10 MUST-SEE MOVIES FROM THE 2018 SYDNEY FILM FESTIVAL PROGRAM

The 65^th Sydney Film Festival has announced its 2018 line-up – a whopping 320ish films, from 60 countries in 160 different languages. The programming team want audiences going in and coming out of the 12 day event with smiles on their faces. Opening night honours go to the New Zealand laffer The Breaker Upperers; closing the event will be Brett Haley’s daddy-daughter feel-good dramedy, Hearts Beat Loud. In between, however, there are emotions of all kind to experience. Here are 10 films that immediately earned ‘must watch’ status at this year’s SFF… 

BEIRUT (Dir: Brad Anderson; U.S.A., 109 mins)
Two of Hollywood’s smartest talents combine to provide Mad Men hunk Jon Hamm (pictured, above) with the meaty role he’s been biding his time for – Mason Skiles, a CIA negotiator sent into the Middle East to secure the release of a colleague. After a couple of hired-hand movies (Stonehearst Asylum, 2014; The Call, 2013), Anderson looks to have returned to the hard-edged drama of his 2004 break-out film, The Machinist; script is by Tony Gilroy (Michael Clayton, 2007; State of Play, 2009; Rogue One A Star Wars Story; 2016).

WEST OF SUNSHINE (Dir: Jason Raftopoulos; Australia, 78 mins)
Inner city Melbourne is the backdrop for this father-stepson drama, the directorial debut of Jason Raftopoulos. Cast is lead by Damian Hill (Pawno, 2015; Spin Out, 2016), whose life is crumbling under family issues and gambling addiction. The actor’s real-life stepson, non-actor Ty Perham, is remarkable in his film debut. Music by Lisa Gerrard (Gladiator; Whale Rider); world premiered at Venice 2017.  

A VIGILANTE (Dir: Sarah Daggar-Nelson; U.S.A., 91 mins)
Australian-born Daggar-Nelson makes her directing debut with this harrowing drama about a domestic-abuse survivor who turns vigilante to help others escape their attackers. Olivia Wilde is past due on the role that will put her on Oscar’s A-list (The Hollywood Reporter calls her performance, “nakedly emotional”); Daggar-Nelson’s willingness to muddy the morality of self-administered payback, makes this potentially one of the toughest yet most rewarding films of the festival.

MAYA THE BEE: THE HONEY GAME (Dirs: Noel Cleary, Sergio Delfino and Alexs Stadermann; Australia | Germany, 85 mins)
The first adventure of Maya the Bee was a solid global performer in 2014 before a huge ancillary life. Three of the animation sectors most respected artist/storytellers, with credits like Blinky Bill, The Lego Movie and Legend of The Guardians to their names, combine talents for this high-concept sequel, a riff on the hugely popular Jennifer Lawrence franchise. Voices include Richard Roxburgh, Justine Clarke and, returning as the lead insect, Coco Jack Gillies.

BlacKkKlansman (Dir: Spike Lee; U.S.A., 128 mins)
Ron Stallworth, an African American detective, went deep undercover into the Ku Klux Klan in the 1970s. His memoirs seem like perfect material for Spike Lee, who has continued making angry, race-based diatribe cinema (even if the audience hasn’t always turned out for his films). Direct to Sydney from Cannes, where it competed for the Palme d’Or; early Oscar buzz for Topher Grace, whose turn as Klan frontman David Duke is set to shock. Other key players are Adam Driver and John David Washington, son of Denzel. 

HOLIDAY (Dir: Isabella Elköf; Denmark | The Netherlands | Sweden, TBC mins)
Do not let the sunny imagery mislead you. Isabella Elköf’s debut feature is a bleak and brutal love triangle / crime thriller; Sascha (Victoria Carmen Sonne) accompanies her crime boss boyfriend on a trip to the Turkish Riviera, only to have things go bad very quickly. Reportedly contains a rape scene like no other; Variety stated, “a steady female gaze behind the camera tilts the film’s politics in unexpected, deliberately discomfiting ways.”

THE PURE NECESSITY (Dir: David Claerbout; Belgium, 50 mins)
Deconstructing cinema is part of what film festivals have to do to service the ‘serious cinephile’ audience; in 2013, SFF presented the brilliant cinematic montage essay, Final Cut – Ladies and Gentlemen. In 2018, Disney’s 1967 classic The Jungle Book comes under the knife; director David Claerbout has removed all remnants of a narrative, anthropomorphism, human interaction and music, leaving an idyllic paradise for Walt’s animals to live a life of freedom.

