SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL ANNOUNCES FIRST FILMS FOR 2024

The Sydney Film Festival has announced a first wave of programming with 17 new films and events to be featured in this year’s event, set to unspool at sites all over Sydney from June 5-16. 

“This selection, though diverse in setting and scope, reveals some common themes: resilience foremost amongst them. These films offer a taste of a Festival program rich with discovery and insight, poised to captivate and inspire,” Sydney Film Festival Director Nashen Moodley said.

Two new Australian films will have their world premiere at the 71st festival. In Vitro, the highly anticipated feature from directors Will Howarth and Tom McKeith, stars Ashley Zukerman (pictured, top) in an Australian sci-fi mystery thriller set on a remote cattle farm in the near future. And in The Pool, director Ian Darling paints a cinematic portrait of a year in the life of the iconic Bondi Icebergs.

From New Zealand comes The Mountain (pictured, right), the directorial debut of actor Rachel House. Executive produced by Taika Waititi, the film centres on three children discovering friendship's healing power through the spirit of adventure as they trek through spectacular New Zealand landscapes. 

International festival prize-winners in the first release of films include winner of the Golden Shell for Best Film at San Sebastián, The Rye Horn, a story of a rural Galician midwife who flees after an illegal abortion goes awry. Winner of the Special Jury Prize at Venice, legendary filmmaker Agnieszka Holland’s refugee thriller Green Border raised the ire of some Polish politicians and inspired protests before setting a box office record.

Pepe won the Silver Bear at Berlinale 2024. The film tells the true-ish story of Pepe the hippo who broke free of Pablo Escobar’s private zoo, featuring narration from the multilingual hippo himself. Explanation for Everything (pictured, left) is a Hungarian satire about the culture wars where a student accidentally becomes a figurehead for the right when he is embroiled in a national scandal. The film won the Orizzonti Award for Best Film at the Venice International Film Festival.

One of the hits of Berlinale 2024, Sex follows two married and ostensibly heterosexual chimneysweeps who are unmoored when one of them sleeps with a man and the other begins to question the recurring dreams he’s been having about David Bowie.

Another offbeat tale in the Festival line-up is Clair Titley’s documentary The Contestant, an incredible true story of a TV contestant left naked in a room, unaware his months-long challenge was being broadcast to millions via a Japanese television show.

Gastronomes will find their appetites whetted by Menus-Plaisirs – Les Troisgros (pictured, right), director Frederick Wiseman’s mouth-watering epic set in a three-Michelin-star French restaurant; Mexican director Alonso Ruizpalacios’ La Cocina, featuring Rooney Mara and Raúl Briones in a comedic drama set during the hectic lunch rush at a New York restaurant; and Busan Film Festival favourite House of the Seasons, an intergenerational family saga set in a tofu factory in Daegu, Korea.

Documentaries include COPA ’71, the untold story of the 1971 Women’s Soccer World Cup and their fight against systemic sexism within governing bodies determined to undermine women’s soccer, and The Battle for Laikipia explores the tensions in Kenya's Laikipia region among herders, landholders, and conservationists against a backdrop of drought, politics, and colonial history.

Other highlights announced include Olivier Assayas’ most personal film yet, Suspended Time, about art, memory, and love in the time of COVID; and Oscar-nominated Pawo Choyning Dorji’s The Monk and The Gun (pictured, below), which takes place in rural Bhutan during the lead-up to his country’s first-ever election.

A special film and live music event not to be missed, Hear My Eyes: Hellraiser will give audiences the opportunity to experience Clive Barker’s 1987 extra-dimensional horror classic, re-scored live by EBM explorers Hieroglyphic Being and Robin Fox, and a synched laser-art show at City Recital Hall.

STUPID OSCAR SNUBS: THE BEST OF 2023 NOT IN WITH A SHOT

When the arguments about who have been ‘snubbed’ arise each year in the wake of the Oscar nominations announcement, there is always a counter-argument about who should have missed out to make way. There isn’t a name amongst the nominees that we’d begrudge their spot. But there is certainly a sense of “What might have been…” when you consider our most startling non-nominees…

GRETA GERWIG (Best Director) and MARGOT ROBBIE (Best Actress): They weren’t technically shut out of the ceremony - Greta, with hubby Noah Baumbach, are up for Adapted Screenplay; Robbie as a producer for Best Picture - but the now decade-long trend that favoured viewer-inducing box-office hits in key categories screeched to a halt when the Barbie pair missed out. Just as last year, when Tom Cruise’s cinema-saving return as Maverick was ignored, Robbie and her director deserved Oscar’s respect - for both shepherding the film’s bold narrative to fruition and its billion dollar box office.

