It has become Australia's most in-demand destination festival. In the coastal paradise of Coffs Harbour, Screenwave International Film Festival (SWIFF, as it has become affectionately known) is a showcase of the planet's greatest cinema, but also a cultural event that is part of what defines its hometown. In 2021, co-directors Dave Horsley and Kate Howat up the ante again - acting great Jack Thompson has been announced as festival patron; mentors, technicians and industry insiders will guide fresh minds through the inaugural SWIFF Create initiative; and, executive chefs Richie Dolan and Carla Jones prepare a degustation menu celebrating food and wine from the region. All this before you even get to the film program!
SCREEN-SPACE Managing Editor Simon Foster will be present again when the 2021 event kicks off April 14, broadcasting his podcast Screen Watching from the festival and co-hosting the Sci-Fi Trivia Night. He'll also be watching a lot of films; here's his list of 12 must-see SWIFF sessions. All ticketing and session details can be found at the festival's official website...
A BOY CALLED SAILBOAT: In Cameron Nugent’s magical-realism masterpiece, soulful innocence and communal humanity combine with soaring potency. A little boy with a ukulele and love for his grandma can transform the world, the implication being we all can if we just believe we can. The perfect post-2020 movie. Soundtrack to be performed live The Grigoryan Brothers.
ALIENS: James Cameron’s perfect sequel (perhaps the best ever?) remains a riveting, raucous celebration of speculative cinema - a lean, mean exercise in myth-building and world-crafting, in which macho, militaristic posturing is countered by themes of maternal love and female empowerment. With acid-seeping aliens, to boot! (Pictured, right: Sigourney Weaver and Michael Biehn in Aliens)
COLLECTIVE: The Romanian health care sector harbours corruption, greed and tragedy; organised crime and political heavies are profiteering, while patients die. Director Alexander Nanau’s insider account of the journalists fighting to expose and dismantle their country’s systemic avarice is thrilling, inspiring and terrifying; ranks alongside All the President’s Men and The Post as one of the great films about the power of the press.
THE PAINTED BIRD: A young Jewish boy’s odyssey of horror through Eastern Europe’s combat-ravaged landscape makes for a WWII story of merciless heartbreak. Recalling the hell-on-earth nihilism of Elem Klimov’s 1985 Russian masterpiece Come and See, Václav Marhoul’s shattering monochromatic nightmare is the festival’s bravest programming choice, the kind of film that reinforces SWIFF is a truly global film celebration.
DAVID BYRNE’S AMERICAN UTOPIA: In 1984, David Byrne fronted arguably the greatest concert film ever made in Stop Making Sense. Thirty-seven years later, he delivers another one. Directed by Spike Lee, American Utopia - a filmed-version of Byrne’s hit Broadway concert series - is as purely joyful, soul-enriching, thought-provoking American performance art as has ever been created.
JUMBO: It’s called objectophilia, the sexual attraction to and emotional connection with an inanimate object. Noémie Merlant, star of one of the great cinematic romances, 2019’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, this time focuses her passion towards ‘Jumbo’, the latest crowd-pleasing attraction at the local amusement park. I kid you not, this is the most unlikely and wonderful love story of the year.
LITTLE GIRL: Bring Tissues #1 - Sébastien Lifshitz captures a life both coming into focus and transitioning in Little Girl, the story of Sasha, an eight year-old assigned male at birth who wants to live as a girl. She possesses a soaring spirit, a strength of character that is called upon in the face of social intolerance and institutional bias. Documentary filmmaking at its finest
STRAY: Bring Tissues #2 - A study in displacement as seen from the perspective of three homeless dogs living on the streets and in the abandoned buildings of a Turkish metropolis. Elizabeth Lo’s flea-on-the-wall camera provides a glimpse into lives seeking companionship, acceptance and basic needs; the smallest moment of kindness carries with it immense change.
BREAKER MORANT: With apologies to Mad Max 2, Starstruck and Don’s Party (another Beresford joint), my favourite Australian film of all time is Breaker Morant. In telling the story of our nation’s most famous scapegoat, Bruce Beresford forges one of the great anti-war films, filled with iconic moments (“Rule 303!”), extraordinary craftsmanship and career-defining performances. (Pictured, right; l-r, Lewis Fitzgerald, Bryan Brown, Edward Woodward and Jack Thompson in Breaker Morant)
THE TROUBLE WITH BEING BORN: As we hurtle towards a technological singularity - a world in which robotics and humankind share a consciousness - what responsibilities do we, the ‘creators’, have to the sentient ‘beings’ we have made in our own image? Director Sandra Wollner poses this question in her stark, often shocking, deeply complex near-future sci-fi drama. The best debut feature of 2020.
MEANDER: Challenge your latent claustrophobia with Mathieu Turi’s white-knuckler, in which a young woman (Gaia Weiss, from TV’s Vikings) must navigate booby-trapped tunnels to discover why and how she ended up in this predicament. A little bit ‘Saw’, a little bit ‘Cube’, but so drenched in its own unique style and narrative flourishes it stands on its own merits.
WHITE RIOT: London, late 1970s. Ultra-right racist Martin Webster’s National Front party, spouting Nazi rhetoric and backed by some high-profile music industry types (um...f*** you, Eric Clapton), is polluting the minds of U.K. youth. To fight this scourge, a small group of anti-fascist activists create Rock Against Racism, and a counter-movement is born. Rubika Shah’s inspiring account of the rise of goodness amidst a nation’s ugliest era is enraging, enlightening and ultimately, exhilarating.