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Tuesday
Apr082025

PREVIEW: 2025 SOUTH AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL

The South African Film Festival (SAFF) returns from May 4-31, with a packed program of compelling contemporary films, issue-based discussions, and an organisational support network that includes the learning initiative Education Without Borders. With both in-cinema and online screenings, SAFF brings South Africa's rich storytelling tradition to audiences across Australia and New Zealand.

This year, some of South Africa’s most acclaimed and talked-about films will attract discerning filmgoers, including South Africa’s official Oscar selection, Old Righteous Blues, and the Oscar-nominated short film, The Last Ranger. Films in the 2025 program each shed light on the nation’s cultural diversity, social complexity, and creative heartbeat.

Every film watched helps fund programs in literacy, mathematics, leadership, and mentorship for young South Africans through the South African charity, Education Without Borders. Established in 2002, the EwB program is delivered to over 300 learners across all school grades by 50 university-based tutors, many of whom are EwB graduates. It is based at five sites (schools and community centres) in three townships on the Cape Flats outside Cape Town.

Festival Director, Collins Rex said, “SAFF truly represents the soul of a nation. And in our 7th year we’re doing it with a larger lineup of films than ever before. We can’t wait to share the gems, and a selection of accompanying bonus content, with you.”

These sentiments were echoed by Festival Director, Ricky Human, who said, “Every year, we take great pride in celebrating the inspiring stories of some of the most prestigious South African filmmakers, as well as the fresh and exciting new voices that emerge. We also have some surprises in store, including visits by filmmakers and film subjects.”

SAFF this year includes a total of nine feature films, 11 documentaries, and 13 short films. Old Righteous Blues, directed by Muneera Sallies, is a soulful drama that follows a young man's efforts to reunite his town’s estranged Christmas Choir Band, confronting two decades of pain and division.

The Showerhead (pictured; above, right) examines the work of cartoonist Zapiro, from his period as an anti-apartheid struggle-artist to his enduring role as a progressive commentator and freedom-of-expression champion. Zapiro, aka Jonathan Shapiro, will be in Australia to support the film at select cinema screenings.

A hilarious coming-of-age story, Spud is based on the bestselling novel by John van de Ruit. Set in a boys’ boarding school in the early 1990s, and starring a young Troye Sivan and comedy legend John Cleese, the film has become a cult favourite, celebrated for its charm and poignant look at adolescence in a changing South Africa.

The heartwarming and insightful documentary, The Friendship Bench, tracks the implementation of a unique mental health program:  the deployment of gogos (grandmothers) to counsel those in need of support.  The Sydney in-cinema screening of this film will be followed by a Q & A organised by Corrective Services NSW, who are implementing the program.

For the first time, SAFF is this year supporting the work of a young South African-born Australian filmmaker, Kgomotso Sekhur. Shap Shap (pictured; above, right) tells the story of 13-year-old Mmusi who sets off to the township in search of his father. Along the way, unexpected friendships teach him resilience and hope. And in Kwiksilwers, four elderly friends head off on a road trip to experience a meteor shower in Sutherland, with hilarious consequences and no small measure of pathos.

For Tickets and Venue information, visit the festicial's official website

Friday
Apr052024

PREVIEW: 2024 SOUTH AFRICAN FILM FESTIVAL

April marks 30 years since the first democratic election in South Africa when for the first time in the country’s history, all citizens could vote for their future. To mark this auspicious anniversary, the 2024 South African Film Festival will feature some of the nation's most iconic films from the past 30 years when it unfolds from May 2-30 for audiences in Australia and New Zealand.

These include the classic documentaries 1994: The Bloody Miracle, co-directors Bert Haitsma and Meg Rickards chilling account of a nation’s democracy under siege; and The 16th Man, the story of how South Africa’s 1995 Rugby World Cup win galvanised and united the nation (pictured, top; Tumelo Lekena's Father's Day)

A highlight of this year’s festival is the 4K restoration of Oliver Schmitz’s masterpiece, Mapantsula (pictured, right), the gritty gangster film set against the backdrop of apartheid rebellion. Upon its release in 1987, the film was banned after just one screening for inciting violence, but would be honoured by a screening in the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival in 1988. Mapantsula is recognised as having a seminal influence on public opinion against apartheid.

