What Even Is A Russell Brand? Come To The Sydney Film Festival And Help Us Find Out

Is he a loud-mouthed comedian who gets too much attention? Is he a social justice warrior able of affecting actual change in the political arena? Is he literally Jesus?

These are some of the questions raised by director Ondi Timoner in her new film Brand: A Second Coming — albeit in a much, much less eloquent way. And, as Brand has just announced a nationwide tour of Australia in October this year, we’ve decided to get to the bottom of all of them.

On Thursday June 11, Junkee is hosting the Australian Premiere of this much-anticipated film, in partnership with the Sydney Film Festival. After the screening at Dendy Cinema in Newtown, we’ll be presenting a 20-minute Q&A with Timoner herself. Whether you’re with him, against him, or sitting on the fence swaying erratically between incessant eyerolls and spontaneous applause, the film is going to be interesting.

Made in collaboration with Brand, it explores his encounters with drugs, sex and fame in his celebrity life as well as his larger political and ideological goals as a self-appointed revolutionary. Having twice won the Sundance Grand Jury Prize for Documentary, Timoner exposes and questions the contradictions in Brand’s pursuits, and tries to understand the ego which underscores its all. It’s already led to a bit of controversy. When the film premiered at SxSW earlier this year, Russell Brand chose not to show up at the last minute.

“Some time ago when I was a newly recovering junkie sinking my teeth into succulent transatlantic fame we were contacted by a respected filmmaker who asked if I’d like to make a documentary about happiness and I leapt, ego first into a caper that would take seven years and as many directors to complete,” he wrote in a statement on his website.

“Ondi is a very beautiful person and a director of peerless integrity [but] I suppose what I didn’t consider [was that] I was agreeing to be the subject of a biography. Posthumously, this is a great honour but while you’re alive, oddly intrusive and melancholy.”

“You’d think a narcissist would like nothing more than talking about themselves and their ‘rags to riches’, ‘hard luck’ story but actually, it felt like, to me, my life was hard enough the first time round and going through it again was painful and sad.”

Timoner later responded to his no-show, telling the LA Times she was “so disappointed”. “He said to me, ‘I’d say great fucking film, mate, except that it’s about me. And I never wanted a film about me,’” she said. “And I’m like, ‘Why wouldn’t you want a film about you? You’ve written books about you. You do standup about you. But here I am doing that, and that’s a problem?’”

In short: There is DRAMA. Drama that will, in fact, made worse by the fact the film is launched on the exact same day as The Emperor’s New Clothes — Brand’s own documentary about financial inequality and classism in the UK.

Get. Involved.

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Junkee Presents Brand: A Second Coming

When: Thursday, June 11, at 7pm

Where: Dendy, Newtown

Tickets: $16.50 for students, $19.50 for everyone else – book here.

For more great films at the Sydney Film Festival, check out our top 14 picks.