FIVE MUST-SEE MIFF MOVIES

The 2020 Melbourne International Film Festival is not letting Stage 4 restrictions in its home state of Victoria and a nation coping with COVID-19 to get in the way of presenting one of the most diversely curated programs on the Australian calendar. MIFF 68½ will offer 60 feature films and bundles of short works via their digital platform from August 6 through 23, leading off with Kelly Reichardt's First Cow and wrapping up with Pablo Larraín’s Ema. SCREEN-SPACE offers up five features that are on our Must-See list; capacity is limited, so jump on the Official Website without delay....

ROSE PLAYS JULIE (100m • Directed by Christine Molloy, Joe Lawlor • English • Ireland, UK • Australian Premiere) 
From the MIFF Program: “Rose, an Irish veterinary student, tracks down her birth mother, successful actress Ellen. When they meet, however, Rose learns something terrible about her biological father, celebrity archaeologist Peter (played by Game of Thrones’ Aidan Gillen). Methodically, she decides to approach him ‘in character’ using the name Ellen gave her at birth, Julie – but, as she soon discovers, she’s playing a dangerous game.” 

THE GO-GO’S (97m • Directed by Alison Ellwood • English • UK, USA • Australian Premiere) 
From the MIFF Program: “They sprang, fierce and fresh, from the Los Angeles punk scene, determined to make music their way. Their 1981 debut album spent six weeks at number one, and they’re still the bestselling all-female band of all time. Belinda Carlisle, Charlotte Caffey, Jane Wiedlin, Gina Schock and Kathy Valentine are the Go-Go’s, and they got the beat!”

WENDY (1h 51m • Directed by Benh Zeitlin • English • USA • Australian Premiere) 
From the MIFF Program: “In this reimagining of Peter Pan, Wendy hails from a rural town in the American South. One day, she catches a boy hopping onto a train and, lured by mystery and a chance to escape her monotonous life, she jumps aboard, her two brothers in tow. Soon enough, she meets Peter and his island of verdant foliage, forever-young mischief-makers and a glimmering, gigantic underwater creature called ‘Mother’.”

SHIVA BABY (76m • Directed by Emma Seligman • English • USA • Australian Premiere) 
From the MIFF Program: “For twentysomething student Danielle (played by comedian and performer Rachel Sennott), funeral customs and courtesies are a minefield. But when her older lover and an ex-girlfriend-turned-frenemy both turn up to the shiva, too, the screwball stakes are raised. To get out of this alive, Danielle has to survive neurotic parents, nosy relatives, passive-aggressive jibes with her ex, and the baby for whom her sugar daddy is an actual daddy.”

NO HARD FEELINGS (92m • Directed by Faraz Shariat • German, Farsi, with English subtitles • Germany • Australian Premiere)
From the MIFF Program: “Parvis spends his nights hitting the clubs or hooking up with Grindr randoms. But his hedonism – and his shame around his Iranian heritage – is challenged when petty theft sentences him to community service in a refugee shelter. There, he meets Iranian refugee Amon and his sister Banafshe, and as love blossoms between the two young men, a renewed love for their shared origins likewise grows.”

PREVIEW: 2020 SCIFI FILM FESTIVAL

The organising body of the 8th SciFi Film Festival has held firm to the event dates announced prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, despite moments of introspection and careful consideration as to the fate of the 2020 festival. Currently set to roll out August 28-31 at the Event Cinemas George Street complex in Sydney, the festival has announced a program of films culled from a record number of submissions and representing science-fiction visionaries from 21 countries.

The 2020 Opening Night honours have been bestowed upon Jeremy LaLonde’s time-travel comedy James vs His Future Self, featuring Jonas Chernick as a young man facing off against a cynical, hard-bitten future version of himself, in the form of a terrific Daniel Stern (Home Alone, 1990; City Slickers, 1991; pictured, top). The darkly funny romp, co-starring Australian actress Cleopatra Coleman, scored the Best SciFi Film at Toronto’s After Dark Film Festival. It will be paired with the World Premiere of the Australian short A Blaster in the Right Hands, a Star Wars fan-fiction film helmed by Richard de Carvallho.