Festival Co-Director Programming & Events, Ricky Human, said, “This year is truly special as we reflect on [this] anniversary of the first democratic elections in South Africa, and honour exceptional filmmakers like Oliver Schmitz, and heroic figures like George Bizos. We’re excited to be joined by George Bizos’ son, Alexi, and the Producer of the film, George Georgiou, who will be attending select screenings in Australia and New Zealand and participating in panel discussions.”

The South African Film Festival opens with John Barker’s The Umbrella Men, a rollicking crowdpleaser that follows  a ragtag bunch of musicians forced to rob a bank during the Cape Town Minstrel Carnival.

Feature documentaries include George Bizos Icon, a fascinating juxtaposition of the personal and political sides of the iconic anti-apartheid human rights lawyer; The Radical, an intimate portrait of the world’s first openly gay Imam from filmmaker Richard Finn Gregory; and, Gareth Whittaker’s Down: A Comrades Story, a chronicle of the pain and the glory that is the gruelling Comrades Ultra Marathon, a 90 km race between Pietermaritzburg and Durban.

There are five exceptional feature films on offer, including Seconds, a gripping tale of crime, deceit, and betrayal set in the dark world of underground boxing; Hans Steek die Rubicon Oor (Hans Crosses the Rubicon; pictured, above), a light-hearted comedy that tackles the subject of aging and stars luminaries of South African screen and stage, including Tobie Cronje and Sandra Prinsloo; and, Soccer Season: Playmaker, starring the beloved entertainer Desmond Dube.

 

Thursday
Jan112024

PREVIEW: 2024 ANTENNA DOCUMENTARY FILM FESTIVAL

ANTENNA, Australia’s leading international non-fiction film festival, has unveiled the 52 creative, thought-provoking documentaries from around the globe that will screen over the course of 11 days, from 9–19 February 2024.

“I am very proud of this lineup as a whole,” said Festival Director Dudi Rokach. “Each documentary is imaginative, cinematic and provocative and I believe together they demonstrate the endless potential of documentary cinema in the hands of a great filmmaker”. 

Opening the festival is the Tribeca Film Festival winner The Gullspång Miracle (pictured, above), from director Maria Fredriksson. The stranger-than-fiction mystery-drama follows two pious sisters who buy an apartment after having witnessed a divine sign – only to realise that the seller looks identical to their other sister, who committed suicide some thirty years before.

Antenna will close the festival with the highly anticipated Ryuichi Sakamoto | Opus (pictured, right), a concert film announces an exciting new partnership with the Sydney Opera House. In capturing Sakamoto's last performance, filmmaker Neo Sora’s celebration of an artist's life is the definitive swan song of the beloved maestro.

Filmmaker Anand Patwardhan will attend the festival as a special guest to present his film The World is Family, an exploration of social and political life in which he paints a portrait of his parents, whose families were intertwined with Gandhi and India’s independence movement. Other Australian Premieres by celebrated directors include Wang Bing’s Youth (Spring), Werner Herzog’s Theatre of Thought, Claire Simon’s Our Body and Oscar-winning filmmaker Alex Gibney’s new film In Restless Dreams: The Music of Paul Simon.

 

Lina Soualem’s Bye Bye Tiberias takes us on an intimate journey through Palestine, where actress Hiam Abbass navigates the fragmented memories of generations of resilient Palestinian women. Oscar-frontrunner 20 Days in Mariupol by Mstyslav Chernov presents a firsthand account of the siege in Ukraine, capturing the unyielding spirit of those caught in the crossfire. Complementing these narratives, Vanessa Hope’s Invisible Nation (pictured, below) investigates the election and tenure of Tsai Ing-wen, the first female president of Taiwan.

Three Australian feature documentaries and 12 Australian shorts will also screen at the festival, including Rosie Jones’ Abebe - Butterfly Song, about the musical legacy and enduring friendship between celebrated Papuan musician George Telek and Australian musician David Bridie and Annette Basile's Isla's Way, a tender, richly humorous portrait of an 87-year-old horse carriage driving champion. 

In a major coup, Antenna will host John Wilson, the young filmmaker behind the hit HBO show How To With John Wilson, one of the most genuinely inspired, oddball, and sneakily affecting works in contemporary television. In 2023, Wilson was invited by the prestigious Anthology Film Archives in New York to guest-curate a special series of films that have influenced or inspired him and he will present a version of this series at Antenna, as well as hosting a masterclass discussing his unique approach to filmmaking. 

