Joshua Belinfante: learning from master filmmakers, telling his own stories

Young Australian filmmaker Joshua Belinfante has been mentored by two of the world’s most influential directors, German Werner Herzog and Iranian Asghar Farhadi, experiences he describes as defining and deliberately challenging.

He sought out both opportunities with intent, drawn to the contrast between their approaches. “They’re polar opposites,” he says. “That’s exactly why I wanted to learn from both.”

Those opportunities came through highly competitive international programmes. Belinfante was first selected for a filmmaking accelerator led by Herzog held in the Canary Islands. A residency with Farhadi followed soon after in Italy, after Belinfante applied at short notice while juggling other projects. “I basically threw my hat in the ring very late,” he says. “I just thought, ‘I’ll apply and see what happens.”

During the interview with JWire, Belinfante wears a Greek fisherman’s cap that has become his trademark, a small detail that mirrors his resistance to neat categorisation. He speaks quickly, shifting between humour and seriousness, often circling back to instinct as his guiding principle. “I’m only motivated by what is in me, intrinsically, like what I’m experiencing and how I can put some of my life experience on the screen,” he says.

That instinct runs through his animated work, including the outlandish three-minute short “A Dial Tone Reverie”, made for the Randwick Stinkwater Film Festival, a 30-hour filmmaking challenge. Belinfante and his collaborators completed the film in just 18 hours, and it went on to win the festival’s top award. “I just started bashing on the keyboard and thought, ‘Is this too silly?” he says. “They (his collaborators) were like, ‘No man, just go for it.”

The film uses a deliberately imperfect style Belinfante calls “jankmation”, leaning into rough edges rather than smoothing them out. “I don’t want it to be smooth and fluid,” he says. “You’re leaning into the fact that there are errors and imperfections, because people are happier to laugh at it or with it.” The resulting film uses a combination of cut-outs and live action, resulting in a hilarious Sam Spade-like adventure featuring telephones.

He says these playful films often find audiences faster than his more serious work. “The drama films take a bit longer to get any attention,” he says. “But the silly ones, everyone seems to really resonate with.” For him, they are both a creative release and a space to experiment quickly.

Alongside this lighter output, Belinfante has completed a 23-minute drama titled “The Piano Is Absent a Player”. The film follows a man returning to Australia after serving in the IDF, confronting family tensions and disillusionment after October 7. “I wanted to make a drama film with the energy of prayer throughout it,” he says.

That idea shapes the tone and pacing of the film. “Prayer is about slowing down, being aware of your surroundings, and practising gratitude,” he says. “I wanted that feeling to sit underneath the whole film, without explaining everything.”

By coincidence, the final running time matched the date and time of the October 7 attack by Hamas down to seconds and frames. “It was not intentional,” he says. “I looked at the timeline and thought, ‘You’ve got to be joking. That’s when I knew the film was finished.”

Belinfante also discusses his earlier film, “Lilith Goes Galactic”, which he describes as a science fiction documentary made in the aftermath of the Herzog programme. The film screened at the Sydney Underground Film Festival, where it sold out its session. It centres on themes of loss and destruction through an unexpected genre blend. “That one really unlocked something for me,” he says, pointing to the freedom he feels when mixing forms and letting ideas collide rather than keeping them neat.

Belinfante describes his time with Herzog as intentionally contradictory and confronting. “He’s very good at telling you what Herzog would do,” he says. One moment has stayed with him. “He told me, ‘If you emulate me, I will come for you in the dead of night and strike you down with a shovel.’” The Herzog quote is spoken in a hilariously accurate impersonation of Herzog’s much-mimicked German accent.

Later came encouragement from the director. “He said, ‘You’re a real filmmaker. You don’t need me to say it.’”

The residency with Farhadi offered a very different education. Belinfante approached it primarily as a cinematographer, allowing him to crew on multiple films and closely observe Farhadi’s work with actors. “He’s incredible with body language and motivation,” he says. “He knows how to make something feel real and authentic.”

During that residency, Belinfante quietly and quickly directed a short film of his own and screened it without prior notice at the end of the programme. Farhadi’s response was immediate. “He said that in one hour, doing what I did, with acting that good, even Martin Scorsese could not do it,” Belinfante says. “I cried.”

After working closely with two of the world’s most respected directors, Belinfante remains sceptical of rigid career paths and films that spell everything out. “I want to make films where the credits roll and the audience is left with a question,” he says.

He is also wary of the push to frame creative work as content, particularly as artificial intelligence becomes more visible. “I really don’t like the word content,” he says. “You’re telling stories. You’re making people feel something or making them laugh.”

This week, Belinfante is involved in the SF3 Smartphone Film Festival, one of the world’s largest smartphone filmmaking competitions, which attracts entrants aged from four to 80 and offers more than $50,000 in prizes.

Finalists are screened at the Sydney Opera House, with films shot entirely on smartphones. Belinfante has entries across different roles, from directing to producing and collaborating. Whatever the outcome, he says the focus remains the same. “As long as I’m making films that allow people to think and feel something,” he says, “I’ll be happy.”

 

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For details about SF3 Smartphone Film Festival at the Sydney Opera House and more across Sydney this weekend, see https://sf3.com.au/.