Seven other features will fill out the program, each one an Australian Premiere. In addition to the previously announced Cargo, the moving, funny Hindi-language Indian production from director Arati Kadav, the SciFi Film Festival has scored three titles from the vibrant Canadian film sector - Guarav Seth’s Entangled (pictured, right), a twisted psychological drama in which a Flatliners-like quantum physics experiment turns friends against each other; Eric Schultz’s Minor Premise, starring Sathya Sridharan as the neuroscientist facing off against his own split consciousness; and, in the Closing Night slot, Erin Berry’s M.A.J.I.C., a post-X-Files conspiracy theory deep-dive involving alien abduction and men in black mythology that snared Best Film kudos at this years’ Berlin SciFi Film Festival.

Also slated are the U.S. features To Your Last Death, an ultra-violent animated pic from director Jason Axinn featuring the voices of William Shatner, Morena Baccarin and Ray Wise, and the lo-fi, hi-energy American SciFi, an 80s-inspired teen adventure from director Chris McElroy. The lone Australian feature to have made the cut is Colm O’Murchu’s Tabernacle 101, an afterlife thriller starring David Hov and Mikaela Franco.

The short-film roster boasts a mammoth 36 entrants, spanning 20 countries. Highlights include Japan’s Ryoko’s Qubit Summer, an A.I./LGBTIQ-themed romance from director Yuichi Kondo, a Best Film award winner from the Berlin SciFi Film Festival; from Yemen, Hashim Hashim’s spiritual journey story, A Homeland Bird (pictured, right); Gábor Osváth’s Best Game Ever, a crowdpleaser from Hungary; and, from Bahrain, Eva Daoud’s ‘battle of the genders’ horror pic, The Light Thief.

The shorts will screen both ahead of the feature sessions and under their own strands. On Saturday 27th at 10.30am, eight short films will be presented under ‘Students of SciFi’, including the Australian production Alyssa from teenage filmmaker, Shania Anderson; at 3.30pm, the slightly risque strand ‘Love, Sex and Science Fiction’ will screen MA-rated shorts from nations including The Netherlands (Tommie Geraedts’ Zwart; Gideon van Eeden’s God Glitch), Poland (Pawel Son Ngo’s The Host) and China (Linq Kim’s A.N.N.I.); and, on Sunday 30th at 1.00pm, the ‘Women in SciFi’ strand, supported by Women in Film & Television (WIFT) NSW, will highlight genre works by women filmmakers.

The SCIFI FILM FESTIVAL will be held August 28-30 at Event Cinema George Street. For full program information, visit the festival’s official website or Facebook page.

'VIVI IL CINEMA!': CANNES 2020 TITLES COUNTER COVID CANCELLATION

PARIS: Artistic director Thierry Fremaux and president Pierre Lescure shared the stage at the UGC Normandie Theatre to announce the line-up of the 73rd Festival de Cannes overnight. In a year when tradition has made way for the practicalities of pandemic living, the pair favoured a television interview format over the usual press conference to reveal the 56 films to earn the ‘Cannes 2020’ Official Selection label.

"This selection was built with the prospect of seeing the Cannes Film Festival assume more than ever its primary mission: to promote films, artists and professionals by showing their work, to be the bridge between the screen and the public," said Frémaux, via a prepared statement. "Cinema makes a difference thanks to those who make it, those who give it life and those who receive it and make it glorious." 

With the cancellation of the physical event, the iconic In Competition, Un Certain Regard and Out of Competition strands have made way for a new set of categorizations. ‘The Faithful’ is a collection of 14 films from directors who have been to the Croisette at least once before; ‘The Newcomers’ are 14 festival debutants; and, ‘The First Features’ includes 15 films from first-time directors. Also In the mix are ‘Five Comedy Films’, ‘Four Animated Features’, ‘Three Documentary Films’ and a single ‘Omnibus Film’. (Pictured, right; a scene from director Maïwenn’s French/Algerian co-production, DNA, chosen in 'The Faithful' lineup)  

Other notable statistics that indicate the festival is still the premiere international film event, even in the face of unprecedented disruption to the global festival circuit, include a submission record of 2067 films; an increase to 16 in the number of women filmmakers in the lie-up; and, the feature film first-time directors representing 28% of the selection roster.