 

The 12th edition of the Antenna Documentary Film Festival opens Friday February 9th in Sydney and runs until Monday February 19th. For complete program information and to purchase tickets and festival passes, go to www.antennafestival.org

 

Monday
Aug282023

ONCE UPON IN THE FUTURE: 2121, LOST IN THE SKY, ECHO PINES EARN TOP HONOURS AT SCIENCE FICTION FESTIVAL AWARDS NIGHT

A darkly comic dystopian vision of family dynamics in an underground society has taken out The Ron Cobb Best Film Award at the 2023 Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival.

Hailing from Turkiye, Once Upon a Time in the Future: 2121 (Bir Zamanlar Gelecek: 2121), which previously won Best Film at Sci-Fi London, can now add Australia’s leading sci-fi trophy to its award cabinet. The bracingly original concept was brought to life by Serpil Altin, the first Turkish woman to direct a genre feature in her homeland.

The award love was spread across several country’s genre sectors, exemplifying the global reach of the festival, now in its fourth year. Niamh Carolan took Best Actress honours for her angst-ridden turn in John Barnard’s Canadian thriller, Wintertide; Seann Walsh just pipped his co-star Scott Haran in the Best Actor category for his charismatic bad-guy turn in The Bystanders; and, Bulgarian auteur Theodore Ushev took directing honours for his wildly-inventive, Gilliam-esque vision, Φ1.618.

Two Special Festival awards were bestowed for features of unique originality and artistry. Iranian actor/director Shahab Hosseini’s Residents of Nowhere, an adaptation of the afterlife text Hote des deux mondes by Eric Emmanuel Schmitt, and Takayuki Ohashi’s Distant Thunder, the story of three sisters reuniting during Earth’s final hours, were both recognised for profoundly representing mortality and humanity within the fantasy genre.  

Simon Öster’s Lost in the Sky took home the Best International Short Film, with several patrons commenting post-screening on the emotional impact of the Swedish film; Stephanie Begg’s well-travelled detective story Echo Pines finally found some hometown love, with the X-Files-like thriller taking Best Australian Short; Julia Vyshnevska (Best Actress for The Orb), Blair Redford (Best Actor for The Many Worlds of George Goodwin) and Lia Tsalta (Best Director for Magma) rounded out the short narrative categories.

Best Animated Film was won by Sydney-based FX maestro Christian Debney for his moving space travel drama, Starship. Best Student Film went to the Chinese sector, for Jiamin Jiao’s The Deep Love, shot as part of her studies at the Communication University of China.    

FULL LIST OF WINNERS, RUNNERS-UP AND NOMINEES:

2023 RON COBB BEST FILM AWARD: Named in honour of the late Ron Cobb, an adopted son of Sydney and iconic conceptual artist on such films as Dark Star, Alien, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Conan the Barbarian and The Abyss.
RESIDENTS OF NOWHERE (D: Shahab Hosseini; Iran)
DISTANT THUNDER (D: Takayuki Ohashi; Japan)
**WINNER** ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE FUTURE: 2121 (D: Serpil Altin; Turkiye)
WINTERTIDE (D: John Barnard)
*Runner-Up* MEMORY OF WATER (D: Saara Saarela; Finland)
PHI 1.618 (D: Theodore Ushev; Bulgaria)
THE BYSTANDERS (D: Gabriel Foster Prior; UK)

SPECIAL MENTIONS: FOR PROFOUNDLY REPRESENTING MORTALITY AND HUMANITY WITHIN THE FANTASY GENRE
RESIDENTS OF NOWHERE (D: Shahab Hosseini; Iran)
DISTANT THUNDER (D: Takayuki Ohashi; Japan) 

BEST SHORT FILM (International)
*Runner-Up* MAGMA (D: Lia Tsalta; Greece)
THE DRAFT (D: Raphaela Wagner; UK)
**WINNER** LOST IN THE SKY (D: Simon Öster; Sweden)
THE WISE OLD OWL (D: Quentin Porte; France)
ASSIMILATED (D: Vance Crofoot; USA)
THE BALLAD OF MADDOG QUINN (D: Matt Inns; New Zealand)

