HEAVY METAL, ALIEN ROMANCE AND KILLER FAIRIES AMONGST MONSTER FEST HONOREES

A Norwegian death-metal tragi-comedy, a romantic millennial riff on Close Encounters of the Third Kind and a sexy Aussie revenge-noir were the eclectic feature film honourees at Monster Fest 2018. The four-day event closed out its 7^th season at Melbourne’s Cinema Nova last night, with an awards ceremony/after party that maintained the high spirits and horror community camaraderie that have become synonymous with Australia’s premiere horror film celebration.

A raucous true-life account of the toxic dynamic within an Oslo rock group, Jonas Åkerlund’s Lords of Chaos was the popular winner of the Golden Monster Award. Featuring a charismatic lead turn by Rory Culkin (pictured, above) as founder of the group Mayhem, whose legacy included genre-defining music, acts of domestic terrorism and murder, the announcement of the film’s win was met with a collective roar of approval from the large crowd, many of whom were metal aficionados energized by just having seen the Closing Night film.

Best International Film was awarded to Jason Stone’s First Light, an alien abduction-themed love story starring Stefanie Scott (pictured, right) as a teenager who returns imbued with special powers and Théodore Pellerin as the love-struck boy who helps her flee. Adapting story beats from Spielberg’s classic UFO tale, Stone deftly melds sci-fi elements, teen romance innocence, blue-collar suburban life and indie sector cool into a deeply affecting fantasy-drama.

David Barker’s Pimped, a dark dramatic thriller in which an act of sexual deception leads to fatal complications, earned the Best Australian Film trophy in a very closely contested category. So tight was the race for the top honour, feature judges Jon Nilsen, Film and Content executive from Event Cinemas, and SCREEN-SPACE managing editor Simon Foster awarded director Robbie Studsor a Special Jury Prize ‘for Artistry and Vision’ for his surreal Perth-shot Oz-noir thriller, Burning Kiss.

Not for the first time in his career, Lars Von Trier proved a divisive influence, with judges split over the worth of his serial killer epic, The House That Jack Built. It would ultimately earn the Dane the Best Director trophy, in a field that also featured S.Craig Zahler for his own controversy-rousing pic Dragged Across Concrete, and Gregory Plotkin for the stylish, crowd-pleasing ‘80s slasher homage Hell Fest. (Pictured, below; Von Trier, centre, with his cast at Cannes, 2018).   

Monster Fest’s commitment to the short form horror narrative was reinforced with a further four award categories honouring truncated terror stories, judged by the team behind the popular Plato’s Cave film show on Melbourne’s 3RRR 102.7 FM. The Best Victorian Short went to Feast on the Young, a dark-hearted ‘woodland nymph’ folk tale from Victorian College of the Arts graduate, Katia Mankuso; the Best Australian Short was won by Joshua Long for his colonial-era creepshow, Post Mortem Mary; and, Santiago Menghini’s kitchen-set nightmare Milk earned Best International Short. Taking the fan-favorite honours for Best Overall Short Film was the Helsinki Mansplaining Massacre, a timely piece of MeToo-inspired pitch-black satire from Finnish filmmaker Ilja Rautsi.

The final award handed out was the Trasharama Golden Lomax, presented by the reliably 'engaging' raconteur Dick Dale, programmer of the iconic 'extreme shorts' program; it was bestowed upon US filmmaker Brian Lonano's BFF Girls. Awarded earlier during the festival was the Best Student Short, which was won by Neuroplug by Deakin University student Caleb Turland. 

GEORGIA ON EVERYONE'S MIND AFTER APSA TRIUMPH

Warwick Thornton’s brutal Aussie western Sweet Country kept up its award season momentum by taking out Best Film honours at tonight’s Asia Pacific Screen Awards (APSA), held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. But it was filmmaking minnow Georgia that won over the hearts and minds of the jurors and gathered attendees at the 11^th annual celebration of filmmaking from region that this year comprised 42 nominated works from 25 countries.

