PREVIEW: 2024 SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL

The 71st Sydney Film Festival program has launched with a blockbuster roster of talent and international titles - Yorgos Lanthimos’ Kinds of Kindness, starring Emma Stone, fresh from the Cannes Competition; the World Premiere of Aussie boxing drama Kid Snow; the first Indian film to appear in the Cannes Competition in 30 years, Payal Kapadia’s All We Imagine As Light; Lee Tamahori’s intense drama The Convert with Guy Pearce; The Bikeriders (pictured, below) starring Jodie Comer, Austin Butler and Tom Hardy; and, Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner Sujo.

In 2024, the Festival will present 197 films from 69 countries including 28 World Premieres and 133 Australian Premieres, bringing together hundreds of new international and local stories, with more to be announced. The program is made up of 92 narrative feature films, including prestigious international festival prize-winners and 54 documentaries tackling crucial contemporary issues, from established and upcoming documentarians.

Opening the festivities will be the World Premiere of Midnight Oil: The Hardest Line (pictured, right). Featuring unheard interviews with every band member, unseen live and studio footage, alongside signature moments like the outback tour with Warumpi Band, their Exxon protest gig in New York and those famous “Sorry” suits at the Sydney Olympics, this film traces the singular journey of Australia’s quintessential rock band across their 45-year career.

Direct from the 2024 Cannes Film Festival will be Grand Tour, the latest from Miguel Gomes, about a romantic pursuit across Asia; Christophe Honoré’s Marcello Mio, featuring an all-star French cast playing themselves in a meta comedy paying homage to the great Marcello Mastroianni; acclaimed actor Ariane Labed’s directorial debut September Says, a Gothic psychological drama in which the closeness of two sisters becomes increasingly disruptive; and Cannes Un Certain Regard contender Việt And Nam, which tells the love story of two gay mineworkers.

Internationally awarded films in competition include Berlin Film Festival Silver Bear honouree Dying, a multi-generational epic about a conductor and his turbulent family and Rich Peppiatt’s raucous and rude comedy Kneecap stars three real-life Belfast rappers, Audience Award winner in the Sundance NEXT strand.

Italian box office juggernaut There’s Still Tomorrow (trailer, above) is a melodrama directed and starring Paola Cortellesi about an industrious woman in post-WWII Rome. It screens in competition at SFF alongside Puan, an incisive comedy about a philosophy professor at a Buenos Aires university who is threatened by a charismatic rival.

Ten documentaries (including seven World Premieres) will contest the 2024 Documentary Australia Prize, amongst them Dale Frank – Nobody’s Sweetie, an intimate portrait of artist Dale Frank; Aquarius, documenting a 1973 gathering embraced by activists, hippies, and radicals that changed the town of Nimbin forever; The Blind Sea (pictured, right), following professional athlete Matt Formston as he takes on the challenge of surfing the biggest wave ever tackled by a blind surfer; and, Sally Aitken’s Sundance Selected Every Little Thing, a story of a woman finding herself as she cares for injured hummingbirds.

Special Presentations at the iconic State Theatre include Jodie Comer, Austin Butler and Tom Hardy in The Bikeriders, Jeff Nichols’ take on the rise and menacing transformation of an iconic American motorcycle club; Lee, featuring Oscar winner Kate Winslet alongside Alexander Skarsgård in the true story of model turned WWII correspondent Lee Miller; My Old Ass, a comedy-love story starring Aubrey Plaza and Maisy Stella, produced by Margot Robbie; and, Viggo Mortensen opposite Vicky Krieps in The Dead Don’t Hurt, a feminist western about a romance in a time of corruption and war.

Two presentations are set to leave audiences reeling with their visual inventiveness. Choi Dong-hoon's Alienoid (trailer, above) and its sequel Alienoid: Return to the Future are mind-bending sci-fi thrillers that masterfully intertwine the fates of alien prisoners trapped in human bodies with 15th-century magicians, brought to life by an all-star Korean cast. And Skywalkers: A Love Story follows two hardcore daredevils as they scale the world’s highest buildings to capture footage for social media and ignite passion in the process - which audiences can also experience at a stomach-dropping screening at IMAX.

