FOLLOWING a traditionally rain-swept
opening last night, with Peter Templeman’s Aussie comedy NOT SUITABLE FOR
CHILDREN, this year’s Sydney Film Festival returns with a fresh slate of the
best from the international festival circuit – including key selections from Cannes and Sundance – together with a swag of Australian premieres and one-off
and retrospective screenings. A new home for festival goers to gather and
chatter has been established beneath Sydney’s Town Hall – dubbed the Festival
Hub – while the city’s historic State Theatre is once again fully open for
business. Below are 10 of the most essential films screening over the coming 10
days, with Colin Trevorrow’s sweet feelgood Sundance hit SAFETY NOT GUARANTEED
wrapping proceedings Sunday week, on June 17.
MABO
Ahead of its broadcast premiere this Sunday
night on ABC1, Rachel Perkins’ fact-based drama tracks the historic 1992 Mabo
decision, in which indigenous Australians were finally granted land rights to
their country. Focusing on the life story of Eddie ‘Koiko’ Mabo (Jimi Bani) and
his fearless wife Bonita (THE SAPPHIRES’ Deborah Mailman), the film relives the
pair’s struggle to fight for justice, in a racially divided nation that refused
to recognize its original inhabitants.
See
it: Thursday June 7, 8.35pm, State Theatre.
KILLER
JOE
Matthew McConaughey is back on top form, in
William Friedkin’s outrageously barmy and sleazy neo noir, set amongst the
worst trailer trash family imaginable. Based on screenwriter Tracey Letts’ 1993
play, Friedkin’s film (pictured, top) follows the desperate, degenerate Chris Smith (Emile
Hirsch) who’s in cahoots with his idiotic father (Thomas Hayden Church) and
slutty stepmom (Gina Gershon) to have his real mother bumped off for a hefty
insurance payout. Enter Killer Joe (McConaughey): smooth-talkin’ cop by day,
ruthless hitman for hire by night. Juno‘daughter of Julien’ Temple co-stars as the object of Killer Joe’s
affections.
See
it: Thursday June 7, 9pm and June 14, 9.10pm, Event Cinemas George Street.
WHERE
DO WE GO NOW?
Winner of the audience award at last year’s
Toronto International Film Festival,
Lebanese writer-director-star Nadine Labaki follows up her delightful debut
CARAMEL with this musical melodrama teeming with social commentary and satire.
A group of wily women, fed up with cross-cultural bloodshed, band together to
find peace by whatever means necessary (including doping and distracting both
sides of male aggressors). Bold, engaging and life-affirming, the gorgeous
Labaki – hailed as a Middle-Eastern Almodovar – proves herself again to be a
talent of rare poise and style.
See
it: Friday June 8 at 6pm, Saturday June 9 at 2pm, Event Cinemas George Street.
BEASTS
OF THE SOUTHERN WILD
Fresh from its Camera d’Or prize win at
last month’s Cannes Film Festival
–and its earlier US Dramatic Grand JuryPrize award at Sundance, in January – Benh Zeitlin’s stunning debut (pictured, above) may
snag a further gong (with a generous Aussie-funded cheque), as it premieres
Down Under in the festival’s official competition. Set in the ‘Bathtub’ – a
proudly defiant bayou community cut off from the US mainland – six-year-old
Hushpuppy (Quvenzhane Wallis) worships his troubled dad Wink (Dwight Henry),
while around them a powerful storm brews. Mythic, ecological and topical, the
film nods to the horrors of Hurricane Katrina, the plight of America’s poor and
the future of the planet in a mesmerizing, poetic way.
See
it: Friday June 8 at 6.30pm, State Theatre; Saturday June 9 at 12pm, Event
Cinemas George Street.
LORE
Eight years after sweeping the board at the
2004 AFI Awards, Cate Shortland follows up the stunning SOMERSAULT with this
similarly sensual drama set during the aftermath of World War II. Lore (Saskia
Rosendahl) and her four siblings are forced to flee, after their Nazi SS
parents are taken into Allied custody. When a chance encounter with a Jewish
boy aids their safe passage, an unlikely and conflicting attraction develops. Shortland's partner, Tony Krawitz, will also be premiering his latest film, DEAD EUROPE, in the festival's official competition.