Servicing a population of roughly 5 million occupying a mere 70,000 square kilometres, the Georgian film community stood proud, taking three of the event’s most prestigious prizes. The drama Dede (pictured, below), a tradition-defying love triangle set in the Caucasus Mountains from director Mariam Khachvani (pictured, above: centre), was chosen to represent the Asia Pacific film community before UNESCO’s Intergovernmental Committee as recipient of APSA Cultural Diversity Award; a special screening of the film will be held at UNESCO’s Paris headquarters on December 12. The young director, who shot her film in the UNESCO World Heritage province of Svaneti in her homeland, was clearly moved when she took to the stage; similar displays of genuine humility and unbridled glee were indicative of all the Georgian honorees.

The Best Actress trophy went to Nato Murvanidze (above, right) for her role in Scary Mother, the riveting first feature from 27 year-old auteur Ana Urushadze (above, left). The debutant director also received acknowledgement for her assured work with an APSA Jury Grand Prize, an honour that will sit alongside 2017 statuettes earned from Locarno, Mumbai and Sarajevo film festivals. A fourth in-development Georgian project, Vladimer Katcharav’s Nene, was selected to receive a US$25,000.00 grant as part of the 2017 Motion Picture Association (MPA) APSA Film Fund.

Read SCARY MOTHER: THE ANA URUSHADZE / NATO MURVANIDZE INTERVEW here. 

The mighty Russian film sector was the other award frontrunner, also nabbing three APSA trophies. These were Achievement in Directing, bestowed upon Andrey Zvyagintsev (an APSA favourite, with wins under his belt Leviathan and Elena) for his missing child drama, Loveless; the Cinematography honour, awarded to the duo Pyotr Duhovskoy and Timofey Lobov for Rustam Khamdamov’s monochromatic dreamscape The Bottomless Bag; and, a second Jury Grand Prize for actor Aleksandr Yatsenko’s performance in Boris Khlebnikov’s Arrhythmia.

Read our review of ARRHYTHMIA here.

Thornton’s Best Picture triumph establishes an APSA milestone, with the indigenous filmmaker the first director to have had two films take the top honour; his breakthrough hit Samson and Delilah won in 2009. The only other Antipodean work honoured was Annie Goldson’s New Zealand documentary Kim Dotcom: Caught in The Web, which earned a Special Mention in the Feature Documentary section; Feras Fayyad’s Last Men in Aleppo was deemed the front runner in that category.

India celebrated wins in two major categories, both for Amit Masurkar’s polling-booth black comedy Newton; leading man Rajkummar Rao won Best Actor, while Masurkar and co-writer Mayank Tewari took Best Screenplay honours. Other winners included Kamila Andini’s The Seen and Unseen (Indonesia) for Best Youth Feature; Anne Marie Fleming’s Window Horses: The Poetic Persian Epiphany of Rosie Ming (Iran, Canada) for Best Animated Feature. Iranian actor Navid Mohammadzadeh gave an entertaining acceptance speech in his native Fasi when called onstage to claim his Special Mention honour for his lead role in Vahid Jalilvand’s No Date, No Signature.

Read WINDOW HORSES: THE ANN MARIE FLEMING INTERVIEW here.

The two honorary awards were amongst the highlights of the slickly-staged show, hosted by Australian television identity Lee Lin Chin and actor David Wenham. The FIAPF Outstanding Achievement in the Asia Pacific honour was awarded to Filipino producer Bianca Balbuena (Beast, 2015; Singing in Graveyards, 2016), whose rousing speech was the best of the night (“May we never get tired of being storytellers because the world needs us now”). The APSA Young Cinema Award, a recognition of emerging Asia Pacific talent, went to Azerbaijani filmmaker Ilgar Najaf’s Pomegranate Orchard.

MARRIAGE DRAMA, SPACE RACE EPICS TAKE TOP HONOURS AT RUSSIAN FILM FEST

Boris Khlebnikov’s Arrhythmia was named The SCREEN-SPACE Best New Russian Film at the closing night of the 2017 Russian Resurrection Film Festival in Sydney last night. Also honoured with special jury mentions were Klim Shipenko’s Salyut 7 and Dimitry Kiselyov’s Spacewalkers (pictured, below), two audience favourites that revisited the glory days of the Soviet space program in grand filmmaking style.