Always a stand-out is the Freak Me Out Program, curated by Richard Kuipers, which returns with six features, six shorts and a special live event. These include Cuckoo (pictured, right), starring Hunter Schafer as a troubled teen working at a holiday resort where very strange goings-on start to take place; Annick Blanc’s debut, Hunting Daze (Jour de Chasse), a SXSW Midnighters hit centred on a woman stranded at a buck’s party in the Quebec wilderness; Yannis Veslemes’ She Loved Blossoms More, a Greek Weird Wave fever dream about time travel and family ties; and, Michael Duignan’s The Paragon, the story of a tennis coach who team up with a mysterious psychic tutor to seek revenge on a hit-and-run driver.

A special film and live music event not to be missed is Hear My Eyes: Hellraiser which will give audiences the opportunity to experience Clive Barker’s 1987 extra-dimensional horror classic, re-scored live by EBM explorers Hieroglyphic Being and Robin Fox, and a synched laser-art show at City Recital Hall.

Sydney Film Festival runs from 5-16 June 2024. Tickets and Flexipasses to Sydney Film Festival 2024 are on sale now. Please call 1300 733 733 or visit sff.org.au for more information or to book.

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)

PREVIEW: 2023 FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL AUSTRALIA

Daring, unconventional, cutting-edge cinema is returning to Melbourne and Sydney with the 2023 edition of the Fantastic Film Festival Australia (FFFA). Running from April 14-30, FFFA has a panoramic celebration of new and provocative films locked in place for the more courageous filmgoer.

With a line-up of 27 features, the Festival is offering its biggest program yet. From animated cowboys to queer magical realism, s**t-stained deathtraps to outback horrors, this year's program of often weird, occasionally wonderful screening options will unfold alongside Q&A panels, live performances, a scratch-and-sniff movie experience, music video blind dates, and the bold and bawdy ‘nude session’.

According to Festival Director, Hudson Sowada, "This year's program pushes the limits of storytelling and challenges conventional notions of reality. We're excited to showcase such an eclectic range of films, and we encourage audiences to take risks and embrace the strange."

Opening Night honours go to writer/director Nida Manzoor’s Polite Society, a distinctive genre mash-up that premiered earlier this year at Sundance Film Festival. The crowd pleasing film follows Ria Khan (Priya Kansara, in a star-making performance), a martial artist-in-training on a mission to save her sister Lena from an arranged marriage.

International features set for Australian Premieres include the biggest grossing film in Belgium last year, Zillion (pictured, above), chronicling the odyssey undertaken by a computer genius who creates the biggest discotheque in the world; Holy Shit!, a gross-out comedy and survival thriller set entirely in a Portaloo packed with explosives; and, the latest in the Evil Dead franchise, Evil Dead Rise, which will unfurl at a midnight showing.

Australian films in the 2023 line include The Survival of Kindness, an allegorical journey across a plague-ravaged wilderness by legendary filmmaker Rolf de Heer, who will be in attendance for a Q&A at the first Sydney screening; Sam Curtain’s Beaten to Death, a savage cat-and-mouse game set in remote Tasmania; Blur, a Giallo-style psycho-horror with supernatural mystery and ghastly practical effects from filmmaker Andrew Miles Broughton; and, Zac Cooper’s The End of History, which follows Australian techno producers Darcy and Pat's pursuit of creative greatness in changing and challenging Berlin.

Venturing beyond the traditional cinema experience is the world's first scratch and sniff session, called Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Stink-O-Vision. Audiences are taken on a olfactory journey through the sewers of New York City, accompanied by a menu of bespoke scents; simply scratch the corresponding number on the scent card when the icon flashes on screen. The other key retro screening on the roster is Audition, cult director Takashi Miike's 1999 classic starring the unforgettable frightening Eihi Shiina (pictured, right).

 And while details are remaining understandably vague, FFFA is rumoured to be screening a work, direct from its Toronto Film Festival premiere, that is so courted in controversy it can’t even be named in the program.  This secret presentation of what FFFA is calling ‘An Untitled and Perfectly-Legal Coming-Of-Age Parody Film’ will give audiences a rare chance to be among the few people in the world to watch this film. The director will be joining for a series of in-person Q&As.