DISOBEDIENCE (Dir: Sebastián Lelio; United Kingdom, 114 mins)
All eyes will be on the Chilean director’s first film since his Foreign Film Oscar win for A Fantastic Woman. Having turned her back on her Jewish faith and orthodox family, Rachel Weisz must return to the place of her upbringing; a gay affair with her childhood friend (Rachel McAdams) stirs prejudice even further. Variety called the directeor’s English-language debut, “yet another triumph in what’s shaping up to be a major career.” 

THE LONG SEASON (Dir: Leonard Retel Helmrich; The Netherlands, 118 mins)
Director Helmrich had a heart attack mid-production, the difficult shoot being completed by artist Ramia Suleiman and producer Pieter van Huystee. And difficult it was; the small crew was embedded in the Majdal Anjar refugee camp, an enormous community of Syrian refugees who have fled their ISIS-ruled homeland. Shot sans narration, the cinema verite stylings of the Dutch crew has been called, “compassionate, camly observed, lyrical” by Screen Daily.

ONE DAY (Dir: Zsófia Szilágyi; Hungary, 99 mins)
The debut film for director Zsófia Szilágyi, who was Ildikó Enyedi’s first assistant on last year’s SFF Official Competition winner, On Body and Soul. Direct from a coveted slot in the Cannes‘ Critics Circle line-up, the tightly-wound domestic drama takes place over the course of a single day and stars Zsófia Szamosi as Anna,a mother of three dealing with a failing marriage in addition to her daily family grind.

CANNES 2018 LINE-UP ADDRESSES SHIFTS IN FILM FESTIVAL LANDSCAPE

Festival Director Thierry Frémaux faced some serious challenges and undertook some bold decision-making ahead of yesterday’s announcement at a press conference in Paris of the official selection of films to screen at the 71^st Cannes International Festival du Film. (Pictured, below; Frémaux, left, and festival president Pierre Lescure announce the selection.)

After pressure from the French exhibition sector, no Netflix productions would be deemed eligible in 2018 (shutting out Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma, Paul Greengrass' Norway and the restored version of Orson Welles’ The Other Side of The Wind); the axing of the traditional early morning press screenings, which allowed critics to pen their reviews and have them ready for publication in line with the film’s evening premiere; and, in a move met with disgust by self-absorbed film types globally, red-carpet selfies are outlawed from this year forward.

So has Frémaux, who joined the organizing committee in 2001 as artistic director before his appointment as festival director in 2004, continued in this statement-making frame-of-mind with his 2018 programme? Yeah, kind of. Despite being a longtime advocate for women filmmakers (he appointed the first female Jury President, Jane Campion, in 2013), he was not swayed by the current socio-political climate, anointing only three films with women directors in competition slots. Several Cannes alumni that most pundits expected to feature were no-shows,, including Claire Denis (in post on her 28^th film, High Life) , Terence Malick (prepping his WWII drama, Radegund), Mike Leigh (readying Peterloo), Lars von Trier (the highly-anticipated serial killer thriller, The House That Jack Built) and Xavier Dolan (keen to find favour again with The Death and Life of John F. Donovan). And Frémaux has implemented a ‘World Premiere Only’ policy, effectively shutting out films that had premiered at Berlin, Venice or Sundance (hence very few American films will be competing for this year’s Palme d’Or).

The 71^st Festival de Cannes will run May 8-19. Below are the full line-up of titles announced last night; films to screen in Directors’ Fortnight and Critics’ Week programs, which run concurrenty with the strands below, and the coveted Closing Night attraction will be announced in late April (pictured, above, clockwise; Under the Silver Lake, Solo, Shoplifters, Everyone Knows)

In Competition
Everybody Knows (Dir: Asghar Farhadi) OPENING NIGHT
At War (Dir: Stéphane Brizé)
Dogman (Dir: Matteo Garrone)
Le Livre d’Image (Dir: Jean-Luc Godard)
Asako I & II (Dir: Ryusuke Hamaguchi)
Sorry Angel (Dir: Christophe Honoré)
Girls of the Sun (Dir: Eva Husson)
Ash Is Purest White (Dir: Jia Zhang-Ke)
Shoplifters (Dir: Hirokazu Kore-eda)
Capernaum (Dir: Nadine Labaki)
Burning (Dir: Lee Chang-Dong)
BlacKkKlansman (Dir: Spike Lee)
Under the Silver Lake (Dir: David Robert Mitchell)
Three Faces (Dir: Jafar Panahi)
Cold War (Dir: Pawel Pawlikowski)
Lazzaro Felice (Dir: Alice Rohrwacher)
Yomeddine (Dir: AB Shawky)
Leto (L’Été) (Dir: Kirill Serebrennikov)

