The line-up for the 60th BFI London Film Festival was officially announced this morning, with a handful of Australian films amidst the festival’s usual array of art cinema and genre fare from across the globe.
Ivan Sen
Indigenous Australia in the Frame
Rolf de Heer and David Gulpilil on the set of Charlie’s Country
In late April, the British Museum opened its major summer exhibition Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation (23 April – 2 August 2015), the first major UK survey of the history of indigenous Australia through objects. Drawing together art and artefacts from the museum’s own collection as well as those in Australia, alongside specially commissioned works, the exhibition is dedicated to celebrating the cultural strength and resistance of the world’s oldest continuing culture.
A swathe of festival and one-off screenings in the coming weeks will ensure that indigenous filmmaking is also firmly in the spotlight this summer, offering everything from popular features to documentaries, short films and anthropological studies.
Thrills, Spills & Virtuosos: New DVD/Blu/VOD releases
Back in early October, the British book trade celebrated a phenomenon known as Super Thursday, their busiest release day of the year, which sees all the big stocking-filler titles – everything from celebrity memoirs to blockbuster novels and sports annuals – hit shops in the lead-up to Christmas. Well, Australian cinema had its own super day (of sorts) this past week, with four excellent titles released for consumption in the comfort of your own home – Felony, Mystery Road, All This Mayhem and The Last Impresario.
IN CINEMAS: Mystery Road
To celebrate the UK cinema release of Ivan Sen’s potent, highly-charged slow-burn western Mystery Road, this review (of sorts) meanders in search of the film’s place within forty-odd years of through lines in the Australian film industry.
Australia at Glasgow Film Festival 2014
After kicking off on February 20, the Glasgow Film Festival is now in full swing, and includes a handful of Australian films, including Mystery Road, Tracks, The Last Impresario, and the UK premiere of Wolf Creek 2.
Australia at the London Film Festival
The annual fiesta of film that is the BFI London Film Festival kicked off earlier this week, with a handful of Australian films set to ‘thrill’ audiences, show them ‘love’ and take them on a ‘journey’.
Ivan Sen’s excellent slow-burn thriller Mystery Road, starring Aaron Pedersen as an Aboriginal cop returning to his hometown and immediately thrown into a murder investigation, opened the ‘Thrill’ strand as its gala film on Thursday (repeating the feat of The Sapphires, which screened as the Nintendo gala at last year’s festival). A big crowd also took in Mystery Road yesterday at the Odeon West End (Leicester Square), with an intro and Q&A with Australian screen legend Jack Thompson (one of a myriad of familiar Australian actors peppered throughout the film). Mystery Road gets its final LFF screening on Saturday October 19 at the Curzon Renoir. That last session is now sold out, but hopefully the film’s exposure at LFF will encourage a British distributor to give it a wider UK release.
Based on the true story of Robyn Davidson’s 1977 solo camel trek across the Australian outback, John Curran’s mesmerising Tracks, starring Mia Wasikowska and Adam Driver, takes a place in the official competition strand, competing for the Best Film award with three screenings next week; Tuesday (15/10) and Wednesday (16/10) at the Odeon West End, followed by a sold-out screening on Saturday October 19 at Screen on the Green in Islington. Tracks has UK distribution via eOne, and should be in British and Irish cinemas in early 2014. [Book]
The festival’s ‘Love’ strand plays host to French-Australian co-production Adore [aka Adoration], directed by Anne Fontaine, based on a Doris Lessing short story and starring Robin Wright and Naomi Watts as inseparable childhood friends with grown-up sons, with absent fathers drawing the four drawn ever closer together. The film has already had two screenings at the Vue West End, with one final chance to see it on Sunday (13/10) at Ciné Lumière. Adore should also get a UK theatrical release via Exclusive, with Paramount scheduled to handle VOD and home entertainment releases. [Book]
Another international co-production plays in the ‘Journey’ strand, with Kim Mordaunt’s Australia-Laos-Thailand produced The Rocket, a rural drama of displacement and resilience. Fresh from winning awards and critical praise at the Sydney, Berlin and Tribecca film festivals, the film has already had two screenings at the ICA and Rich Mix, with a final showing on Monday (14/10) at Vue West End. Having already been acquired by Eureka Entertainment, The Rocket should also get a limited UK theatrical release soon. [Book]
Also on show at LFF are two Australian-produced documentaries; Kitty Green makes her feature doc debut with Ukraine Is Not A Brothel [book] – an expose of controversial Ukrainian female activist group Femen – which screens in the documentary competition strand on Friday (18/10) at BFI Southbank and Sunday (20/10) at Vue West End, whilst Gracie Otto’s profile of notorious London theatre and film bon vivant Michael White in The Last Impresario [book] , which screens as part of the ‘Love’ strand at the Odeon West End tomorrow (Sunday 13/10) and a sold-out session at BFI Southbank on Tuesday (15/10). Also screening at LFF this year is Michelle Blanchard’s short film Aboriginal Heart, which plays support to South London-set adolescent comedy-drama Gone Too Far! There are three screenings next weekend at Odeon West End (18/10), Hackney Picturehouse (19/10) and Vue West End (20/10). [Book]
The BFI London Film Festival runs until October 20 at venues across central London. As always, for more information on upcoming festival screenings, theatrical and home releases and one-off events, keep an eye on our Aussie Film Calendar.