The Short Film competition, Cinéfondation competition selections and Cannes Classics program will be revealed in the days ahead. Already announced is a 4K-remastered edition of Wong Kar-Wai’s masterpiece In the Mood for Love, which will be released in French theaters next December. 

The 2020 Festival de Cannes line-up is:

THE FAITHFUL:
THE FRENCH DISPATCH by Wes Anderson (USA; trailer, below)
SUMMER 85 by François Ozon (France)
ASA GA KURU (True Mothers) by Naomi Kawase (Japan)
LOVERS ROCK by Steve McQueen (England)
MANGROVE by Steve McQueen (England)
DRUK (Another Round) by Thomas Vinterberg (Denmark)
Maïwenn’s DNA (DNA) (Algeria / France)
LAST WORDS by Jonathan Nossiter (USA)
HEAVEN: TO THE LAND OF HAPPINESS by IM Sang-Soo (Korea)
EL OLVIDO QUE SEREMOS (Forgotten we’ll be) by Fernando Trueba (Spain)
PENINSULA by YEON Sang-Ho (Korea)
IN THE DUSK (At dusk) by Sharunas BARTAS (Lithuania)
DES HOMMES (Home Front) by Lucas BELVAUX (Belgium)
THE REAL THING by Kôji Fukada (Japan)

THE NEWCOMERS:
PASSION SIMPLE by Danielle Arbid – (Lebanon)
A GOOD MAN by Marie Castille Mention-Schaar (France)
THE THINGS YOU SAY, THE THINGS YOU DO by Emmanuel Mouret (France)
SOUAD by Ayten Amin (Egypt)
LIMBO by Ben Sharrock (England)
ROUGE (Red Soil) by Farid Bentoumi (France)
SWEAT by Magnus Von Horn (Sweden)
TEDDY by Ludovic and Zoran Boukherma (France)
FEBRUARY (February) by Kamen Kalev (Bulgaria)
AMMONITE by Francis Lee (England)
A NIGHT DOCTOR by Elie Wajeman (France)
ENFANT TERRIBLE by Oskar Roehler (Germany)
NADIA, BUTTERFLY by Pascal Plante (Canada; trailer, below)
HERE WE ARE by Nir Bergman (Israel)

THE FIRST FEATURES:
FALLING by Viggo Mortensen (USA)
PLEASURE by Ninja Thyberg (Sweden)
SLALOM by Charlène Favier (France)
CASA DE ANTIGUIDADES (Memory House) by Joao Paulo Miranda Maria (Brazil)
BROKEN KEYS (False note) by Jimmy Keyrouz (Lebanon)
IBRAHIM by Samir Guesmi (France)
BEGINNING (In the beginning) by Déa Kulumbegashvili (Georgia)
GAGARINE by Fanny Liatard and Jérémy Trouilh (France)
16 SPRING by Suzanne Lindon (France)
VAURIEN by Peter Dourountzis (France)
GARÇON CHIFFON by Nicolas Maury (France)
SI LE VENT TOMBE ( Should the Wind Fall ) by Nora Martirosyan (Armenia)
JOHN AND THE HOLE by Pascual Sisto (USA)
INTO THE WIND ( Running with the Wind ) by Shujun WEI (China)
THE DEATH OF CINEMA AND MY FATHER TOO ( The film Death and my father too ) by Dani Rosenberg (Israel)

FOUR ANIMATED FEATURES:
AYA TO MAJO (Earwig and the Witch) by Gorô Miyazaki (Japan)
FLEE by Jonas Poher Rasmussen (Denmark)
JOSEP by Aurel (France)
SOUL by Pete Docter (USA; trailer, above)