2023 BEST SHORT FILM (Australian)
WHITE NOISE (D: Bryce McLellan)
SALVATION (D: Kitty Moroney)
**WINNER** ECHO PINES (D: Stephanie Begg)
EXO-226 (D: Denai Grace)
FIRST-ISH CONTACT (D: Kai Smythe)
*Runner-Up* RETURN CHUTE: SURVIVAL OF A SMALL TOWN VIDEO STORE (D: Simone Attallah)

2023 BEST ACTRESS (Short Film)
DANIELLE KING (Echo Pines; Australia)
**WINNER** JULIA VYSHNEVSKA (The Orb; Ireland)
ANN WILSON (White Noise; Australia)
*Runner-Up* MAGGIE PIRIE (The Ballad of Maddog Quinn; New Zealand)
ANKE SABRINA BEERMAN (The Draft; UK)
CASSIE STIRIES (Pinwheel Horizon; USA)

2023 BEST ACTOR (Short Film)
HERMAN GABHIR (The Traveler; USA)
**WINNER** BLAIR REDFORD (The Many Worlds of George Goodman; USA)
YEONGPYO KIM (Sentence; Republic of Korea)
KAI SMYTHE (First-ish Contact; Australia)
**Runner-Up** ROERD TOCE (Erik; Albania)
GRADY ROSEVEAR-FERRICKS (Beam Me Up; Australia)

2023 BEST ACTRESS (Feature Film)
SELEN OZTURK (Once Upon a Time in the Future; Turkiye)
**WINNER** NIAMH CAROLAN (Wintertide; Canada)
*Runner-Up* SAGA SARKOLA (Memory of Water; Finland)
ANDREA TRAPET (The Antares Paradox; Spain)
MARTINA APOSTOLOVA (Phi 1.618; Bulgaria)
ZOSIA MAMET (Molli and Max in the Future; USA)

2023 BEST ACTOR (Feature Film) 
**WINNER** SEANN WALSH (The Bystanders; UK)
SCOTT HARAN (The Bystanders; UK)
BEN KINGSLEY (Jules; USA)
*Runner-Up* ABE GOLDFARB (First Time Caller; USA)
DEYAN DONKOV (Phi 1.618 Bulgaria)
ARISTOTLE ATHARI (Molli and Max in the Future; USA)

2023 BEST DIRECTOR (Feature Film)
*Runner-Up* SAARA SAARELA (Memory of Water; Finland)
JOHN BARNARD (Wintertide; Canada)
**WINNER** THEODORE USHEV (Phi 1.618; Bulgaria)
TAKAYUKI OHASHI (Distant Thunder; Japan)
SERPIL ALTIN (Once Upon a Time in the Future; Turkiye)
MICHAEL LUKK LITWAK (Molli and Max in the Future; USA)

2023 BEST DIRECTOR (Short Film) 
**WINNER** LIA TSALTA (Magma; Greece)
DENAI GRACE (EXO-226; Australia)
SIMON ÖSTER (Lost in the Sky; Sweden)
IAN SWEENEY (Time Tourists; New Zealand)
KITTY MORONEY (Salvation; Australia)
*Runner-Up* FRANCESCO PABLO CORDARO and ANDREA CORDARO (Awake; USA)

2023 BEST STUDENT FILM
RECORD. PLAY. STOP (D: Neeraj Bhattacharjee; India)
*Runner-Up* OBELISK (D: Sida Xie; Australia)
**WINNER** THE DEEP LOVE (D: Jiamin Jiao; China)
ECHO PINES (D: Stephanie Begg; Australia)
PROTOTYPE (D: Abril Ruzmed; Germany)
THE STAR TO EVERY WANDERING BARK (D: Patrick Traynor; Australia)

2023 BEST ANIMATED FILM
A ROBOT'S DREAM (D: Morteza Halimi; Australia)
*Runner-Up* SILEO (D: Demeter Lorent; Hungary)
INNERMOST (D: Maing Caochong; China)
**WINNER** STARSHIP (D: Christian Debney; Australia)
FLITE (D: Tim Webber; UK)
MIRA (D: Francesca Armstrong; New Zealand)

Monday
Jul032023

PREVIEW: 2023 SAXO SCANDINAVIAN FILM FESTIVAL

The 2023 Saxo Scandinavian Film Festival programme has unveiled a specially curated programme of the best new cinema from the Nordic region, featuring films from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden. Recognising the festival’s status as a major cultural event is the announcement of Saxo Markets, the leading Danish trading and investment specialists, as the 2023 naming rights partner.

