ME & MY LEFT BRAIN: THE ALEX LYKOS INTERVIEW

Alex Lykos burst on the Australian film scene with his debut script, the 2015 adaptation of his play Alex & Eve. Directed by Peter Andrikidis, the film proved a sleeper hit, but was a frustratingly slow process for the young writer. For his follow-up project, Lykos wanted greater control, and the result is the rom-com/fantasy Me & My Left Brain, a crowdpleaser on which Alex Lykos has taken multi-hyphenate duties as writer, director and star. “I went into this blind,” he jokes, “and I got very lucky.”

Lykos reflected upon the experience of shooting Me & My Left Brain in a lengthy chat with SCREEN-SPACE, in which he addressed the value of a cast featuring Malcolm Kennard and Rachael Beck, the insight that one’s personal journey brings to a script and the stark realities of seeing your first film to completion…  

SCREEN-SPACE: There’s the spirit of early Woody Allen in Me & My Left Brain, with homage paid to Play It Again Sam and Annie Hall, for starters. Who are the filmmakers and films that have informed your writing and performing?

LYKOS: Definitely, Woody Allen has been a significant influence on me. Billy Wilder is another, especially The Apartment, and of course Some Like It Hot. Nora Ephron, I love her writing. Cameron Crowe is another; love Say Anything and of course Jerry Maguire. Recently, Alexander Payne, has been a significant influence. 

SCREEN-SPACE: You and co-star Malcolm Kennard share some long-takes together, working up a great chemistry in those moments. What are his strengths as a scene partner?

LYKOS: When first considering Mal, we set up a half-hour cafe meeting; three hours later we were still talking (laughs). Neither of us came up for air. It was pretty clear a connection was made immediately. We saved so much time trying to build ‘chemistry’ as it just happened. Mal’s process was all about staying as relaxed and as loose as possible. He taught me a lot as an actor, especially when it comes to shooting the close-up. Mal is not about playing it safe. He’s a risk-taker and found some lovely moments that were not in the script. Initially, I had some trepidation towards directing, but Mal encouraged me to do so. To have someone of his standing backing me was reassuring. We’re like brothers; we can argue and make up and argue and make up within a minute. We are like Snapchat (laughs); any arguing is immediately erased, there is no lingering residue. (Pictured, right; Lykos and Kennard on-set) 

SCREEN-SPACE: There is a real sense of friendship and natural sweetness between you and your leading lady, Rachael Beck…

LYKOS: Rachael attended one of my stage shows years ago, and we spoke briefly. Her energy and general disposition suited what I had in mind for the role of ‘Vivien’. And from when she came on board, she was just open to everything. It was she who noted the importance of building a bond, encouraging us to catch up, run some lines. Anyone who has worked with her will tell you, she is just delightful to work with. So much so that I have actually written the lead role for her in my next film. She has so many special qualities on screen. (Pictured, below; Rachael Beck and Lykos between takes during the shoot)

SCREEN-SPACE: I sensed a degree of catharsis was being worked through in your scrip. Is ‘Arthur’ and his experiences drawing upon certain specifics of your life?

LYKOS: Absolutely. A lot of us have felt the pressure of Sydney’s real estate market, kicking ourselves for not having bought 10-15 years ago, (leading to) second-guessing a career choice of a life in the arts. You see friends in the corporate world, getting promotions or a pay rise, that ‘uniform climb’ up the ladder. The life that artists choose doesn’t offer that. So there have been many dark moments, at least for me. For one scene, I was on 2 hours sleep a night, enormously stressed. We did this dramatic scene that, in many ways, mirrored my real life situation, and I broke into tears. With each take, I got more emotional and was bawling my eyes out. The take we ultimately used was the 6th one, after I had spent all my tears. On the day it looked like good acting, but in the edit it was too much. 

SCREEN-SPACE: Tell me about the work ethic needed on a shoot like this. It was low-budget but looks polished; there was location work, which comes with its own variables.

LYKOS: It was definitely a grind. We shot in 13 days so I needed to do a lot of pre-production preparation, especially on the locations. I got a couple of actor friends, went to the shooting locations and walked through the scene, literally pre-blocking it. So on the day, with the real actors, I knew exactly how the scene would play out. I think this is where my background in theatre helped. (Pictured, right; co-stars Kennard, left, and Chantelle Barry on location with Lykos)

SCREEN-SPACE: What professional lessons did you learn from the experience of building this film from the ground up?