Read our review of Arrhythmia here.

A contemporary take on the drifting commitment and strained emotions of a young Moscow couple, Arrhythmia (pictured, below) earned its leading man Aleksandr Yatsenko the Best Actor trophy at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival and recognition from events in Sochi, Sakhalin and Haifa ahead of its Australian festival run. Khlebnikov’s assured and moving film was the unanimous victor as judged by Limelight magazine’s Lynden Barber, Managing Editor of SBS Movies, Fiona Williams, and Screen-Space editor Simon Foster.   

High amongst the finalists vying for the top festival honour were two Holocaust-themed dramas, Andrei Konchalovsky’s Paradise and Pavel Chukhray’s Cold Tango; Karen Shakhnazarov’s highbrow literary adaptation Anna Karenina: Vronsky’s Story; and Valery Todorovsky’s The Bolshoi, the lavish dance drama that opened the 14^th annual celebration of Russian cinema on October 26.

In choosing to break with tradition and give jury nods to the space epics, the judges cited a vast and ambitious scale rarely seen in international cinema, due largely to the costs of realising such immense visions. In praising Salyut 7 and Spacewalkers, the judges spoke of both films in the same breath as the American space race classics, The Right Stuff and Apollo 13, and deemed the quality of the work reflected the strong production and post-production infrastructure of the Russian industry.

The 14th annual Russian Resurrection Film Festival drew to a close after an eleven day run at the Event Cinema's George Street site, during which attendance levels were amongst the highest in the festival's history. The highly anticipated Closing Night film was a digitally restored print of Yakov Protazanov’s rarely-seen 1924 silent science-fiction classic Aelita, accompanied by a live score by the renowned Volotinsky Quartet.

STAR POWER AND SWEDISH SATIRE EARN CANNES 2017 TOP HONOURS

The Square, a Swedish social satire that utilises elements of performance art and conceptual design, has taken Palme d’or honours at the 70^th Cannes Film Festival. The closing night gala was held at the Grand Theatre Lumiere and launched in glamourous style by Mistress of Ceremonies, Monica Bellucci, whose movie star moxie ushered in an evening in which old-school star power was feted in the key categories.

The decision to bestow the festival’s top honour upon director Ruben Ostlund’s follow-up to his Un Certain Regard winner, Force Majeure was met with bemused looks by some attending the ceremony. Critical toing-and-froing and passionate audience debate had greeted the bracingly original work, a response that has been the death knell for past Cannes competitors given the importance placed upon jury consensus in the final voting. In a moment the likes of which the Cannes closing night had never seen, Ostlund led the black tie crowd in a collective primal scream, echoing the descent into madness central to his film. (Pictured, top; Ruben Ostlund, director of The Square, with fellow winners and jury members) 

Acting honours were given to high-profile names Diane Kruger, for Fatih Akins’ In The Fade, and Joaquin Phoenix, for Lynne Ramsay’s You Were Never Really Here. Kruger, who runs the gamut of emotions as the grieving, angry survivor of an act of terrorism, acknowledged the victims of such acts, saying, “Please know that you are not forgotten.” Phoenix was his typically enigmatic self, appearing stunned by the award and accepting the trophy wearing sneakers. (Pictured, above; a scene from The Square)

The Best Director award went to front-runner Sofia Coppola for The Beguiled, capping off a dream international launch for the director’s Civil War drama. The film’s lead Nicole Kidman, who had four separate projects on The Croisette, was officially crowned ‘belle of the ball’ with a special honour called the ‘70^th Anniversary Award’ bestowed upon her.

The Grand Prix award went to Robin Campillo’s AIDS-era drama 120 BPM, set against the French LGBT struggle of the mid-90s. In an act that toyed with the one film/one trophy tradition of the Festival, screenplay honours were split between The Killing of a Sacred Deer, written by Yorgos Lanthimos and Efthimis Filippou, and Lynne Ramsay for You Were Never Really Here (for which Phoenix would be honoured, later in the night).