Closing the Festival in showstopping style is the modern exploitation film LION-GIRL, a post-apocalyptic sci-fi film about the last defender of humanity against the ANOROC, a new species that emerged after a tsunami of meteors. Featuring character design by the legendary Manga artist Go Nagai, the film promises an outrageous and unhinged story, along with practical effects and gratuitous nudity.

FANTASTIC FILM FESTIVAL AUSTRALIA runs Friday, 14 April to Sunday 30 April 2023 at the Lido Cinemas, Hawthorn in Melbourne and the Ritz Cinemas, Randwick in Sydney.

Visit the event’s Official Website for session and ticketing details.

PREVIEW: 2023 INNER WEST FILM FESTIVAL

From March 31 to April 2, a selection of venues across Sydney’s vibrant inner suburbs will play host to an impressive roster of award-winning Australian and World premieres as part of the inaugural Inner West Film Festival. 

“Sydney’s Inner West is one of Australia’s most creatively and culturally vibrant communities, a home to artists, musicians, writers, actors and filmmakers, and host to some of Australia’s best live music venues, restaurants, bars and cinemas,” explained Dov Kornits, co-founder/director of the Harbour City’s newest film celebration. “The only thing the Inner West was missing was its very own film festival.”

Premium venues such as Palace Cinemas Leichhardt and Dendy Cinemas Newtown will host over 15 special events, spanning a diverse range of genres, documentaries and live Q&As. Supported by Inner West Council, Inner West Film Fest will launch with the Sydney premiere of director Jub Clerc’s Indigenous coming-of-age story Sweet As (pictured, right), direct from an international film festival run that has seen it earn honours in Melbourne, Berlin and Toronto. The screening will be a free community outdoor event held at Marrickville Golf Club on March 31.

The World Premiere of the dance drama The Red Shoes: Next Step, co-directed by Jesse Ahern and beloved local actress Joanne Samuel, is a major programming coup for the new festival team, with the Juliet Doherty-starrer headed for general release Down Under from April 6. Other high-profile premieres include the first Australian showings for Camille Hardman’s and Gary Lane’s US doco Still Working 9 to 5, an entertaining look at the impact of the classic film comedy; Jason Wayne Trost’s CGI superhero fantasy/satire, FP 4EVZ; and, Georgian director Ioseb 'Soso' Bliadze’s acclaimed drama, A Room of My Own.

Along with such potent local indie cinema as Molly Haddon’s sibling saga The Longest Weekend, Susie Dee and Trudy Hellier’s all-girl nighttime odyssey SHIT and John Hughes and Tom Zubrycki’s underground cinema deep-dive Senses of Cinema, come fresh works from such diverse international film cultures as Ireland, Finland and Belgium (co-production entities on Klaus Härö’s My Sailor, My Love); The United Kingdom (Chris Foggins’ crowdpleaser Bank of Dave, with Hugh Bonneville); Switzerland, Ukraine and France (partners on Elie Grappe’s sports drama, Olga); and, Italy and Germany (bad-boy auteur Abel Ferrara’s religious biopic Padre Pio, starring Shia LeBeouf; pictured, below).

Other highlights include two retro screenings - Alan White’s 1999 drama Erskineville Kings (pictured, top), one of the few features shot in the inner-city and featuring early roles for Hugh Jackman and Joel Edgerton, which will screen from a 35mm print; and, a 4K restored version of Sergio Leone’s epic 1968 western classic, Once Upon a Time in The West, starring Henry Fonda.  

Fellow fest founder and co-director Greg Dolgopolov says, “We want to bring the community in the Inner West together for an exciting celebration of film. We want to [acknowledge] not just the cultural richness of the Inner West, but the medium of film itself, and its ability to bring people together. We are so excited to kick off what will hopefully become an essential date on Sydney’s cultural calendar every year and will make one of Australia’s most vibrant artistic and cultural hubs even more exciting.”

Full program and session details can be found at the 2023 INNER WEST FILM FESTIVAL official website.