LYKOS: Oh my gosh, heaps. Having a good crew is paramount. And it really is all about the script. Shooting is a whirlwind, so there is no time to rewrite. I had no idea what post-production entailed. Once we finished shooting, I was introduced to Miriana Marusic (Director of Photography on The Castle) and she edited the film. We built a great energy in the editing suite and I came to rely on her opinion on everything. Without her, the film doesn't get finished. Miriani and I would travel to the Newcastle studio of our sound designer, Anthony Marsh and we would have the best time working on the sound. And I was fortunate enough to have composer Cezary Skubiszewski (Red Dog; The Sapphires) give the film a real professional polish. Flying down to Melbourne to watch the live recording of the music was a real buzz. Cezary treated me like I was family. I went from shooting a film with no idea what post-production was, to having three of the best work alongside me to get it finished. 

SCREEN-SPACE: Are the traditional elements of the romantic comedy being challenged by the shifting nature of gender definition in society? In writing Me & My Left Brain were you conscience of representing male and female roles in the most contemporary way possible?

LYKOS: Absolutely. The landscape has changed and we as writers need to be sensitive to this new landscape. We actually shot the film October in 2017 and in the 2nd week, the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke. I have always tried to write honestly, and when writing this film, I wasn't thinking so much about the representation of men and women. Alex & Eve has played such a big part of my creative life with three incarnations on the stage and the film, and it relied on broad 'ethnic comedy' and ethnic stereotypes. With this film, I wanted to tell a comedy which did not rely on these broad stereotypes. I did not want to cast according to ethnicity, (but) simply based on who had the right disposition for the role irrespective of their cultural background. (Pictured, above; Lykos with co-star Laura Dundovic)

ME & MY LEFT BRAIN will be in select Australian theatres from May 16; venue information and ticket sales are available via the official website.

STAR WARS IDENTITIES: THE LAELA FRENCH INTERVIEW

One of the defining thematic elements of the Star Wars films is ‘identity’. Our hero, Luke Skywalker, seeks the truth about his heritage; before him, his father Annakin is torn between destinies forged by the duality of The Force. Origins, influences and choices are central to their heroic journeys, just as they are to us all. STAR WARS Identities is a new exhibit that asks visitors to create their own Star Wars characters based upon key developmental stages – our genetic make-up, cultural influences, parental guidance, and adult belief system. Laela French, Director of Archives at the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art and one of America’s pre-eminent art historians, oversaw the exhibition from concept to creation and has brought over 200 original Lucasfilm artefacts to Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum for the Australian season of Identities.

“It is an exhibit that communicates the story of us, of who we are,” she said at the launch of the event last Thursday at the iconic Powerhouse building. “It helps us explore the universal factors that helped shape not only the Star Wars characters, but also that shapes us.” Ms French sat with SCREEN-SPACE to discuss her latest project… 

SCREEN-SPACE: How did the concept for STAR WARS Identities take shape?

FRENCH: We’re always looking ahead, wondering what it is that we can do that’s new. When someone pitched the ‘science of identity’ within the Star Wars universe, the response was immediate. Annakin and Luke’s story arcs were a great through-thread, then putting the visitors into the experience and having them create their own identity took shape.

SCREEN-SPACE: There is a fascinating ‘meta’ element about the Star Wars universe peeking inside the minds of its fans…  

FRENCH: And every fan wants to step into Star Wars, that’s really the essence of their fan fascination. That’s why we have legions like the 501^st and the fan clubs and that’s always been the focus of our exhibits. But the exhibits also have to be educational; that’s of paramount importance. Above all else, we have to ensure they are rooted in science, whatever we are working on. So we had a huge scientific committee, working from the perspective of psychology or biometrics, utilising every iteration of the human experience that we could think of. 

SCREEN-SPACE: Identities seems to particularly reflect the living, breathing ‘human quality’ of the Star Wars story… 

FRENCH: When you pick your ‘identity quest’ you get to pick your alien species. But there are no robots there, which caused a huge debate, with some arguing, “Oh, but the kids will want to be R2,” while others rightly argued, “But it’s an artificial intelligence, and this exhibit is about organic evolution versus exactly that.” So, it was decided that, well, the kids will be disappointed but there’ll get it. The aim was to help them learn about science by putting them in the driver’s seat of the ‘identities experiment’. 

SCREEN-SPACE: Put on your ‘art historian’ hat for a moment. When do ‘pre-production drawings’ and ‘conceptual paintings’ servicing a film cross the line into ‘contemporary American art’?