Un Certain Regard
Angel Face (Dir: Vanessa Filho)
Border (Dir: Ali Abbasi)
El Angel (Dir: Luis Ortega)
Euphoria (Dir: Valeria Golino)
Friend (Dir: Wanuri Kahiu)
The Gentle Indifference of the World (Dir: Adilkhan Yerzhanov)
Girl (Dir: Lukas Dhont)
The Harvesters (Dir: Etienne Kallos)
In My Room (Dir: Ulrich Köhler)
Little Tickles (Dir: Andréa Bescond & Eric Métayer)
My Favorite Fabric (Dir: Gaya Jiji)
On Your Knees, Guys (Sextape) (Dir: Antoine Desrosières)
Sofia (Dir: Meyem Benm’Barek)

Out of Competition
Solo: A Star Wars Story (Dir: Ron Howard)
Le Grand Bain (Dir: Gilles Lellouche)
Little Tickles (Dir: Andréa Bescond & Eric Métayer)
Long Day’s Journey Into Night (Dir: Bi Gan)

Midnight Screenings
Arctic (Dir: Joe Penna)
The Spy Gone North (Dir: Yoon Jong-Bing)

Special Screenings
10 Years in Thailand (Dir: Aditya Assarat, Wisit Sasanatieng, Chulayarnon Sriphol & Apichatpong Weerasethakul)
The State Against Mandela and the Others (Dir: Nicolas Champeaux & Gilles Porte)
O Grande Circo Mistico (Dir: Carlo Diegues)
Dead Souls (Dir: Wang Bing)
To the Four Winds (Dir: Michel Toesca)
La Traversée (Dir: Romain Goupil)
Pope Francis: A Man of His Word (Dir: Wim Wenders).

Main photograph: Stephane de Sakutin/AFP/Getty Images

AUSSIE CINEMAS FATTEN UP ON EASTER MOVIE TREATS

Australian exhibitors could not be more grateful for the annual Easter Holiday box-office surge. With the award season favourites closing out their runs and the American summer blockbusters just around the corner, the March/April window would be bring patchy revenue if not for the Easter break and the accompanying school holidays (the rainier, the better). From virtual realities to gay romances to prehistoric soccer, the Easter 2018 line-up offers an eclectic mix. SCREEN-SPACE reviews eight new bigscreen entries vying for your non-chocolate Easter dollars (with apologies to SHERLOCK GNOMES, but you kinda know what you’re in with the punny sequel)…

BLOCKERS
Director: Kay Cannon
Stars: Kathryn Newton, John Cena, Leslie Mann, Ike Barinholtz, Gideon Adlon, Geraldine Viswanathan (pictured, above).
Plot: Julie, Kayla and Sam are three high school seniors who make a pact to lose their virginity on prom night. Lisa, Mitchell and Hunter are three overprotective parents who flip out when they find out about their daughters' plans. They soon join forces for a wild and chaotic quest to stop the girls from sealing the deal - no matter what the cost.
Verdict: The ‘capital-C’ comedy moments deliver the pacing and skill that have become de rigeur in this post-Apatow movie world; anything goes, if the timing is right. But the narrative works best when debutant director Kay Cannon applies her understanding of strong independent women; she wrote the Pitch Perfect films and was a key creative on TV series 30 Rock and Girl Boss. Leslie Mann gets an all-too-rare shot at a leading role, and nails it; John Cena and Ike Barinholtz share scene-stealing honours. Admirably, the teen characters are as fully-fleshed out as the protagonists. Middle section sags, but Acts 1 and 3 are hilarious. RATING: 3.5/5