See
it: Saturday June 9 at 6.15pm, Sunday June 10 at 11.30am, State Theatre.
WATCH Cate Shortland discuss her new film LORE here.
WATCH Cate Shortland discuss her new film LORE here.
MY
BROTHER THE DEVIL
Funded and mentored by the Sundance Film Festival’s Film Lab,
Sally El Hosaini’s vibrant feature debut
tells of two brothers surviving among the gritty urban backdrop of a harsh
Hackney housing estate. Caught up in the grim world of drug crime, Rashid
(James Floyd) must try to prevent his younger brother Mo (Fady Elsayed) from
falling into the dark underbelly of street crime, while also supporting their
Egyptian family. But a rude awakening threatens to tear their world apart.
Screening as part of the festival’s features strand, which also includes Cannes
winner ONCE UPON A TIME IN ANATOLIA and Miro Bilbrough’s BEING VENICE.
See
it: Saturday June 9 at 8.45pm, Tuesday June 12 at 12.30pm, Event Cinemas George
Street.
LAST
TANGO IN PARIS
Following on from his return to Cannes last
month, Italian master Bernardo Bertolucci is here similarly given the celebratory
treatment, with nine of his classic features dusted off for this year’s
retrospective showcase. The most notorious of all, his 1972 feature LAST TANGO
IN PARIS (above) boasts an Oscar-worthy performance from Marlon Brando, as a
middle-aged American reeling from the suicide of his wife. A chance encounter
with the beautiful Jeanne (Maria Scheider) sets them on a path of anonymous,
sado-masochistic sex that challenges as much as it titillates. Butter is
famously served by Brando as the mood darkens.
See it:
Sunday June 10 at 10.15am, Art Gallery of New South Wales.
WOODY
ALLEN: A DOCUMENTARY
Filmmaker Robert B. Weide’s exhaustive look
at the unique talents of New York City’s veteran hypochondriac features a
plethora of interviews with family, friends and collaborators as well as a
generous serving of clips from his 40-year on-screen career. Back in favour
with his Oscar-winning success MIDNIGHTIN PARIS, Allen’s still maintaining his rigorous one-film-a-year work
schedule, with his next feature, TO ROME WITH LOVE, already primed for local release. This version of Weide's film, screening in the
festival’s international documentaries strand, is the abridged 113-minute edit (but covers its subject off nicely).
See
it: Monday June 11 at 9.30am, State Theatre.
MARLEY
Oscar-winning filmmaker Kevin Macdonald gains
unprecedented access to family and friends as he profiles reggae icon Bob
Marley, in this riveting document on the music star’s rise to global
superstardom. Set against the backdrop of a radically shifting Jamaica,
Macdonald doesn’t shy away from addressing the star’s personal issues
(including his wandering eye), while finding a treasure trove of rare
performance footage of the man in his prime. Screening as part of the
festival’s Sounds on Screen strand, which also features Sundance winner SEARCHING FOR SUGAR MAN as well as UNDER AFRICAN
SKIES and THE ZEN OF BENNETT.
See
it: Monday June 11 at 9.30pm, State Theatre; Sunday June 17 at 9.30pm, Event
Cinemas George Street.
POLISSE
One of the highlights of last year’s Cannes Film Festival (and a
prize winner to boot), Maiwenn’s gritty and urgent feature – her third as
writer-director, in which she also stars – centres on the tough cops working
within the Child Protection Unit (CPU) on the streets of Paris. Painstakingly
researched, imaginatively shot and brimming with a heady blend of
determination, frustration and emotion, POLISSE offers social commentary with
riveting human drama in equal measure. One of the most vital films screening at
this year’s festival.
See
it: Tuesday June 12 at 8.45pm, State Theatre; Wednesday June 13 at 6.15pm,
Event Cinemas George Street.
The
59th Sydney Film Festival runs until June 17.
Tickets:
sff.org.au
ED
GIBBS
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