FRENCH: That line was crossed the minute the stuff was made. Back in 1975, when George had this idea to create a ‘space western mythology’, he was making art. Anytime a filmmaker sets out to make something, they are creating art. My argument is that this has always been artwork, and we are just letting everyone else catch up to that way of thinking. I’ve been touring these exhibits for many years and in the early days, we were getting slammed by the art curators. Every new museum boss would scream, “This doesn’t belong in a museum, it’s not art.” In the ‘Identities’ exhibit alone, there are 200 artefacts, half of which are sketches and paintings. How can anyone not call that artwork? Just showing people the degree of artistry that goes into every film, and preserving that work just like any museum would preserve a Da Vinci or a Rodan sculpture, is one of our main aims (pictured, above; Laela French, in the Lucasfilm Archive). 

SCREEN-SPACE: How has Star Wars defied the effects of time? Why don’t those 40 year old films seem overly kitschy or quaint?

FRENCH: The answer lies in George’s original vision. Like all true visionaries, he wove a few magic moments together. The timing was amazing; in the mid-70s, there was a kind of emptiness in films, a void where a strong imaginative vision should have been. No one was doing what George envisioned. The epic visual effects, which have been talked about to death, were off the charts. He refused to settle for what was good enough at the time, instead pushing his entire special effects team to ‘create’. The hidden ingredient that’s harder to see is that the design aesthetic – all the costuming, the planets, the vehicles, everything within his field of vision – was pulled from cultures across the globe. Even the smallest element has some tie to some culture from some point in time. That means they take on a familiarity, before you’ve even seen the film, and ultimately reflect that timeless quality you refer to. Of course, the story itself is the classic ‘hero’s journey’ and brings together all those associated archetypes, so its rooted in a traditional literary formula that stays viable and meaningful forever.

SCREEN-SPACE: How would define the term ‘narrative art’ as it pertains to the Star Wars universe?

FRENCH: Narrative art is simply visual storytelling. Lasco cave paintings? Narrative art. The Last Supper? Narrative art. As technology evolves, so does the type of narrative art that we share with each other. In George’s mind, film is narrative art, taken to an epic level by advances in technology. So that’s how this exhibits fits beautifully into the Lucasfilm definition of narrative art. It is why George has created a narrative art museum; he believes the museum world is stuck in a kind of 19^th century mindset and, being the kind of visionary able to see a reality much further down our time line, he wants pop culture to be treated as great art, narrative art, that resonates and that humans will respond to for years to come. It’s what defines ‘pop culture’; not everyone responds to a contemporary painting, but millions of people respond to film.

STAR WARS Identities runs at Sydney's Powerhouse Museum from November 16. Ticketing and all venue details can be found at the official website. 

PROSPECT, REFLECTIONS IN THE DUST EARN TOP SCIFI FILM FEST HONOURS.

The SciFi Film Festival has named Prospect the 2018 Best Film winner at an informal ceremony on the Closing Night of the 4-day event in Sydney. Set for a November 2 launch in the U.S. but still awaiting a distribution deal in Australia, Christopher Caldwell’s and Zeek Earl’s retro-futuristic thriller/coming-of-age drama also earned the Best Actress trophy for star Sophie Thatcher, the teenage actress headlining her first feature.

Jury member Jonathan Ogilvie, who adjudicated alongside fellow filmmakers Julietta Boscolo and Brian Trenchard-Smith on the three-person festival jury, praised Prospect for the homage it paid to the great westerns of Hollywood’s heyday. “[It is] a tense and involving space film that mines the same vein of greed and betrayal that the earthbound The Treasure of Sierra Madre did so many years ago,” he noted, adding, “Sophie Thatcher is terrific in the lead role.” (Pictured, below; Sophie Thatcher in Prospect)

The Best Actor honour was awarded to Australian character actor Robin Queree for his frightening and fierce performance as ‘The Clown’ in Luke Sullivan’s divisive dystopian drama, Reflections in the Dust, opposite Best Actress nominee Sarah Houbolt. “Wow, this is heavy,” said the actor, referring to the weighty crystal trophy but also clearly surprised and moved by the honour. Addressing his young director, 23 year-old Luke Sullivan, Queree declared, “This all belongs to us. Me, you, Sarah, the cast, everybody was fantastic.”   

