HELEN MUSA scans the Canberra arts scene for this week’s Arts in the City column. 

Principal photography has started for Craig Alexander’s feature film Snatchers, created, shot and to be produced entirely within Canberra. Alas, his team tell us they were “disappointed though not surprised” to learn they’d missed out on the most recent round of funding from Screen Canberra, of which Alexander says: “Funding bodies need you to prove yourself before they can risk the funds and to prove yourself you need to create work. It’s a Catch 22.” 

Melbourne’s coolest Afro-Cuban band Ausecuma Beats will be at Ainslie Arts Centre on April 26.

Mindful of the need to practice their art in the context of world theatre, Joe Woodward and Daramalan Theatre Company are presenting Festival of Performance, a program of short films and nine one-act plays by Eugene Ionesco, Edward Albee and Anton Chekhov, as well as new works by students and staff. Daramalan College, Dickson April 27-May 11.

Canberra-raised artist and digital producer, Sophie Penkethman-Young, has a new work, Robot//Dog, commissioned by Verge Gallery at Sydney University. It’s her third digital performance-lecture and picks up on the current public interest in man’s best friend, looking at “programmed beings”, such as canines and their AI siblings. Screening online at verge-gallery.net until September 5

The 11th Australian Catholic University Prize for Poetry, worth a total of $18,000, is calling for new poems on the theme of faith, inspired by Helen Keller’s words: “Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light”. Entries by July 2 to acu.edu.au

Countertenor Toby Cole will join Apeiron Baroque and an all-Canberra band of strings and harpsichord to present Shipwrecked, stormy vocal works by Baroque composers Ariosti, Vivaldi, Handel and Hasse. Wesley Music Centre, Forrest, April 21. 

Former Canberran Paul Morgan, author of The Pelagius Book and Turner’s Paintbox, both, has a new World War II novel, The Winter Palace, published by Penguin, which deals with the abductions and forcible transportation of children to Nazi Germany. He’ll launch the book at Paperchain, Manuka, on April 24.