Ten Films To Watch At Sydney Film Festival
The 200-strong lineup for June's Sydney Film Festival was announced yesterday. Here are our highlights.
Sydney Film Festival time. The only fortnight each year when one can brush up against the kind of solitary folks who like to spend each day at the State Theatre with a thermos full of soup, a bumbag full of muesli bars, and a terribly smug question ready to go should a Q&A opportunity arise.
Screw Christmas; for Sydney-siders, this is the most wonderful time of the year.
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1. Mystery Road – Opening Night Film
Dir. Ivan Sen
Wednesday June 5, 7.30pm @ State Theatre – tickets here
Directed, written, shot, edited and scored by chronic overachiever Ivan Sen (Toomelah, Beneath Clouds), this year’s Opening Night film looks to be an epic western stunner. It stars Aaron Pederson as a city detective who returns to his Outback hometown where the locals – including Hugo Weaving, Jack Thompson and Ryan Kwanten – aren’t particularly friendly.
2. I Am Divine
Dir. Jeffrey Schwarz
Saturday June 15, 9.30pm & Sunday June 16, 9.15pm @ Event Cinemas, George Street – tickets here
Mostly I like documentaries about the AIDS crisis, talented children and total freakazoids, and this one’s firmly in the last column, straight to the top with a demented bullet. FINALLY, 86 mins of screen time dedicated to the one, the only Baltimore drag dazzler, Divine (nee Harris Glenn Milstead), who starred in many of John Waters’ best films — such as Pink Flamingos where she was fabulous, ate dog shit and was SICK-EN-ING.
3. Frances Ha
Dir. Noah Baumbach
Friday June 14, 9pm @ State Theatre; Saturday June 15, 7.15pm @ Event Cinemas, George Street – tickets here
Greta Gerwig totally stole the deadpan show in Noah Baumbach’s Greenberg, so it was only a matter of time before they co-wrote a film together (and then teamed up in a sexy way). Frances Ha is their monochrome story of a twenty something modern dancer (Gerwig) who’s dealing with all the things a twenty-something modern dancer would deal with but in a brilliant, funny, tender way that does its best to elude actual people like me.
4. Wrong Side Of The Road
Dir. Ned Lander
Friday June 14, 7.30pm @ Event Cinemas, George Street – tickets here
The only film that actually got an impromptu cheer when it was announced at the launch, this restored iconic film follows two indigenous rock bands, Us Mob and No Fixed Address, on two days of a South Australian tour, back in 1981. Often hailed as a classic of local cinema, it’s been hard to get a hold of until now.
5. Stories We Tell
Dir. Sarah Polley
Friday June 14, 6.30pm & Saturday June 15, 12.05pm; Sunday June 16, 2pm @ Hayden Orpheum, Cremorne – tickets here
A thoughtfully-made documentary by Sarah Polley — actor (My Life Without Me, The Sweet Hereafter) and director (Take This Waltz, Away From Her) — about her family and the nature of truth. That’s all you need to know before you see this. I warn you, do NOT look at her Wikipedia page or read spoiler-riddled reviews; just book a ticket and save up some smug questions to ask her when she hits the stage with Margaret Pomeranz.
6. The Past
Dir. Asghar Farhadi
Saturday June 15, 9pm @ State Theatre; Sunday June 16, 12pm @ Event Cinemas – tickets here
No one quite does family conflict, drama and community tension like Iranian director Asghar Farhardi, whose last exquisitely heartbreaking film, A Separation, won the Oscar for Foreign Language Film in 2011. This is the story of a complicated set of relationships that stem from Tehran to Paris, with secrets and suspense aplenty.
7. The Rocket
Dir. Kim Mordaunt
Saturday June 8, 6.45pm & Sunday June 9, 12pm @ State Theatre – tickets here
Having just won the Best Narrative Feature at Tribeca and the Best First Feature award at the Berlinale last month, Australian director Kim Mordaunt turns his eye once more to Laos, this time telling the story of Ahlo, a little boy thought to be bad luck. Battling the village’s superstitions alongside a girl named Kia and her uncle (who dresses in the best suit I’ve seen since Solange), Ahlo attempts to win a rocket-making competition. Heart strings, consider yourself plucked.
8. Dragon Girls
Dir. Inigo Westmeier
Sunday June 9, 1.45pm & Saturday June 15, 1.45pm @ Dendy Opera Quays – tickets here
And you thought your teenage years were tough. At the Shaolin Tagu Kung Fu School in China, 20,000 students undertake a gruelling six-day school week in an attempt to be a martial arts champion — and, in some cases, escape a home life and future of poverty. This documentary focuses in on three young girls currently enrolled in the brutal ritual. Double feature idea: team it with Miss Nikki And The Tiger Girls – Juliet Lamont’s doco about Burma’s first girl band.
9. Computer Chess
Dir. Andrew Bujalski
Wednesday June 5, 7.45pm & Sunday June 9, 1.35pm @ Event Cinemas, George Street – tickets here
Andrew Bujalski’s (Funny Ha Ha, Mutual Appreciation) new black and white film about super nerds running amok on a weekend tournament for chess software programmers in the ’80s. It’s a comedy. What’s not to love?
10. Before Midnight
Dir. Richard Linklater
Saturday June 8, 9.30pm @ The State Theatre – tickets here
The final slot belongs to the final piece of the wandering, chatty Linklater Before trilogy, Before Midnight, which is screening with the first two as a special package.
The final slot also belongs to the insane looking Linda Boreham biopic Lovelace, and to the romantic-looking Blancanieves. Also to Wadja, Paradise Trilogy and, finally, The Look of Love. Oh alright Ryan Gosling — and to Only God Forgives. And maybe to one of the other 190 films screening this year. I’m exhausted already.
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Sydney Film Festival runs from Wednesday June 5 to Sunday June 16. Tickets are on sale now.
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Kate Jinx is an artist and writer who talks about cinema as host of FBi Radio’s film program Picture Show and on ABC 702. She writes for various publications and occasionally appears in public to talk about teen witches, evil cats and other movie obsessions at places like the MCA and Performance Space.