The full list of winners from the 70^th Festival de Cannes are: 

FEATURE FILMS – COMPETITION
PALME D'OR - THE SQUARE directed by Ruben ÖSTLUND
The Palme d'or was awarded by Juliette Binoche and Pedro Almodóvar.

70^th ANNIVERSARY AWARD - Nicole KIDMAN
The 70th Anniversary Award was awarded by Will Smith. 

GRAND PRIX - 120 BATTEMENTS PAR MINUTE (BPM – Beats Per Minute) directed by Robin CAMPILLO
The Grand Prix was awarded by Costa-Gavras and Agnès Jaoui.

BEST DIRECTOR PRIZE - Sofia COPPOLA for THE BEGUILED
The Best Director Prize was awarded by Fan BingBing and Gabriel Yared.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTOR - Joaquin PHOENIX in YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE directed by Lynne RAMSAY
The Best Performance by an Actor Prize was awarded by Jessica Chastain.

BEST PERFORMANCE BY AN ACTRESS - Diane KRUGER in AUS DEM NICHTS (In The Fade) directed by Fatih AKIN
The Best Performance by an Actress Prize was awarded by Irène Jacob and Paolo Sorrentino

JURY PRIZE - NELYUBOV (Loveless) directed by Andrey ZVYAGINTSEV
The Jury Prize was awarded by Maren Ade and Guillaume Gallienne.

BEST SCREENPLAY EX-ÆQUO – (TIE) Yorgos LANTHIMOS and Efthimis FILIPPOU for THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER; Lynne RAMSAY for YOU WERE NEVER REALLY HERE
The Best Screenplay Prize was awarded by Marisa Paredes and Park Chan-wook.

SHORT FILMS – COMPETITION
PALME D'OR - XIAO CHENG ER YUE (A Gentle Night) directed by QIU Yang

SPECIAL DISTINCTION BY THE JURY - KATTO (The Ceiling) directed by Teppo AIRAKSINEN
The Palme d'or and the Jury Special Mention for Shorts Films were awarded by Uma Thurman and Cristian Mungiu.

UN CERTAIN REGARD
UN CERTAIN REGARD PRIZE - LERD (A Man of Integrity) directed by Mohammad RASOULOF

PRIZE FOR BEST ACTRESS - JASMINE TRINCA for FORTUNATA directed by Sergio CASTELLITTO

PRIZE FOR THE BEST POETIC NARRATIVE - BARBARA directed by Mathieu AMALRIC

PRIZE FOR BEST DIRECTION - Taylor SHERIDAN for WIND RIVER

JURY PRIZE - LAS HIJAS DE ABRIL (April's Daughter) directed by Michel FRANCO

CAMÉRA D’OR
JEUNE FEMME (Montparnasse Bienvenüe) directed by Léonor SERRAILLE presented as part of UN CERTAIN REGARD

The Caméra d'or Prize was awarded by Sandrine Kiberlain, President of the Caméra d'or Jury.

CINEFONDATION
FIRST PRIZE - PAUL EST LÀ (Paul Is Here) directed by Valentina MAUREL
INSAS, Belgium

SECOND PRIZE - HEYVAN (AniMal) directed by Bahram & Bahman ARK
Iranian National School of Cinema, Iran

THIRD PRIZE - DEUX ÉGARÉS SONT MORTS (Two Youths Died) directed by Tommaso USBERTI, La Fémis, France

The CST Jury decided to award the VULCAIN PRIZE FOR ARTIST-TECHNICIAN to: Josefin ASBERG for her remarkable artistic contribution to match the inventiveness of the film THE SQUARE.

WILL THE BABADOOK HAUNT ALL COMERS AT THE AUSSIE OSCARS?