Australian film season at BFI Southbank
Timed to coincide with the start of the Royal Academy’s major exhibition Australia (21 September – 8 December), the British Film Institute on London’s Southbank is staging Australia: Shifting Sands, a film season exploring ‘the most significant shift in Australian cinema in the last two decades: the emergence of Indigenous filmmaking’.
Introducing… FilmFest Australia
More astute UK-based fans of Australian cinema may have noticed that March came and went this year with a notable absence on the London film calendar. Over seventeen glorious years, the Barbican’s annual London Australian Film Festival had existed to satisfy our cinematic appetites for all things Aussie.
Sadly, however, the 2011 LAFF was the Barbican’s last, threatening to leave us all high and dry. But fear ye not, UK-based Aussie film fans because the wonderful FilmFest Australia is rising, phoenix-like to take LAFF’s place in 2012 and beyond. Newly independent, but still programmed and coordinated by the core team behind LAFF, FilmFest Australia promises to continue that festival’s dedication to bringing an array of antipodean cinema treats to UK audiences.
Later this month, FilmFest Australia will be inaugurated with a taster festival at two Picturehouse venues in London, kicking off at the Clapham Picturehouse before skipping across town the following weekend to its freshly minted Hackney cousin. In 2013, the festival hopes to expand to LAFF proportions, with a full programme of features, documentaries and shorts showcasing the latest and greatest Aussie films. But this initial 2012 edition is no slouching affair, with one world premiere slotting alongside a host of UK debuts, with every screening preceded by a specially selected short from the team at Flickerfest, Australia’s premier short film festival.
The FFA 2012 festivites get underway on Friday September 14 at Clapham Picturehouse with the UK premiere of Peter Templeman’s Michael Lucas-scripted testicular cancer comedy Not Suitable for Children starring Ryan Kwanten and Sarah Snook, followed by a festival screening of a film currently on UK general release, Stephan ‘Priscilla‘ Elliott’s rawkus Blue Mountains wedding farce, A Few Best Men. On the Saturday, the south-west London venue plays host to another UK prem – legendary director Fred Schepisi’s Patrick White adaptation, The Eye of the Storm, starring Charlotte Rampling and festival patron Geoffrey Rush – and the first ever public screening (and thus world premiere!) of Mark Lamprell’s Goddess, a kitsch’n sink musical comedy starring Laura Michelle Kelly, Magda Szubanski and Ronan Keating! The Clapham leg of the fest concludes on Sunday September 16 with Sophie Hyde and Bryan Mason’s moving dance doco Life In Movement and Ivan Sen’s indigenous gangster tale, Toomelah.
The following weekend sees FilmFest Australia move to the Hackney Picturehouse, beginning on Friday September 21 with encore screenings of Not Suitable for Children and Toomelah, whilst Saturday brings two more UK premieres, the latest feature from the team behind much-loved classics The Castle and The Dish, Any Questions for Ben?, and Craig Lahiff’s twisting outback noir Swerve, featuring rising stars Jason Clarke and Emma Booth. The inaugural festival draws to a close on Sunday September 23 with a repeat showing of The Eye of the Storm and an encore cinema performance of Daniel Nettheim’s recently released feature debut, The Hunter, starring Willem Defoe and Frances O’Connor, and adapted from a novel by Julia Leigh (Sleeping Beauty).
If those descriptions aren’t enough to whet your appetite, stay tuned to The Far Paradise in the coming week as we present our top five reasons to see each film at this years festival. The ‘5 Reasons’ coverage kicks off with opening night films Not Suitable for Children and A Few Best Men.
Don’t forget to visit the FFA website for the latest news and updates, sign up to their email list for discounted tickets, ‘like’ them on Facebook, ‘follow’ them on Twitter, or watch the spiffing trailer for FilmFest Australia 2012 right here:
The Far Paradise 