A WRINKLE IN TIME
Director: Ava Duvernay
Stars: Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey (pictured, right), Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Michael Peña, Zach Galifianakis, Chris Pine, Levi Miller.
Plot: Meg Murry and her little brother, Charles Wallace, have been without their scientist father ever since he discovered a new planet and used the concept known as a tesseract to travel there. Joined by Meg's classmate Calvin O'Keefe and guided by the three mysterious astral travelers, the children brave a dangerous journey to a planet that possesses all of the evil in the universe.
Verdict: The desperation of all involved to make this adaptation of Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved YA fantasy novel soar infests this monumental dud. From director Ava Duvernay’s heavy-handed direction to the suffocating special effects to the cumbersome, plodding sentimentality and bloated self-importance that imbues the grinding plot, A Wrinkle in Time throws everything at the screen with no idea as to how to make it gel. A lifeless lead performance from Storm Reid and utter lack of humour doesn’t help; garish set/costume/production design proves nauseating. RATING: 1.5/5  

THE DEATH OF STALIN
Director: Armando Iannuci
Cast: Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Paddy Considine, Rupert Friend, Jason Isaacs, Olga Kurylenko, Michael Palin, Andrea Riseborough, Jeffrey Tambor.
Plot: Moscow, 1953; Soviet leader Joseph Stalin collapses unexpectedly of a brain haemorrhage. A frenetic surge of raw panic spreads like a virus amongst the senior members of the Council of Ministers, as they scramble to maintain order, weed out the competition, and, ultimately, take power. In the end, who will prevail after the death of Stalin?
Verdict: There is ‘political farce’ and then there is Armando Iannuci’s The Death of Stalin, a comedy so black as to almost absorb one’s capacity for laughter. Iannuci’s past pointed barbs designed to tear apart the hypocrisy and immorality of our leaders (TV series Veep and The Thick of It; the feature In The Loop) did the job but left us with one finger grasping humanity; not so The Death of Stalin. It’s funny, but in the same way that joke about the uncle who walks into the woods with his nephew at sunset is funny; we laugh, and we get why we laugh, but everything about the humour is painfully uncomfortable. RATING: 3.5/5

LOVE, SIMON
Director: Greg Berlanti
Stars: Nick Robinson, Josh Duhamel, Jennifer Garner, Tony Hale, Katherine Langford.
Plot: Everyone deserves a great love story, but for 17-year-old Simon Spier, it's a little more complicated. He hasn't told his family or friends that he's gay, and he doesn't know the identity of the anonymous classmate that he's fallen for online. Resolving both issues proves hilarious, terrifying and life-changing.
Verdict: Far too many contemporary teen comedies anoint themselves as ‘Hughes-ian’, desperate to align themselves with the smart, sweet, insightful teen movies of the genre’s golden years, the 80s. Finally, a film earns the accolade; Greg Berlanti’s Love, Simon is a deeply moving, genuinely funny, gorgeously cinematic film that recalls the iconic filmmaker’s outsider classics Sixteen Candles and Some Kind of Wonderful, as well as Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything. That Berlanti’s film might also be at the forefront of the next great teen film era – in which teenage protagonists alter how their world understands and accepts who they are on their terms – makes it an extraordinary achievement. RATING: 4.5/5   

THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE
Director: Aki Kaurasmaki
Stars: Sherwan Haji, Sakari Kuosmanen, Janne Hyytiäinen, Ilkka Koivula.
Plot: When the authorities turn down his application for asylum, Syrian refugee Khaled is forced underground, where travelling-salesman-turned-restauranteur Wikström finds him sleeping in the yard behind his establishment. He offers him a job and a roof over his head and, for a while, they form a Utopian union with the restaurant's waitress, the chef and his dog.
Verdict: The best films from Finnish director Aki Kaurasmaki find the faintest glimmer of hope amongst the darkest deadpan melancholy (Leningrad Cowboys Go to America; The Man Without a Past; Le Havre). The Other Side of Hope may be his most effortlessly constructed yet deeply affecting film to date; it won him the Best Director Silver Bear in Berlin last year. One immigrant’s seemingly insurmountable struggle to deal with his new life in modern Helsinki is real-world funny; there is not a false note in the film’s humanity, despite a reality that at times seems entirely cinematic. RATING: 4/5

