human endurance rendered in stark black and white.

Witness Grass become an alive artifact of history; an urgent, breathing encounter where cinema and sound converge. Gelareh's haunting kamancheh and voice summon the landscapes of Iran, threading heritage into the film's heart, while Brian's elemental rhythms carve tension and search for release. The result transcends nostalgia, it is a transformation: Grass reborn as a living conversation between past and present - a reflection on movement, displacement and the fragile relationship between people and land.

Presented by Castlemaine Documentary Festival (CDoc) and supported by RMIT University, after a sell-out show for the Castlemaine State Festival, this event reflects CDoc's long-standing commitment to documentary cinema as a collective, cultural experience where film, sound and audience come together in the same room.

Proudly supported by RMIT University.

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Acknowledgement of Country

RMIT University acknowledges the people of the Woi wurrung and Boon wurrung language groups of the eastern Kulin Nation on whose unceded lands we conduct the business of the University. RMIT University respectfully acknowledges their Ancestors and Elders, past and present. RMIT also acknowledges the Traditional Custodians and their Ancestors of the lands and waters across Australia where we conduct our business - Artwork 'Sentient' by Hollie Johnson, Gunaikurnai and Monero Ngarigo.

Learn more about our commitment to Indigenous cultures

Grass + Live Score by ZÖJ