Hector Valdez’ blackly-funny time-travel romp Peaches led the Best Music/Sound category, with composer Fran Villalba and sound designer David Mantecón set to share the award. The Best Visual Effects honour, one of the most prized categories at an event celebrating the fantastical, went to U.K. filmmaker Daniel Prince for his short Invaders, a delightfully mischievous spin on ‘alien invasion’ mythology that wore its Spielberg-ian influences proudly on its sleeve. (Pictured, below; Robin Queree, in Reflections in the Dust) 

Tasked with choosing two standouts from the vast short film line-up at the festival, jury members singled out Lebanese filmmaker Fadi Baki Fdz’s steampunk-influenced automaton fable Manivelle: The Last Days of The Man of Tomorrow for the Best International Short. Young Victorian filmmakers Shane Gardam and Xavier Brydges took Best Australian Short for Westall, a recounting of this country’s most well documented yet eternally mysterious UFO encounters. 

In the wake of a particularly strong field of performances by actresses across the 2018 screening schedule, program director Simon Foster created a special Festival Director’s Award for French actress Zoe Garcia for her lead role in Charlotte Cayeux’s short Those Who Can Die. “There were several great acting turns by women in this year’s films, contributions that reflect a strength that has always been central to the best that this genre has to offer,” he said, citing Sarah Houbolt (Reflections in the Dust), Maria Guinea (Peaches) and Kestrel Leah (the short Andromeda) as some of the festival’s other highlights. “Ms Garcia’s performance was one of forceful yet dignified resistance in the face of oppression, which is both timely and timeless,” he said.

The 5^th annual celebration of local and international speculative film fiction entertained an enthusiastic and committed audience sector, despite squally Harbour City thunderstorms that kept the inner-city hordes huddled indoors at key moments on the schedule. The Closing Night feature, a retro-themed screening of 1989’s Miracle Mile, was introduced by director Steve de Jarnatt in a spot pre-recorded especially for the event at the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles, one of the key locations from the film. (Pictured, above; Zoe Garcia from Those Who Can Die)

★: THE JOHANN LURF INTERVIEW

Johann Lurf stands alongside such auteurs as Guy Maddin, György Pálfi and Christian Marclay as one the world’s great cinematic ‘constructuralists’; filmmakers that build monumental montage movies, reconfiguring frames from hours of other artist’s footage into new and beautiful film visions. His latest is ★, a breathtaking collage of night skies, galaxies and deep-space starfields sourced from over 550 films, dating from the silent film era until mid-2018. “Your audience is getting 115 years of cinematic history in 95 minutes, which should not seem daunting at all,” jokes the Viennese filmmaker, who spoke to SCREEN-SPACE from Munich ahead of his film’s Australian Premiere at the Opening Night of Sydney’s SciFi Film Festival…

SCREEN-SPACE: How do you define the artistry of the great cinema montage? It is a good period for the constructuralist movement, with films like Guy Maddin’s The Green Fog (2017) and György Pálfi’s Final Cut: Ladies and Gentlemen (2012) finding festival exposure and critical acclaim. Where does the power lie in a good montage film?

Lurf: It lies in its complexity. There are many different aspects that you can highlight with a simple idea, with the concept of pieces or segments of films pieced together. In the case of The ★ Film, it is an easy to explain concept, but then it opens up and there are many aspects that you have to compare. There are the visual layers, then the fantasy and the romanticism of the single clips, but then the audio provides more historical contextualization. You can also begin to see how the stars were being used by the mechanics of cinema and what they are representing. The great montage film makes us focus not only on a specific  element or theme, but also helps us understand a ‘meta-layer’, something that we as a society or as humans have in common.  Like Christian Marclay’s The Clock (2010), which is clearly not just about a clock but is about us, the human race.

SCREEN-SPACE: ★ has no narrative structure and no traditional human connection on-screen, yet it is an engaging, often very emotional film-watching experience. What is your theory of why it has connected with audiences so universally?

Lurf: When you see an image or hear a sound, it takes you only a split-second to interpret it. When we are immersed and engaged by a film, we do that for every second of the experience. We understand which emotion the character is experiencing, regardless of whether they are a man or woman or kid or Japanese or whatever, when they experiencing something sad or profound or adoring, we share that. Our senses are so acutely trained to read images, sound, language, it is impossible to escape being influenced. The machine of cinema we are sitting in is perfectly designed to affect our senses, so the basis for an emotional connection is already there. And then you have the range of images in the film, the language and the music, which build upon that.