EARLY MAN
Director: Nick Park.
Voices: Eddie Redmayne, Tom Hiddleston, Maisie Williams, Miriam Margolyes, Timothy Spall, Rob Brydon, Richard Ayoade
Plot: Plucky caveman Dug, his sidekick Hognob and the rest of their tribe face a grave threat from Lord Nooth, who plans transform their land into a giant mine. Not ready to go down without a fight, Dug and Hognob must unite their people in an epic quest to defeat a mighty enemy - the Bronze Age. The field of battle – the newly-invented realm of the soccer pitch.
Verdict: The Aardman Animation oeuvre aren’t the films you go to for gut-busting laughs. Curse of The Were-Rabbit, Chicken Run and their masterpiece, Shaun the Sheep, were sweet, gentle, character-driven charmers; when Aardman went for broad schtick, with 2012’s The Pirates! Band of Misfits, it produced their least satisfying film. Early Man falls somewhere in between. The high concept comedy seems to circle around inspired moments of mirth; one senses there is a better movie lurking inside director Nick Park’s hit/miss grab at World Cup football fever relevance. The stereotypically ethnic bad guys feel anachronistic in 2018, too. RATING: 2.5/5 

PAUL APOSTLE OF CHRIST
Director: Andrew Hyatt
Stars: James Faulkner, Jim Caviezel, Oliver Martinez, John Lynch, Joanne Whalley.
Plot: Risking his life, Luke ventures to Rome to visit Paul -- the apostle who's bound in chains and held captive in Nero's darkest and bleakest prison cell. Haunted by the shadows of his past misdeeds, Paul wonders if he's been forgotten as he awaits his grisly execution. Before Paul's death, Luke resolves to write another book that details the birth of what will come to be known as the church.
Verdict: The resurgent faith-based film genre grows sturdier with Andrew Hyatt’s retelling of the story of apostle Paul and his mentoring of friend and follower, Luke. Well-crafted and solidly dramatic, the film rises above recent shoddy, preachier Biblical renderings (notably the God-awful Samson, featuring Billy Zane and Rutger Hauer). Not likely to convert any heathen non-believers; the narrative feels deceptively fictitious, which may not please the devout. It is, however, an immensely watchable story, with solid performances from Jim Caviziel (returning to the flock 14 years after his iconic role in The Passion of The Christ), Oliver Martinez and the terrific James Faulkner. RATING: 3/5

READY PLAYER ONE
Director: Steven Spielberg
Stars: Tye Sheridan, Olivia Cooke, Mark Rylance, Simon Pegg, Ben Mendehlson and Hannah John-Kamen.
Plot: In an overpopulated 2045, people have found salvation in the OASIS, an expansive virtual reality universe created by the brilliant if eccentric James Halliday (Mark Rylance). When Halliday dies, he leaves his immense fortune to the first person to find a digital Easter egg, hidden somewhere in the OASIS. When unlikely hero Wade Watts (Tye Sheridan) decides to join the contest, he is hurled into a breakneck, reality-bending treasure hunt through a fantastical universe of mystery, discovery and danger.
Verdict: Should Steven Spielberg, arguably the most influential pop culture figure of the last 40 years and inspiration for much of what author Ernest Cline celebrated in his bestselling novel Ready Player One, be the filmmaker that oversees the blockbuster adaptation? Of course he should; who better to reflect upon the decades that made Spielberg the most successful filmmaker of all time than Spielberg himself. The result is the most playful, exciting and beautifully envisioned Spielberg-directed movie since 2002’s Catch Me If You Can. The great director has some issues wrapping up all the strands of the story; the last half-hour is a bit clunky and he allows some awkward sentimentality to seep in. The journey, however, is filled with some truly wondrous sequences that confirm the director can still craft thrilling popcorn entertainment better than anyone on the planet. RATING: 4/5 

THE ACTRESSES WHO SPUN OSCAR CACHE INTO STUDIO PAYDAYS

Hollywood boardrooms court established brands to soften the ‘no one knows anything’ nature of studio hit-making. And next to money-spinners like Iron Man, Captain America and now, Black Panther, the brand Hollywood loves most is the little golden guy, Oscar. So Oscar Cred-plus-Pop Culture Icon would seem like a sure box office thing, right? With Supporting Actress darling Alicia Vikander (The Danish Girl, 2015) about to debut as gamer-babe Lara Croft and 2015 Best Actress Brie Larson’s MCU shot Captain Marvel in production, we look at four Academy Award winners, each of them a Hollywood leading lady, who banked blockbuster bucks in the wake of Oscar glory. The question is, “Was it worth it…?