TEN ‘FIRST GLANCE MUST-SEE’ FILMS FROM THE SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL PROGRAM LAUNCH

With 307 films from 55 countries rostered to unfold from June 5, it would be madness to try to tackle all of the Sydney Film Festival’s program the day it goes go public. Even Festival Director Nashen Moodley, presenting his 8^th program this morning at Sydney’s Town Hall, could only snapshot the mammoth line-up. “This year’s program holds a mirror to titanic shifts culturally and politically,” he said, highlighting qualities certainly on offer amongst the ten films that stuck in our minds after our first glance at the 2019 program. That, and so much more… 

PALM BEACH (pictured, above; l-r, Bryan Brown, Jacqueline McKenzie and Richard E. Grant)
OPENING NIGHT; WED 5 JUN 7.30 PM
Director: Rachel Ward | Screenwriters: Joanna Murray-Smith, Rachel Ward | Cast: Sam Neill, Bryan Brown, Greta Scacchi.
FROM THE PROGRAM: “In Rachel Ward’s funny, uplifting drama/comedy a group of lifelong friends reunite
for a party at Sydney’s Palm Beach; but tension mounts when deep secrets emerge.
With a fantastic cast including Bryan Brown, Sam Neill, Richard E. Grant, Greta Scacchi, Jacqueline McKenzie and Heather Mitchell, Palm Beach is an exuberant and life-affirming celebration of friendship. “
SEE THIS BECAUSE…: You loved The Big Chill.

SLAM
SAT 15 JUN 2.05PM | SUN 16 JUN 4.00 PM | SUN 16 JUN 7.15 PM
Australia, France | 2018 | 115 mins | In English and Arabic with English subtitles | Australian Premiere | Director, Screenwriter: Partho Sen-Gupta | Cast: Adam Bakri, Rachael Blake, Rebecca Breeds
FROM THE PROGRAM: “A young Muslim activist and slam poet goes missing in this tense Sydney-set mystery with a sharp perspective on Islamophobia by Partho Sen-Gupta (Sunrise, SFF 2015).”
SEE THIS BECAUSE…: Partho Sen-Gupta is one of the great unheralded talents of Australian cinema. His incendiary study of intolerance and bigotry will be one of THE hot-button films of 2019.

MONOS
MON 10 JUN 6.20PM | TUE 11 JUN 4.00PM | SAT 15 JUN 6.45PM
Colombia, Argentina, The Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Uruguay | 2019 | 102 mins | In English and Spanish with English subtitles | Australian Premiere |
Director: Alejandro Landes | Screenwriters: Alejandro Landes, Alexis Dos Santos | Cast: Julianne Nicholson, Moises Arias, Julian Giraldo.
FROM THE PROGRAM: “Alejandro Landes’ incendiary allegory follows child soldiers holding a female doctor hostage in a remote jungle location. A film of lush visuals and raw emotion, Monos adopts the personality of a twisted fairy-tale (commenting) on the dehumanising effect of war and the seemingly endless cycles of violence in many South American nations.”
SEE THIS BECAUSE…: Stunning locations in the service of a film that captures the horrors of close-quarters jungle warfare and psychological torment. Best trailer of the fest, too.

DIVINE LOVE
WED 5 JUN 8.30 PM | THU 13 JUN 6.00 PM  
Brazil, Uruguay, Denmark, Norway, Chile, Sweden 2018 | 100 mins | In Portuguese with English subtitles | Australian Premiere |
Director: Gabriel Mascaro | Screenwriters: Gabriel Mascaro, Rachel Ellis, Esdras Bezerra, Lucas Paraízo | Cast: Dira Paes, Julio Machado, Emílio De Melo
FROM THE PROGRAM: “Religion in Brazil in 2027 is a little strange.
Raves, drive-through churches and group sex sessions are all part and parcel of the evangelical Christian group Divino Amor.
 An unsettling, futuristic look at faith and sexuality, Divine Love is wildly imaginative, visually spectacular and entrancing, with a sharp political edge.
SEE THIS BECAUSE…: Our favourite film of SFF 2018 was Gaspar Noe’s Climax; this looks cut from the same cloth.

HER SMELL
FRI 7 JUN 8.30PM | SUN 9 JUN 6.45PM |
WED 12 JUN 8.05 PM  
USA | 2018 | 135 mins | In English | Australian Premiere | Director, Screenwriter: Alex Ross Perry | Cast: Elisabeth Moss, Dan Stevens, Cara Delevingne
FROM THE PROGRAM: “Channelling the infamous Courtney Love in her role as Becky Something, Moss is a rock star whose band has reached its use-by date. A self- destructive narcissist, Becky’s coke-fuelled tirades alienate her bandmates, partner and manager as she hurtles towards impending doom.”
SEE THIS BECAUSE…: Elizabeth Moss is on an Oscar-bound career trajectory. She’s America’s most versatile and fearless young actress.