BEST DOCUMENTARY - BEYOND UTOPIA (pictured, right) and STILL: A MICHAEL J. FOX MOVIE: The first-person factual filmmaking masterclass in 2023 was Madeleine Gavin’s account of the horrors of life in North Korea and one family’s odyssey to freedom. And the soul laid bare that Davis Guggenheim’s camera captures in his profoundly moving chat with Hollywood’s favourite son is unforgettable viewing. How these two missed a Best Doco slot…well, I just don’t get it…  

BEST ACTOR - JOAQUIN PHOENIX (Beau is Afraid) and NICHOLAS CAGE (Dream Scenario): Seems there is only room for one obnoxious, neurotic white guy in the Best Actor mix, and that spot was filled by Paul Giamatti in The Holdovers. Phoenix’s masterclass in anxiety and Cage’s everyman dream guy were, let’s be frank, far more nuanced and inventive performances than Giamatti’s one-note, smart-alec, cliched academic, but…well, here we are.

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS - RACHEL McADAMS (Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret) and PENELOPE CRUZ (Ferrari): Admittedly, this was a super-competitive category, as usual. But both McAdams, as the perfect movie-mom incarnation ever in the adored adaptation of Judy Blume’s YA-lit classic, and Cruz, as the emotionally-tortured wife of the automobile industry giant, support their films with invaluable, indelible characterisations.  

BEST ACTRESS - GRETA LEE (Past Lives; pictured, right): Another example of a film that didn’t go unnoticed - Past Lives earned two nominations, including Best Film - but one that couldn’t hold award season momentum in the category it deserved most, Best Actress, for the luminous Greta Lee. We can legitimately point an accusing finger at the FYC marketing budget at Netflix; Annette Bening’s kind-of surprising inclusion here for the streamer’s biopic Nyad stole away Lee’s shot at a trophy.   

BEST INTERNATIONAL FILM - FALLEN LEAVES (Finland) and THE MOTHER OF ALL LIES (Morocco): These are two films that bear the unmistakably unique hallmarks of two truly singular auteur’s - Finnish cinema’s national treasure, Aki Kaurismäki and one of 2023’s breakout talents, Asmae ElMoudir, from Morocco. Their films were perhaps ultimately too idiosyncratic, given the Best International Film spots were taken by the far more palatable Society of the Snow (no pun intended) and Perfect Days (which we love, so no shade intended).

BEST SONG - “PEACHES” by JACK BLACK (The Super Mario Bros. Movie): Can you imagine the giggly, crowd-pleasing thrill of following up Ryan Gosling’s live rendition of ‘I’m Just Ken’ with Jack Black going all-in on stage as his SMB villain Bowser singing his unhinged love serenade ‘Peaches’? Well, it ain’t gonna happen. Black’s brilliantly comedic ballad, an inspired intermission in the otherwise frantic animated hit, should’ve been nominated.      

EVERYTHING SALTBURN: There was a tangible momentum over the last month that suggested Emerald Fennell’s hot-button pic was on Oscar’s radar. Barry Keoghan for Best Actor; Rosamund Pike for Supporting Actress; Original Script, Set and Costume Design, Cinematography, Editing all seemed within reach. But the divisive film instead fell in with a prestige crowd that includes The Iron Claw, Priscilla, All of Us Strangers, Eileen, A Thousand and One, Origin, Memory, Asteroid City - great films from 2023 that didn’t get their shot.

SEE THE FULL LIST OF NOMINATIONS HERE

THE SCREEN-SPACE FAVOURITE FILMS OF 2023

As I write this, we near the final week of 2023, and the industry question that all the trade papers are pondering is, “Is cinema back?”

Variety notes that, unless Wonka and Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom overperform, the domestic U.S. box office will fall just shy of $9billion - the number that analysts have set as a healthy highwater mark for the first full twelve months of cinema patronage, post-COVID. Fact is, if Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania or Indiana Jones and The Dial of Destiny or Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part 1 had realised their full potential; or, if The Marvels had contributed at all; or, if the biggest industrial action in Hollywood history hadn’t bumped to 2024 a bevy of pics (including the one-two Zendaya punch of Dune: Part Two and Challengers), that $9billion would’ve been shrinking in the rear-view mirror.