ANJELINA JOLIE
HER OSCAR WIN: Best Supporting Actress, GIRL INTERRUPTED (Dir: James Mangold; 1999)
HER FRANCHISE SHOT: As Lara Croft in Paramount Pictures’ LARA CROFT TOMB RAIDER (Dir: Simon West; 2001)
THE VERDICT: When Paramount poured US$115million into a female-led action film in a marketplace with a patchy track record for vidgame adaptations, the studio was banking that the red-hot Oscar winner’s penchant for publicity and four-quadrant appeal would pay dividends. A prime June 15 summer slot opened the door to a US$131million gross (a further US$144million internationally), spinning Jolie’s Supporting Actress cache into box office traction. The hastily cobbled-together 2003 sequel, overseen by Speed director Jan de Bont, killed off Croft’s bigscreen life until 2018’s reboot. (Pictured, right; Anjelina Jolie, with Daniel Craig, in 2001's Lara Croft Tomb Raider)
WORTH IT?: Yes

HALLE BERRY
HER OSCAR WIN: Best Actress, MONSTER’S BALL (Dir: Marc Forster; 2001)
HER FRANCHISE SHOT: As Patience Phillips/Catwoman in CATWOMAN (Dir: Pitof; 2004)
THE VERDICT: Warner Bros had been trying to greenlight a Catwoman feature since Michelle Pfeiffer set screens alight as the feline femme in Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, twenty years prior (both Ashley Judd and Nicole Kidman came close to donning the leather garb). When Halle Berry lifted the Best Actress trophy for Monster’s Ball, stardom beckoned in the form of DC Comic’s most complex female character; Warners sniffed a Batman-sized smash. Instead, the US$100million pic sulked to a US$60million worldwide gross, sunk by a wave of scathing reviews. In his New York Times review, A.O. Scott summed up the disaster that was Catwoman when he stated, “It made me think back fondly on ‘Garfield’”; the late Roger Ebert calls it one of the movies he hates the most. Berry took the response in her professional stride, even accepting in person the Worst Actress trophy at the infamous Golden Raspberry ceremony.
WORTH IT?: God, no.

CHARLIZE THERON
HER OSCAR WIN: Best Actress, MONSTER (Dir: Patty Jenkins; 2003)
HER FRANCHISE SHOT: As Aeon Flux in Paramount Pictures’ ÆON FLUX (Dir: Karyn Kusama; 2005)
THE VERDICT: Paramount sensed a new female-led action tentpole in Æon Flux, the long-in-development adaptation of MTV’s iconic 90s anime heroine; in Charlize Theron, the South African model-turned-Oscar winner due her studio blockbuster breakthrough, they had their dystopian future action lead. But the arthouse audience and critical community who warmed to her as serial killer Aileen Wournos in Patty Jenkin’s Monster (domestic gross, US$34million) showed little interest in her sci-fi action franchise gamble; nor did mainstream audiences, who largely turned their backs on the US$62million flop. An untested blockbuster director (Girlfight’s Karyn Kusama) and a studio regime change that took creative control of the film and dumped it into the early December multiplexes with little fanfare meant that Theron’s Oscar’s glow had long since faded. (Pictured, above; Theron as Aeon Flux)
WORTH IT?: It’s slowly developing the cult following (that it perhaps unconsciously courted), but ask the Paramount bean counters and…no, not worth it.

ANNE HATHAWAY
HER OSCAR WIN: Best Supporting Actress, LES MISERABLES (Dir: Tom Hooper; 2012)
HER FRANCHISE SHOT: As Selina Kyle/Catwoman in the stalled CATWOMAN reboot.
THE VERDICT: This one’s a mystery for the ages. When her take on Catwoman brightened up Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises (2012), the industry buzzed about the potential for a spinoff starring the Les Miserables trophy winner. She took the supporting role of ‘Fantine’ for its prestige value and was weighing up whether Catwoman would be her first post-Oscar leading part (that took another three years, in 2015’s The Intern). In 2012, Nolan stirred the casting pot when asked if Hathaway could carry her own Selina Kyle story. “I certainly think she deserves it,” he told The Gaurdian, “Anne is incredibly precise and articulate about the psychology of the character." As recently as 2016, Hathaway was keeping the dream alive; she told Variety, “I think the Chris Nolan chapter of the Batman story has been wrapped up and I’m part of that, but I love the DC Universe and it would be fun to take a trip back.”
WORTH IT?: We’ll see…