SCREEN-SPACE: The vastness of space and the confines of a cinema are both essentially deep, dark voids illuminated by millions of points of light. Your film bridges those voids, it’s fair to say…

Lurf: I’ve never heard it described in such a great way as you’ve described it just now (laughs). I definitely see them as very much connected. The predecessor of cinema is the night sky itself; for the many thousands of years that humans have been looking at the night sky, they have been looking at a very similar image as modern audiences do with cinema. It is a three-dimensional space represented in a two-dimensional way, like how a picture is recorded by a camera. The night sky is moving, but you can’t see it moving, so you have this contradiction, whereas cinema is the other way around – frames, moments captured in time, that are still images but that appear to be moving. But we can look at both and contemplate what we see and what they mean to us. Another similarity is that you look into many different pasts when you look into the night sky – some of the stars are already dead, others are still shining. Staring at the stars is like entering a warped sense of time, pasts that we are able observe, and cinema can do that as well.

SCREEN-SPACE: You set yourself and adhere to very strict artistic guidelines in ★…

Lurf: The work I’ve done before – my shorts, the found-footage or researched-footage films – I utilize the ‘hard cut’ because it is an intervention that is clearly the artist’s choice, or my choice. At the same time, it doesn’t modify the source the material, meaning I don’t have to remove something from the image or slow down the footage or anything like that. I merely accentuate through editing, which for me is the most respectful way to use other artist’s work. It is a hard intrusion into the original work, but it can only be read as my act of selecting and cutting. The material should speak by itself, without me being too didactic or offering too much commentary, because I always love to have my audience interpret, or misinterpret, what they see. Misinterpretation is an impressive creative moment, because it means you have to ask yourself, ‘What am I not understanding here?’ It forces you to re-engage, to get closer to the work. I think those moments are the most inspiring that you can have in a cinema.

SCREEN-SPACE: You have cited the starscape in Roberto Rossellini’s Stromboli as the starting point for your fascination with the cinematic night sky. Is their a starfield in your film that you recall as being the most beautiful, perhaps your favourite?

Lurf: Actually, I try not to think in terms of what is ‘the best’ or apply some kind of superlative. In fact, I love more than 90% of the starry nights in the film and I don’t want to compare them to each other; they are so different to one another, it is impossible to judge whether any one is better or worse. Some have fantastic audio, or one looks great, or one might create a floating sensation.

SCREEN-SPACE: Are you dodging the question because your favourite is, in fact, 'Dude Where’s My Car?'

Lurf: (Laughs) No, I’m dodging the question for conceptual reasons. To pick one or two or a Top Ten out of the film would be to assign other clips a lesser quality, which I can’t do.

SCREEN-SPACE: Did you foresee the film travelling as extensively as it has?

Lurf: I had no idea how people would react to this film, so that they are reacting at all and with such enthusiasm is very pleasing. I’m so sorry I couldn’t be in Sydney for the screening; I’ve just come from Ireland, and today I’m in Munich, and next week I’m in Norway and then I’ve two screenings in Spain, then back to Italy. It has been quite crazy what is happening with the film and it makes it me very happy.

Johann Lurf's ★ opens the SciFi Film Festival on Thursday October 18 at Event Cinemas George Street. Ticket and sessions details here.

Johann Lurf ★ Trailer from Johann Lurf on Vimeo.

PREVIEW: 2018 SYDNEY UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL

The latest from New Zealand’s ‘New Wave of Comedy’, a German film student’s thesis being hailed as one of the most exciting debuts in years and a triptych of punkish retro classics are just some of the avenues that adventurous patrons can wander down at this year’s Sydney Underground Film Festival (SUFF). The 12^th annual celebration of cinema that shocks, confounds and seduces kicks into gear September 13 at its spiritual home, the iconic Factory Theatre in Sydney’s inner-west.

The 4-day soiree leads with the Australian premiere of Mega Time Squad, a crowd-pleasing, off-kilter romp from across The Ditch. Having won hearts at the genre confab Fantasia (rogerebert.com called it a, “sci-fi mini-odyssey with lots of creativity and even more laugh-out-loud gags”), writer/director Tim van Dammen’s time-loop comedy features Anton Tenet as a wannabe gangster who stumbles upon mystical jewellery that allows for time-space shenanigans. Co-star Jonny Brugh, who stole all his scenes in What We Do in The Shadows, will attend Opening Night ahead of hosting the Screen Acting & Improv Workshop on Saturday, September 15.