Also, let’s not ignore the phenomenon that was #Barbenheimer, an unambiguous pop culture moment that proved that movies can still cut through and hold the global society in their thrall. Some sequels worked just fine (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse; Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3; John Wick: Chapter 4); fresh content connected (M3GAN; Five Nights at Freddy; Sound of Freedom); and, nostalgia proved lucrative (The Super Mario Bros. Movie; The Little Mermaid). 

And that Variety article also points out that, although 2023 will fall short of $10b-$11b levels that were de rigueur pre-COVID, studios also premiered a lot less movies this year. There were 88 films released in 2023 compared to 108 in 2019, when ticket sales reached $10.5 billion. 

So…well, there’s still some ground to make up but, yeah, cinema is back.

Here are my favourites of 2023.

Simon Foster
Editor, SCREEN-SPACE

1. ANATOMY OF A FALL (Dir: Justine Triet | Stars Sandra Hüller, Swann Arlaud, Milo Machado Graner | France | 171 mins) The framework is a cop/court procedural - did he fall? was he pushed? what does the boy know? - and Anatomy of a Fall is a compelling take on that well-worn genre. There’s more to Justine Triet’s best ever film, however. A marriage is imploding; a child is witness to the disintegration of his stability; violence dwells and swells within this middle-class setting. Anatomy of a Fall is anxiety as an artform; an intimate epic about the deceitful depths we plumb to not only keep secrets but convince ourselves we are justified in doing so. As 2023 closes out, Sandra Hüller is the finest European actress of her generation (see also, The Zone of Interest). 

2. THE CONCERT FILM - TAYLOR SWIFT: THE ERAS TOUR (Dir: Sam Wrench | USA | 169 mins); RENAISSANCE: A FILM BY BEYONCÉ (Dir: Beyoncé, Ed Burke | USA | 169 mins); STOP MAKING SENSE Remastered (Dir: Jonathan Demme | USA | 88 mins) Can the concert documentary recapture the immersive thrill of the world’s biggest music shows? No, of course not, but the very best do what any great cinema does and conjure a version of reality that enhances it as only film can. Whether it is the giddy performance highs that Taylor Swift’s The Eras Tour delivered, or the glimpse inside a brilliant diva-artist’s creative process that Beyoncé’s Renaissance revealed, there was no matching the sheer cinematic bravado they provided in 2023. Or in 1984, for that matter, as the remastered Stop Making Sense reaffirmed. 

3. PAST LIVES (Dir: Celine Song | Stars Greta Lee, Teo Yoo, John Magaro | USA, South Korea | 105 mins) The year’s most beautiful  narrative examines a soulful connection that fate keeps determinedly apart…in this life, anyway. Celine Song wrote and directed a deconstruction of love that tears at the very fibre of what we’ve been conditioned to expect a screen romance should be. Greta Lee has a Best Actress nomination in the bag; the denouement will reduce you to sobs.     

4. GODZILLA MINUS ONE (Dir: Takashi Yamazaki | Stars Minami Hamabe, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Sakura Ando | Japan | 124 mins) It’s been seven years since Toho Studios released a Godzilla adventure; in the interim, those amongst us who worship at the mighty lizard’s talons have had to settle for just-OK Hollywood versions. This year, Toho and FX maestro-turned-director Takashi Yamazaki took Godzilla back to a post WWII Japan, crafting the most heartfelt, exciting action blockbuster of the year.     

5. PERFECT DAYS (Dir: Wim Wenders | Stars Kôji Yakusho, Tokio Emoto, Arisa Nakano | Japan, Germany | 123 mins) Kôji Yakusho won the Cannes Best Actor trophy as Hirayama, a Tokyo everyman who finds contentment in life’s smallest details. A book by lamplight; his favourite driving song; a sandwich in the park; the slightest moment of shared joy with a stranger. There’s more to Hirayama’s inner life, of course, but director Wim Wenders will take you there when he’s ready. Afterwards, you’ll float from the cinema.   

6. BARBIE (Dir: Greta Gerwig | Stars Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling | USA | 114 mins) When Greta and Margot had a dolly playdate, moviegoers to the tune of US$1.45billion - the highest global gross in Warner Bros. history - joined in the fun. After years of script development, the final polish came amidst The #MeToo Movement and Trump’s toxic reign; the result was the smartest, funniest possible brand-based film adaptation ever. 

7. BEYOND UTOPIA (Dir: Madeleine Gavin | USA | 115) No capes and tights defined this year’s greatest film hero. His name is Pastor Seungeun Kim, a South Korean human rights activist whose efforts to aid a family of five seeking refuge from North Korea’s heartless regime makes for the most gripping and heartbreaking factual filmmaking experience 0f 2023. A great geopolitical thriller and bracing testament to the importance of film journalism.  