Opening the festival is the Australian Premiere of LET THE RIVER FLOW (Ellos eatnu – La elva leve; pictured, above), Audience Award winner at the 2023 Göteborg Film Festival, and starring proud Sámi, Ella Marie Hætta Isaksen. Based on events that have inspired a generation of young Norwegians, writer/director Ole Giæver’s elegant drama follows a young woman drawn into a protest against a dam that may flood Indigenous Sámi land.

Program highlights include GODLAND (Volaða land; pictured, right), Icelandic writer/director Hlynur Pálmason’s follow-up to his breakout hit A White, White Day, a stunning historical drama that follows a Danish priest’s pilgrimage across a largely unexplored Iceland in the late 1800s; Finland’s leading auteur Aki Kaurismäki new tragicomedy FALLEN LEAVES (Kuolleet lehdet) starring Alma Pöysti and Jussi Vatanen, is the tale of two lonely strangers who meet by chance one Helsinki night, in search of the love of their lives.

 

The ever-popular Scandi neo-Noir, thrillers and psychological dramas are repped by Danish director Fenar Ahmad’s highly anticipated sequel to box office smash Darkland, DARKLAND: THE RETURN (Underverden II) starring Dar Salim as an anti-hero re-entering the Copenhagen underworld undercover; Karoline Lyngbye’s SUPERPOSITION, a supernatural-tinged thriller in which a couple tree-change from Copenhagen to the Swedish forest, hoping to reignite their relationship; and COPENHAGEN DOES NOT EXIST (København findes ikke), Martin Skovbjerg’s complex psychological drama, in which a young man agrees to be locked in an apartment and interrogated by his missing girlfriends’ father. 

From Sweden comes Johan Storm’s SHADOW ISLAND (pictured, right), a thriller about an aspiring meteorologist in search of the truth about his father's passing, resulting in an intense maelstrom of paranoia and mystery; Karin af Klintberg’s fascinating documentary THE KING (Kungen), a thought-provoking and poetic film about Swedish King Carl XVI Gustaf, who became the world’s youngest monarch.

Crowned best Nordic film at the 2023 Göteborg Film Festival, UNRULY (Ustyrlig) is Malou Reymann’s unsettling 1930s-set drama inspired by real-life events from the notorious women’s institution on the Danish Island of Sprogø that taught compliance to ‘morally deficient’ girls. And Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken’s MUNCH gripping, sumptuous dramatisation of Edvard Munch's life, depicts four defining periods in the Norwegian artist’s life, providing an intimate insight into a distinctive and unique artistic mind.

Scandi cinema hits include Icelandic smash WILD GAME (Villibráð) featuring Aníta Briem, Björn Hlynur Haraldsson and Hilmar Guðjónsson in Elsa Maria Jakobsdóttir’s entertaining comedy of manners; the newest instalment in the highly popular Grump films from Finnish filmmaker Mika Kaurismäki, THE GRUMP: IN SEARCH OF AN ESCORT (Mielensäpahoittaja Eskorttia etsimässä) in which an ageing widower travels to Germany to buy a 1972 Ford Escort but ends up settling accounts with his past; and, Danish director Paprika Steen’s ensemble laffer FATHERS & MOTHERS (Fædre & mødre) about the challenges of parenting school-aged children.

An impressive roster of retrospective classics, presented in a strand called ‘Scandi Screams’, is led by a 15th anniversary screening of Tomas Alfredson’s LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (Låt den rätte komma in); Ali Abbasi’s Oscar-nominated BORDER (Gräns), featuring the extraordinary Eva Melander as customs officer ‘Tina’; the director's cut of Ari Aster’s MIDSOMMAR, featuring a breakout performance from Florence Pugh; Nicolas Winding Refn’s subversive Viking epic VALHALLA RISING, starring Mads Mikkelsen (pictured, right) as a pagan warrior who joins a group of Crusaders; RARE EXPORTS, Jalmari Helander’s inventively macabre dark Christmas fantasy; and, André Øvredal’s adventurous fusion of folklore and found-footage fantasy, TROLL HUNTER (Trolljegeren), which follows a government employed troll hunter, responsible for maintaining the troll population.

The 2023 Saxo Scandinavian Film Festival will take place from 13 July to 9 August. Session and ticketing information can be found at the event’s official website.