FIVE COMEDY FILMS:
ANTOINETTE IN THE CÉVÈNNES by Caroline Vignal (France)
LES DEUX ALFRED by Bruno Podalydès (France)
UN TRIOMPHE ( The big hit ) by Emmanuel Courcol (France)
THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD by Laurent Lafitte ( France)
THE SPEECH by Laurent Tirard (France)

THREE DOCUMENTARY FILMS:
THE TRUFFLE HUNTERS by Michael Dweck and Gregory Kershaw (USA)
9 DAYS AT RAQQA by Xavier de Lauzanne (France)
ON THE ROUTE FOR THE BILLION ( The Billion Road ) by Dieudo Hamadi (Democratic Republic of the Congo)

OMNIBUS FILM:
SEPTET: THE STORY OF HONG KONG by Ann Hui, Johnnie To, Tsui Hark, Sammo Hung, Yuen Woo-Ping and Patrick Tam (Hong Kong)

PREVIEW: 2019 BYRON BAY FILM FESTIVAL

The free-spirited, soulful essence of the Byron Bay Film Festival (BBFF) is one of the regional event’s key assets. Those elements are there for all to see in the rich 10-day line-up for the 13^th celebration of cinema on the far-north coast of New South Wales, which launches October 18. However, that deeply thoughtful approach to festival programming only exists to serve a mission statement as serious and committed as any on the circuit.

One of the Asia Pacific’s most respected film curators, Festival Director J’aimee Skippon-Volke adheres to an ethos that ensures the event, ‘fuses artistry, entertainment and innovation, enhancing our worldview and collective social dialogue through the power and storytelling of film.’ That means a feature film roster in 2019 that includes three World premieres, four International premieres and 11 Australian first-runs, set to screen at nine diverse venues.

“I think with any film festival it comes back to programming. The films selected set the tone and the message of the event,” revealed Skippon-Volke (pictured, right), who forges the festival’s path with partner Osvaldo C. Alfaro. “Being able to support the filmmakers who are changing the world one screen at a time, and sharing stories that need to be seen, is part of what drives our team to put their energy behind BBFF.”

Opening Night will add star wattage to the already celeb-heavy Byron surrounds with the New South Wales Premiere of Paul Ireland’s contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. Australian acting great Hugo Weaving heads a strong local cast (Daniel Henshall, Christie Whelan, Harrison Gilbertson) in the drama, which transports one of The Bard’s most challenging works to Melbourne’s criminal community. The prolific Weaving is on double-duty at the festival, with Ben Lawrence’s acclaimed drama Hearts and Bones also set to screen.      

In programming the opener, Skippon-Volke acknowledged the ambitious project ideally suited the festival mindset. “We support Australian filmmakers and Measure for Measure has everything - established stars and new faces on the rise, glossy cinematography, topical interest, and a resolution that is a satisfying balance of joy and pain,” she says, “Shakespeare would recognise the dichotomies and applaud.” Other Australian titles in the line-up include Mirrah Foulkes’ Judy and Punch, Abe Forsyth’s Little Monsters and John Sheedy’s H is For Happiness.

Fifteen narrative features will comprise the main program, including such internationally acclaimed works as Celine Sciamma’s Cannes triumph Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Franco Lolli’s Critic’s Week premiere Litigante and Australian director Josephine Mackerras’ Alice, the SXSW Grand Jury Prize winner.

Making their Australian debuts will be new films from Ecuador (Jamaicanoproblem’s A Son of Man), Ukraine (Roxy Toporowych’s Julia Blue), North America (Josh Melrod’s Major Arcana), and Brazil (Hique Montanari’s Yonlu). Closing out the 2019 festival will be the Australian premiere of Tom Waller’s The Cave, the Thai film industry’s account of the 2018 Tham Luang cave rescue of a trapped junior football team.