8. REALITY (Dir: Tina Satter | Stars Sydney Sweeney, Josh Hamilton, Marchánt Davis | USA | 83 mins) As the intelligence specialist who blew the whistle on Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election, Sydney Sweeney went from being next-big-thing to Big Thing. In Tina Satter’s ultra-realistic portrayal of Reality Winner’s takedown, Sweeney conveys a brittle fragility grounded in a bedrock of integrity; a few decades back, Shelley Duvall or Sissy Spacek would have similarly nailed the part.    

9. NIMONA (Dirs: Nick Bruno, Troy Quane | Voice cast Stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Riz Ahmed, Eugene Lee Yang | USA | 101 mins) Imagine a fantasy world where the latest Disney princess is not the bog standard hetero-normative stereotype, but instead an androgynous punk-rock shapeshifter with a taste for wicked misadventure. Stunning design and progressive but non-preachy plotting make Nimona a line-in-the-sand moment for one of cinema’s oldest disciplines. 

10. BOTTOMS (Dir: Emma Seligman | Stars Rachel Sennott, Ayo Edebiri, Ruby Cruz | USA | 91 mins) Sennot and Seligman signposted their MO with Shiva Baby a few years back - cringey, character-based comedy with a tart mouth and big heart. Their sophomore effort is more of the same, with the added sheen of a studio teen pic but no-less brimming with their indie ‘f**k off’ joie de vivre. It-girl Ayo Edibiri seals the deal. 

THE NEXT BEST TEN:

• TIME ADDICTS (Dir: Sam Odlum | Stars Freya Tingley, Charles Grounds, Joshua Morton | Australia | 97 mins)
• TO CATCH A KILLER (Dir: Damián Szifron | Stars Shailene Woodley, Ben Mendelsohn, Jovan Adepo | USA, Canada | 119 mins)
• ASTEROID CITY (Dir: Wes Anderson | Stars Jason Schwartzman, Scarlett Johansson, Tom Hanks | USA, Germany | 105 mins)
• POOR THINGS (Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos | Stars Emma Stone, Willem Dafoe, Mark Rufalo | Ireland, United Kingdom, USA | 141 mins)
• STILL: A MICHAEL J. FOX MOVIE (Dir: Davis Guggenheim | USA | 95 mins)
• THE MOTHER OF ALL LIES (Dir: Asmae El Moudir | Stars Mohamed El Moudir, Asmae ElMoudir, Zahra Jeddaoui | Morocco, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar | 96 mins)
• OPPENHEIMER (Dir: Christopher Nolan | Stars Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Emily Blunt | USA, UK | 180 mins)
• MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE - DEAD RECKONING PART 1 (Dir: Christopher McQuarrie | Stars Tom Cruise, Hayley Atwell, Esai Morales | USA | 163 mins)
• CALIGULA: THE ULTIMATE CUT (Dir: Thomas Negovan, Tinto Brass | Stars Malcolm McDowell, Helen Mirren, Peter O’Toole | USA | 178 mins)
• HE AIN’T HEAVY (Dir: David Vincent Smith | Stars Leila George, Sam Corlett, Greta Scacchi | Australia | 103 mins)

THE SCREEN-SPACE SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL FLEXIPASS TEN

There is a skill that comes with experience when you set out to pick your must-see Sydney Film Festival ten films. If I book this one, do I miss that one? If I miss that one, can I catch it at Newtown, Randwick or Cremorne? Does it have a local distributor, and a likely release soon anyway? What’s its Rotten Tomatoes rating? Wasn’t this booed at Cannes (if so, I’m in!)? And where do I even park at that time of day?! With all that in mind, Team Screen-Space zeroed in on the ten films that will have earned our time and dollars by Closing Night 2023…

THUNDER (Dir: Carmen Jaquier; Switzerland, 92 mins) In the summer of 1900, pious 17-year-old Elisabeth learns of the death of her sister, Innocente. Ripped away from her beloved nunnery, she returns home to the Valais Valley, where an encounter with three village boys and Innocente’s hidden diary awakens stirrings in the touch-starved novice. Director Carmen Jacquier’s debut draws on the staggering beauty of the mountains and rivers, in an elemental portrayal of youth caught between restriction and discovery, desire and God. BUY TICKETS