PROGRESSIVE IFFR FILM ROSTER WELCOMES #FEMALEFILMMAKERFRIDAY

The five randomly selected filmmakers below represent a very small cross section of the women directors with works on show in Rotterdam. On any other day we may have profiled Lisa Bruhlmann (Blue My Mind) or Lucie Plumet (Damien Décembre); Rosine Mfetgo Mbakam (Les deux visages d'une femme Bamiléké) or Veronique Sapin (Secret, Lies and Death); Monira Al Qadari (The Craft) or Noemi Sjoberg (Shadows), themselves only a tiny fraction of those whose works are screening at the IFFR. In honour of #femalefilmmakerfriday, we offer these brief bios of five women directors contributing remarkable works to international cinema…

ANNEMARIE JACIR, Dir: Wajib
Having been recognised by the global film publication Filmmaker Magazine as one of the 25 New Faces of Independent Cinema, Palestinian-born Annemarie Jacir (pictured, above) is at the forefront of film culture, education and activism in her homeland. Her 2003 Oscar-nominated short Like Twenty Impossibles was the first Arabic short film ever granted official selection at the Cannes Film Festival. Her feature Salt of this Sea (2008) became the first film directed by a Palestinian woman and was the Palestinian entry for the Foreign Language Oscar, as was her follow-up, When I Saw You, in 2012. She founded Dreams of a Nation, an initiative to promote Palestinian cinema; was amongst the founders of the Palestinian Filmmakers Collective; and, in 2003, launched the nation’s largest travelling film festival. Her IFFR selection, Wajib (2017) is her third feature film.

DEBORAH HAYWOOD, Dir: Pin Cushion
Citing Jane Campion’s Sweetie as a major influence, Brit filmmaker Haywood announced her own presence when her short film debut, Lady Margaret led to her selection as one of Screen International's 2007 Stars of Tomorrow. She quickly earned acclaim for her films Tender (2009); Sis (2011), which received Best Short at the Soho Rushes Film Festival and Best International Fiction Film at WOW Film Festival; Biatch! (2011); and, Tender Tender (2013). Pin Cushion is her feature film debut, the eccentric mother/daughter story chosen to open Critics Week at the Venice Film Festival, ahead of selection for Glasgow and Rotterdam. (Pictured, above; Haywood on the set of Pin Cushion)

CYNTHIA CHOUCAIR, Dir: Counting Tiles
Born in Lebanon, Cynthia Choucair studied film at the prestigious Institut d'études scéniques audiovisuales et cinématographiques, Université Saint-Joseph in Beirut. She broadened her skills as an editor, director and producer on many Lebanese short films and documentaries, most notably Anonymes (1998), Pictures of Life (2000) and Al kursi (2002), her calling-card directorial effort that was selected by festivals worldwide. In 2007, she founded her own production house, Road 2 Films, where she produces documentaries, fiction films and cultural television programs for local Arab and European networks. Her roster of filmmakers includes such young female directors as Sandra Abrass, Lara Zakhour, Farah Kassem, Joelle Abou Chabke, Sabine Choucair and Pascale Abu Jamra. Counting Tiles exhibits all her skills as a documentarian, capturing moments of glee amongst the hardship of refugee life on Lesbos.

CHLOE ZHAO, Dir: The Rider
Of Chinese heritage, Zhao studied political science at Mount Holyoke College in the United States before completing the Graduate Film Program at New York University. Remaining based in the US, she wrote and directed a series of well-received shorts, including Post (2008), The Atlas Mountains (2009) and Daughters (2010). Her first feature film, the Native American family drama Songs My Brothers Taught Me (2015) had its world premiere at Sundance in the US Official Competition category, ahead of its international premiere at Cannes; the film earned festival kudos at Deauville, Jerusalem and Mumbai, as well as the Audience Award at the American Film Institute Festival. Zhao's second feature The Rider (2017), a feminist western, comes to Rotterdam after its Cannes premiere, where the director won the CICAE Art Cinema Award. 

LUISA SEQUERIA, Dir: Who is Barbara Virginia?
Portugese-born Luísa Sequeria studied journalism before entering the the world of filmmaking via documentary projects. Honing her craft in Mozambique at national broadcaster TVM before returning to her homeland, where she spent a decade at Rádio e Televisão de Portugal. Since 2010 she is the artistic director of Shortcutz Porto, one of the region’s leading short film festivals, as well as overseeing the Super 9 Mobile Film Fest, a festival for films made with the mobile phone. Together with the artist Sama she created the experimental animated series Motel Sama (2014) for Canal Brazil. In her debut documentary feature, Who Is Bárbara Virgínia?, Sequeria examines the all-but-forgotten life and career of the first Portugese woman to direct a feature film.