Such commitment to global cinema means the Festival Director spends a large part of her year overseas, sourcing content while representing the festival and the region. “From the very beginning we've worked hard too to build our international reputation,” she says, “By having that focus we've been able to accelerate BBFF's ability to shine a spotlight on our region as a creative and innovative hub. We give our filmmaking community, [which] has been home to Australia's largest regional film sector for decades, an opportunity to be part of an international stage and meet their peers from around the world.”

The festival has always been a showcase for both the long- and short-form documentary format. In 2019, an impressive schedule of factual films will include two World Premieres – Louis Josek’s study of teen lives in transition, Out Deh: The Youth of Jamaica; and, Catherine Marciniak’s Planet Fungi, an ode to the magic of mushrooms from North East India. The centerpiece documentary event will undoubtedly be INXS: Live Baby Live, a 4K ultra high-definition re-master of the iconic Australian band’s legendary 1991 concert at Wembley Stadium. 

These remarkable works will screen alongside the Australian debuts of Andreas Geipel and Christian Gibson’s coastal odyssey, Pacifico; Tenzin Phuntsog and Joy Dietrich’s study in passive protestation, Rituals of Resistance; David Hambridge’s heartbreaking Kifaru, a profile of the final years of the last male northern white rhino; and, Juan Pablo Miquirray’s An Island in The Continent (pictured, above), a dreamlike love-letter to California’s Baja Peninsula.

No sidebar speaks to the festival’s progressive nature more than the ‘Extended/Cross Realities’, or XR, Program, the Virtual Reality showcase now in its fifth year. Says Skippon-Volke, “Osvaldo and I have had a longstanding interest in Virtual Reality and we've built it into the heart of the festival through activation of content, workshops, conferences and in recent years a diversity focused talent accelerator. I believe strongly that the screen mediums of tomorrow will evolve from immersive media and that modern VR provides an amazing opportunity to play and experiment as visual storytellers.”

In 2019, donning the BBFF XR headset will transport you to The Amazon (Awavena, the latest grand vision from Australian Lynette Wallworth); offer a glimpse inside the creative mind of a children’s book author (Pete Short's Lucid); examine the majesty of religion’s birthplace (The Holy City, co-directed by Timur Musabay and Nimrod Shanit); and, courtesy of Weta Workshop, become a hero in a cool, retro-themed outer-space adventure (Greg Broadmore's Dr. Grordbort’s Invaders; pictured, right). “VR holds a power to literally allow someone to see through new perspectives and take them to new storytelling realms,” says Skippon-Volke. “We'll always be a film festival but this technology really does fuse artistry, entertainment and innovation.”

The 2019 BYRON BAY FILM FESTIVAL will run October 18-27. Full session and venue information is available at the event's official website.

NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND: FIVE TO BOOK FIRST FROM SUFF 2019

The Sydney Underground Film Festival enters its teenage phase; the 13^th annual festival of warped, wicked celluloid is set to unnerve and entertain from September 12-15. The tone is set from Session 1, with ageing enfant terrible Harmony Korinne’s raucous celebration of self-medication The Beach Bum, starring Matthew McConnaughey-hey-hey, set to open the festivities, complete with skank-scented smoke machines (yeah, that’s right). There is a myriad of alternative content on offer - 23 narrative features, 12 documentaries and 45 short films, as well as strands dedicated Virtual Reality, Nigerian cinema and splendidly splattery no-budget effects wizardry.

But if you need your mind quickly blown, just where should you focus your secret, sordid cravings for the offbeat and unusual? SCREEN-SPACE zeroed in on five features from the 2019 SUFF line-up that may satiate those urges, for a while at least…

BRAID (Dir. Mitzi Peirone | 82mins | USA)
Program Prose: A candy-coloured, hallucinogen-fueled lunacy binge, (debut director Mitzi perone) makes one hell of a first impression, applying
a dizzying sense of dream logic and an uncompromisingly feminist edge to a Gothic, almost fairy tale-like psychological horror.
Critical Condition: “What sort of mind would concoct something this peculiar and undeniably personal, and fill it with gaslighting, torment, torture, disfigurement, murder, slapstick, and scenes of adults playing dress-up like kids? I came away feeling that I'd seen, if not a major film, then a film by major talents.” – Matt Zoller Seitz, RogerEbert.com
Screen-Space thinking…: Buzz is this is a stylistic companion piece to Anna Biller’s The Love Witch, with narrative echoes of The Killing of Sister George and Daughters of Darkness. Tick, tick and tick…

Mope Trailer from LUCAS HEYNE on Vimeo.