SNOW AND THE BEAR (Dir: Selcen Ergun; Türkiye, 93 min) Selcen Ergun’s directorial debut begins with a car driving through a snowy Turkish hinterland, setting an ominous note of isolation and paranoia that continues right up to the haunting final shot. The car’s driver is headstrong young nurse Asli (Merve Dizdar), who has arrived in a small village for compulsory service. The men look down upon Asli, but that is the least of her worries when a townsperson disappears and the locals settle with conspicuous certainty on a bear attack as the cause. BUY TICKETS

SISU (Dir: Jalmari Helander; Finland 91 mins) Tipping its hat to no-nonsense action movies that dominated drive-ins in the ’70s and home video in the ’80s, Finnish filmmaker Jalmari Helander’s splattery Sisu won of Best Picture, Cinematography, Music and Actor (Jorma Tommila) at Sitges on its way to Sydney; a thunderous revenge tale that pits a grizzled old geezer against a bunch of arrogant Aryans with no idea what they’re in for. BUY TICKETS

RAGING GRACE (Dir: Paris Zarcilla; UK, 99 mins) Joy is almost invisible to the rich Londoners whose houses she cleans. With cheeky young daughter Grace to support and huge visa fees to pay if she wants to avoid deportation, Joy has to take any work she can find. Zarcilla’s intelligent screenplay hits high gear when Joy lands a job as live-in caretaker at the musty ol’ Garrett Manor. Reality and fantasy combine as revelations about her strange new home bring all kinds of demons into the open. BUY TICKETS

PICTURES OF GHOSTS (Dir: Kleber Mendonça Filho; Brazil 93 mins) The Brazilian city of Recife has been home to Mendonça Filho’s family since the 1970s and it is where he discovered cinema in the grand picture palaces of the time. Shot over decades, the film features a delightful, humorous narration by Mendonça Filho himself, and is a glorious love letter to his historian mother Joselice, his neighbourhood and the films and cinemas that made him. BUY TICKETS

OMEN (Dir: Baloji; Belgium 90 mins) Banished from Congo because he was considered a sorcerer, Koffi and his partner Alice return to reconcile with his family but receive a welcome that’s anything but warm. In telling this compelling story, Baloji takes fascinating diversions through the streets of vibrant Lubumbashi, capturing unforgettable images; Omen marks the emergence of an incredible filmmaking talent. BUY TICKETS

LAST THINGS (Dir: Deborah Stratman; USA, Portugal, France 50 minS) Iridescent crystals spin and exquisite fractal patterns bloom. The camera zooms out to lunar landscapes and in on chondrules (droplets of solar nebula) glimmering like stained glass under a microscope. Stratman’s camera ekes wonder from seemingly inert matter, celebrating – in her words – the ‘delicious candy snack' appeal of the geo-biosphere. Embracing otherworldly visual thrills, Last Things takes pleasure in the unknown. BUY TICKETS

JOAN BAEZ I AM A NOISE (Dirs: Karen O'Connor, Miri Navasky, Maeve O'Boyle; USA, 113 mins) With a career spanning over 60 years, Baez has a lifetime of stories and secrets to share, but she also has boxes of never-before-seen home movies, diaries, paintings and audio recordings. This treasure trove forms the basis of a compelling doco-portrait, alongside archival footage and revealing interviews with the now 82-year-old. BUY TICKETS

GAGA (Dir: Laha Mebow; Taiwan 111 mins) Grandpa Hayung has spent his life following ‘gaga’, the spiritual traditions of the Indigenous Tayal people. Few others abide by gaga nowadays, including Mayor Toli, who has started encroaching on Hayung’s land and inspiring eldest son Pasang to run for mayor, hoping to reclaim his family’s status. Featuring a big-hearted ensemble of non-professional actors, Mebow beautifully depicts the complexities of modern family life that retains a connection to ancient culture. BUY TICKETS

BLUE BAG LIFE (Dirs: Rebecca Lloyd-Evans, Lisa Selby, Alex Fry; UK, 92 mins) Even though her mother abandoned her as a baby, Lisa Selby idolised her glamourous yet addicted parent. Flicking through photo albums and searching online she tries to find a connection, but her mother is dying and her partner is jailed for drug dealing. All this trauma, captured on iPhones and hard drives, is assembled into an emotionally raw and striking factual film. BUY TICKETS

SCREEN-SPACE'S SWIFF SIX-PASS

“It is the journey north that the Screen-Space team (i.e., me, with my +1) have undertaken six times. The pilgrimage to Coffs Harbour for the Screenwave International Film Festival, the ever-expanding regional film celebration that brings global cinema, old and new, to the N.S.W. F.N.C. If I had to pick only six, on the Festival’s popular ‘Six Pass’, here they are, but it’s academic, as I’ll be in town for two weeks and cramming my days and nights with SWIFF sessions. As should you.” - Simon Foster, Managing Editor. 