The feature film roster runs to 27 idiosyncratic visions, including 11 Australian premieres. Most notable amongst the 2018 line-up is Tilman Singer’s Luz (pictured, top), a film-studies thesis project shot on 16mm that Variety lauded as, “equal measures demonic-possession thriller, experiment in formalist rigor, and flummoxing narrative puzzle-box.” Other sessions certain to rattle adventurous Sydney patrons include Reinert Kill’s Norwegian yuletide slasher epic Christmas Blood; director Ethan Hawke’s Blaze (pictured, right), a deconstructionist musical-biopic of redneck country music star Blaze Foley, starring Benjamin Dickey in the title role alongside Alia Shawkat and Sam Rockwell; Wang Jinsong’s How Far Tomorrow, one of the first Chinese films to address drug addiction and in doing so, defy the strict censorship laws governing the nation’s filmmakers; and, Lucio A. Rojas’ appropriately-titled Chilean home-invasion horror ordeal, Trauma (read our full review here).

Underground icons represented this year include Canadian badboy Bruce La Bruce with The Misandrists, a lesbian-anarchy patriarchal takedown that deconstructs feminist ideals; Sion Sono, whose buckets-of-blood mini-series opus Tokyo Vampire Hotel has been re-edited into a still-epic 144 minute theatrical cut; and Winnipeg’s favourite son Guy Maddin who, with collaborators, Evan Johnson and Galen Johnson, presents his latest montage masterwork, the Vertigo-inspired The Green Fog.

SUFF will also recognize one of the lesser-known DIY giants of alternative art in the form of Stephen Groo, a micro-budget auteur whose output of over 180 films of next-to-no quality has earned him cult(ish) status and fans such as Napoleon Dynamite filmmaker Jared Hess, screenwriter Mike White and Jemaine Clements. Scott Christopherson’s profile-doc The Magic of Groo will screen ahead of the World Premiere of Groo’s latest effort, a remake of his own 2003 film The Unexpected Race, which this time around has ensnared Jack Black in a lead role (pictured, right).

The always-popular retrospective sessions include a 30^th anniversary screening of William Lustig’s cult ‘video nasty’ Maniac Cop, set to screen after the Sydney premiere of the documentary King Cohen, a profile of the legendary Larry Cohen, the film’s writer (read our review of King Cohen here); a restored print of Slava Tsukerman’s 1982 post-punk/alien invasion oddity, Liquid Sky; and, with director Alex Proyas in attendance to front a post-screening Q&A, the 1989 dystopian desert-world freak-out Spirits of The Air, Gremlins of The Clouds. Also enjoying a resurrection of sorts will be Charles Band’s VHS-fuelled Puppet Master franchise, with the latest installment Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich (written by Bone Tomahawk’s Craig Zahler) having its Australian Premiere at The Factory.

The 2018 factual film program once again honours a diverse range of free-thinkers, from vanguard artists (Oren Jacoby’s Shadowman, a profile of NYC street-artist Richard Hambleton; Philipp Jedicke’s study of enigmatic muso Chilly Gonzalez, Shut Up and Play the Piano; Chuck Smith’s Barbara Rubin & The Exploding New York Underground) to left-field theorists (Daniel J. Clarke’s insight into the Flat Earther’s movement, Behind the Curve; Werner Boote’s environmental industry expose, The Green Lie). Of the 13 feature-length docs programmed, six films bow on these shores for the first time, including Josh Polon’s MexMan and Jerry Tartaglia’s Escape From Rented Island: The Lost Paradise of Jack Smith.

The traditional five-tiered Short Film program returns, under the banners Love/Sick, LSD Factory, Ozploit!, Reality Bites and WTF! Most intriguing amongst the eclectic agenda is Allen Anders Live at The Comedy Castle Circa 1987 (pictured, right), a now legendary stand-up session meltdown that was thought to have been lost to time but which has resurfaced in all its grainy, white-knuckle glory thanks to director Laura Moss.

The 12th edition of SUFF will close out with one of the hottest genre titles on the 2018 festival circuit, Panos Cosmatos' bleak and brutal headscratcher, Mandy. Starring Nicholas Cage in one of the most critically-praised roles of his contemporary career, Cosmatos takes on 80s-style revenge-fantasy cinema with a pulsating urgency and nightmarish bent that Sight and Sound described as, "a mind-melting genre orgy of cosmic proportions that’s ridiculously fun."

The 2018 SYDNEY UNDERGROUND FILM FESTIVAL will run September 13-16 at The Factory Theatre, Marrickville. Session and ticket information can be found at the events’ official website.