Only a few short hours before the red carpet turns a muddy purple under the heels of Sydney’s sodden socialites (it has really rained this week), SCREEN-SPACE takes a last minute stab at who will take home an AACTA Award at tonight’s Oz industry gala event, to be hosted by AACTA ambassador Cate Blanchett (pictured, below; at the 2014 event) and actress Deborah Mailman… 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Nowhere is the paucity of well written female characters in modern cinema more evident than in this years’ Supporting Actress category. This in no way reflects on the nominees, who all gave fine performances, but closer inspection indicates that the material was pretty thin. Jacqueline McKenzie emoted her heart out in what amounted to about 40 seconds of screen time in The Water Diviner. Ditto the wonderful Susan Prior in The Rover; why she is not an awards-laden international star is incomprehensible given her talent and resume. It looks like two solid if slight comedy turns from Josh Lawson’s The Little Death will fight over this one. In a coin toss, Kate Mulvany over Erin James.
Who should win – Angourie Rice who, as the innocent swept up in society’s destruction, was the heart and soul of Zak Hilditch’s otherwise grim These Final Hours. 

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
No such luck for The Little Death here – ensemble players TJ Power and Patrick Brammall will cancel themselves out. Kudos to Robert Pattinson for his bizarre, brazen psycho in David Michod’s The Rover, but it was a performance that earned just as many brickbats as bouquets. Veteran Turkish character actor Yilmaz Erdogan (pictured, right) thouroughly deserves the trophy for his stoic, honourable defeated warrior opposite Russell Crowe in The Water Diviner. One side note – why isn’t The Mule’s Hugo Weaving in this race?
Who should win – Noah Wiseman, whose troubled, enigmatic, horrified character Samuel will rank alongside the kid stars of The Shining and Poltergeist as one of the horror genre’s MVPs.

BEST ACTRESS
What’s with all these acting noms for the raunchy sitcom vibe of The Little Death? Kate Box is making up numbers here. But a winner is much harder to pick from the remaining three nominees. If the night becomes a ‘Babadook Sweep’, Essie Davis will win and deservedly so. But Predestination has three tech awards already, so there’s a lot of love for Predestination, thanks in no small part the wonderful Sarah Snook. And there was a lot of early Oscar buzz for Mia Wasikowska’s transformative journey in John Curran’s Tracks…
Who should win – A tie is not out of the question; Davis and Wasikowska might split it. We’ll lean towards Davis (pictured, left). 

BEST ACTOR
The great skill of Russell Crowe’s performance in The Water Diviner is that he was able to rein in his movie-star grandness and play an everyman so convincingly. Did he make it look too easy, though? Damon Herriman is an industry favourite, but The Little Death won’t contest in this category (he should’ve been awarded for 100 Bloody Acres). The Rover’s Guy Pearce did his best Clint Eastwood and was very good at it. But with a Cannes gong and an APSA honour already to his name for Charlie’s Country, this is David Gulpilil’s night.
Who should win – David Gulpilil. 

BEST DIRECTOR
Rolf de Heer’s sublimely understated direction of his lead actor and friend in Charlie’s Country is superb, but the Best Original Screenplay award may be where his contribution is honoured. David Michod (The Rover) and brothers Michael and Ian Spierig (Predestination) have long, worthwhile careers ahead of them, but will take a back seat Jennifer Kent tonight. Horror is not always favoured by the high-minded who hand out industry kudos, but The Babadook is a superbly crafted, emotionally resonant work from an exciting new auteur.
Who should win – Kent (pictured, right), but Zak Hilditch for the end-of-days thriller These Final Hours can feel unloved given the category had time travel, dystopian future and fairy tale horror contenders front and centre.

BEST PICTURE
The lack of Best Director consideration will nix the night for The Water Diviner and The Railway Man; so too Tracks, though John Curran’s brilliant work was wrongfully snubbed. Charlie’s Country is a serious ‘actors’ piece, and will earn its trophy in that category. A week ago, The Babadook was a lock, it must be said, but Predestination’s slew of craft trophies may have tipped the scales back in in its favour.
Who should win – The Babadook.

The 4^th annual AACTA Awards will be held at The Star Event Centre in Sydney’s Darling Harbour precinct tonight.