MOPE (Dir. Lucas Heyne | 105mins | USA)
Program Prose: In the world of pornography,
the term ‘mope’ refers to a low-level, wannabe porn actor who perhaps isn’t quite well endowed or attractive enough to achieve the success granted to “bigger”-name porn stars…Heyne crawls right under the skin of this grimy landscape, crafting a melancholy portrait of two misguided souls seeking love and acceptance, just like the rest of us.
Critical Condition: “Mope is a ballsy movie.” – Kyle Brunet, Boston Hassle
Screen-Space thinking…: Full disclosure – pornography and the machinations that produces it hold an ugly allure; it is why I am drawn over and over to not only Boogie Nights, but also sad, sickly tales like Auto Focus, Lovelace, Inserts and Wonderland. Critics are citing the very human connection that Heyne draws from his characters, which is something new for this sub-genre…. 

GREENER GRASS (Dir. Jocelyn DeBoer & Dawn Luebbe | 95mins | USA)
Program Prose: Eschewing all decorum and boundaries, Greener Grass mercilessly shreds all the institutions western society holds dear… this deranged lovechild of John Waters and Tim & Eric grows more inappropriate, unhinged, and surreal by the frame.
Critical Condition: “It’s basically the best ‘Saturday Night Live’ movie that Saturday Night Live never made, and if Lorne Michaels were half the talent scout we believe, he’d hire both DeBoer and Luebbe on the spot.” – Peter Debruge, Variety
Screen-Space thinking…: Skewering the faux morality and middle-class nightmare that is American suburbia is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, but when the filmmakers go for broke and the satire is razor-sharp, film classics are born (Blue Velvet; American Beauty; The Graduate). Fingers-crossed…

THE WOLF HOUSE (Dir. Joaquín Cociña, Cristóbal León| 75mins | Chile)
Program Prose: Inspired by the infamous Colonia Dignidad, a German commune that doubled as a clandestine torture camp under Augusto Pinochet, The Wolf House distils the horrors of history into a hellish folktale… a dark, compelling, enigmatic puzzle box of a film that will continue to burrow deep into your subconscious long after the credits roll.
Critical Condition: “Sometimes reminiscent of an Eraserhead-style Lynchian nightmare turned into sculpture, paintings and stop-motion, beasts become human, a body forms out of a head like something out of science fiction, and inside every constrained girl is an eager bird desperate to fly free.” – Sarah Ward, Screen Daily
Screen-Space thinking…: The burning passion for ground-breaking animated storytelling that defines the brilliant career of Jan Svankmajer is a clear influence. Good enough for us…

USE ME (Dir. Julian Shaw | 91mins | Australia)
Program Prose: Australian filmmaker Julian Shaw (as himself) travels to the United States to direct a documentary featuring ‘mental humiliatrix’ Ceara Lynch (as herself)… what was meant to
 be entertainment becomes a matter of life and death.
Critical Condition: “A sort of post-truth thriller which feels deeply era appropriate and cleverly engages with its subject matter.” – Anthony O’Connor, FilmInk.
Screen-Space thinking…: Shaw has demonstrated with his past docos (Darling! The Pieter-Dirk Uys Story, 2007; Cup of Dreams, 2011) that he’s a deft hand at first-person factual filmmaking. He inserts himself into the narrative he constructs about his real-life subject, which is creatively fraught with risk, yet finds unexpected insight and honesty. He makes really interesting films…

The 2019 Sydney Underground Film Festival will be held at The Factory Theatre, Marrickville from September 12-15. Session and ticket information is at the event's official website.