THE SPIRAL (Dir: Maria Silvia Esteve | Argentina, 20 mins)  + LUX AETERNA (Dir: Gaspar Noè | starring Beatrice Dalle, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Abbey Lee | France, 55 mins)
Sometimes cinema should be an assault on the senses, and nobody assaults like French agitator Gaspar Noè, whose oeuvre reads like a dictionary entry for ‘uncomfortable cinema’ - Climax (2018); Love (2015); Enter the Void (2009); Irreversible (2002). The pairing of his latest, Lux Aeterna, with Argentinian surrealist auteur Maria Silvia Esteve’s stream-of-subconscious nightmare The Spiral is inspired programming; a daring, disturbing descent into film as an extension of our darkest psyche.
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THE FLY (Dir: David Cronenberg | starring Jeff Goldblum, Geena Davis | U.S.A, 96 mins)
As scientist Seth Brundle, whose matter transference device accidentally becomes a high-tech gene-splicer, with horrific results, Jeff Goldblum was a revelation. There was huge industry support for him in the 1986 Best Actor Oscar race, rewarding the humanity he brought to a performance mostly buried deep in prosthetic make-up (like the nomination they gave to John Hurt for The Elephant Man), but that did not eventuate. David Cronenberg’s The Fly is a near-perfect mash-up of nightmarish body-horror and heart-breaking romantic drama. Some argue that John Carpenter’s The Thing is Hollywood’s greatest remake; for me, it comes an admirable second.
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FINAL CUT (Dir: Michel Hazanavicius | starring Romain Duris, Bérénice Bejo | France, 112 mins)
The last time that Michel Hazanavicius paid homage to the wonderful world of cinema, he won the Best Picture Oscar, with 2011’s monochromatic mute musical, The Artist. That’s probably not going to happen again for Final Cut, what with The Academy’s largely poo-pooing all things horror, but the French director’s bloody, hilarious zom-com (which opened Cannes 2022) is no less an insider’s elevated spin on the giddy, ego-driven, tempestuous island that is a modern movie set. Very groovy, very gory; if you love those early Peter Jackson films, you’ll love the latest Michel Hazanavicius one.
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ENNIO: THE MAESTRO (Dir: Giuseppe Tornatore | Italy, 156 mins)
Charting the creative journey and cultural impact of the great film composer is pure cinephile catnip, and Giuseppe Tornatore’s rousing, deeply moving documentary works on that ‘fan service’ level for every second of its 156 minutes. But where it truly soars is in its study of the man’s influences and inspirations; the chords and melodies that captured his imagination then morphed into some of the greatest film soundtracks ever written. Just ask Quentin tarantino, Oliver Stone, Barry Levinson, Clint Eastwood, Terrence Malick, and many more; Tornatore did, and their answers shed a profound light on Ennio Morricone’s musical legacy.
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INFINITY POOL (Dir: Brandon Cronenberg | starring Alexander Skarsgård, Mia Goth | Canada, 131 mins)
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree in the Cronenberg household, with son Brandon’s latest, Infinity Pool, plunging into the themes of psycho-sexual, body-horror gender conflict just as his father David did with works like Crash (1996) and Dead Ringers (1988). Cronenberg Jr. is a divisive talent - couldn’t gel with his feature debut, Antiviral (2012) but really dug his follow-up Possessor (2020) - and his latest looks to be more of the intellect-challenging, stomach-churning Canadian creepiness that we’ve come to expect from the Cronenberg clan.
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CORNERS OF THE EARTH: KAMCHATKA (Dirs: Spencer Frost, Guy Williment | Australia, 90 mins)
It’s not enough for directors Spencer Frost and Guy Williment, with surfers Letty Mortenson and Fraser Dovell along for the 3-day plane/helicopter/snowmobile ride, to seek out the most remote surfing conditions in the world. It also has to be on the east coast of Russia, in sub-arctic conditions…um, there was one more thing?...oh yeah! On the very day that their host country declares war on neighbouring Ukraine! The footage of the lads taking on the brutal cold, both on land and at sea, is breathtaking; their interactions with the surfing community of Kamchatka, heartwarming; and, the isolation from western influence as the war escalates and resources are compromised, engrossing.
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Full ticketing and session details can be found at the SWIFF Official Website.