ANTHROPOCENE: THE HUMAN EPOCH
WED 5 JUN 6.45 PM | TUE 11 JUN 6.45 PM
Canada | 2018 | 87 mins | In English, Russian, Italian, German, Mandarin, and Cantonese with English subtitles | Australian Premiere
 | Directors: Jennifer Baichwal, Nicholas de Pencier, Edward Burtynsky | Screenwriter: Jennifer Baichwal | Narrator: Alicia Vikander
FROM THE PROGRAM: The striking images demonstrate how humans are shaping our planet at an ever-increasing rate; hence the title, for this is the age in which human activity is the dominant influence on the environment. De Pencier’s epic cinematography and Alicia Vikander’s narration capture the immense power and terrible beauty of our endeavours.
SEE THIS BECAUSE…: We are the virus.

AMAZING GRACE
SUN 9 JUN 4.45 PM | MON 10 JUN 4.15 PM
USA | 2019 | 87 mins | In English | Australian Premiere | Realised and Produced by Alan Elliott
FROM THE PROGRAM: “Over two days at L.A.’s New Temple Missionary Baptist Church, accompanied by
the Southern Californian Community Choir, Aretha Franklin sang from the heart and her astounding performance was captured by filmmaker Sydney Pollack. The resulting recording, Amazing Grace, became her most successful album, but the film of her performance – for multiple reasons – was never released...until now.”
SEE THIS BECAUSE…: There has never been, and will never be, a singer like 29 year-old Aretha Franklin.

DARK PLACE
SAT 15 JUN 8.45 PM | SUN 16 JUN 6.30 PM  
Australia | 2019 | 75 mins | In English | World Premiere
Directors and Screenwriters: Björn Stewart, Perun Bonser, Kodie Bedford, Liam Phillips, Rob Braslin | Cast: Clarence Ryan, Charlie Garber, Leonie Whyman
FROM THE PROGRAM: “Australian genre cinema takes an exciting leap forward with Dark Place, a quintet of tales
that approach post-colonial Indigenous history through the lenses of horror and fantasy.”
SEE THIS BECAUSE…: The horrors endured by Australia’s indigenous population since European settlement seem entirely appropriate inspiration for a (long overdue, frankly) genre film deconstruction.

SHORT FILMS BY AGNÈS VARDA
Screening with the feature presentations as part of the sidebar VIVA VARDA.
FROM THE PROGRAM: “Across six decades Agnès Varda made over twenty short films. The titles represented in this season are perfect capsules of the times in which she lived and showcase the vast creativity that she brought to films – large and small.”
BLACK PANTHERS | FRANCE | 1968 | 30 MINS | Varda's observational doco captures the essence and impetus behind the Black Panther movement.
RÉPONSE DE FEMMES | FRANCE | 1975 | 8 MINS | Varda assembled a group and asked, “what it means to be a woman”. This is their reply.
SALUT LES CUBAINS | FRANCE | 1963 | 30 MINS | Agnès Varda travelled to Cuba to photograph life under Fidel Castro: a celebration of culture, rhythm and the women of the revolution.
UNCLE YANCO | FRANCE | 1967 | 19 MINS | Agnès Varda’s encounter with a long-lost relative brims with joy and playfulness.
SEE THIS BECAUSE…: It is a rare opportunity to see some of the finest film works from the most influential period in the history of the artform.

DEPRAVED
WED 5 JUN 8.15PM | MON 10 JUN 8.15PM
USA | 2019 | 114 mins | In English | Australian Premiere | Director, Screenwriter: Larry Fessenden | Cast: David Call, Joshua Leonard, Alex Breaux
FROM THE PROGRAM: “Mary Shelley’s classic has inspired countless
films since 1910. It’s to the enormous credit of indie horror king Larry Fessenden that Depraved feels so fresh. A scary, tense and darkly comic tale laced with hallucinatory imagery and driven by powerful emotion.”
SEE THIS BECAUSE…: Frankenstein + Fessenden (Fessenstein…?) is too good a concept to resist.