CANNES: Flying the flag for the Australian genre sector at the 2020 Canneseries Short Form Competition will be the highly-anticipated web-series, Deadhouse Dark, created by Australia’s own horror mastermind Enzo Tedeschi. The series is one of ten international entrants in the competitive strand and will face off against productions from Canada, Finland, Sweden, Argentina, Norway, Poland, The USA and France.
Running concurrently with the annual television mega-market MIP-TV, Canneseries takes place from March 27 to April 1. In 2019, the Australian series Over and Out took top honours and was quickly shepherded into long-form development. This year, the judging panel consists of actors Jamie Bamber (Band of Brothers; NCIS; Battlestar Galactica) and Erin Moriarity (True Detective; The Boys) and French director Timothée Hochet (Relationship; Studio Bagel; Calls).
An anthology of six interconnected horror short films, Deadhouse Dark is anchored by a narrative concerning a woman who receives a mystery box via the ‘dark web’; within the box are items that gradually unveil dark and troubling truths. Slated for an online release in late 2020, the project features actors Nicholas Hope, Zoe Carides, Lauren Orrell, Jenny Wu and Barbara Bingham and directors Rachele Wiggins, Rosie Lourde, Megan Riakos, Denai Gracie and Joshua Long. Tedeschi himself steps into the helmer’s chair for the first episode, an online dating-themed chiller called ‘A Tangled Web We Weave’.
"It's an honour to be premiering this project in such a hallowed space,” says Tedeschi (pictured, above), whose status as one of our leading genre producers is unrivalled in the wake of his features, The Tunnel (2011), A Night of Horror Vol. 1 (2015), Skinford (2017) and Event Zero (2017). “It's the perfect way to kick-off getting the series out to audiences. We're also proud to be representing as the only Aussies in the mix of ten series selected from around the globe. I'm hoping we can find the right partners to be able to move into a longer show format as soon as possible."
One of the sectors’ most vibrantly creative young producers, Rachele Wiggins further enhances her industry standing with her debut behind the camera, directing the segment ‘Mystery Box’. “To be recognised internationally at such a prestigious festival is a huge boon for the Australian genre filmmaking community,” says Wiggins, who co-produced Deadhouse Dark with Tedeschi. “I’m incredibly proud of the wonderful mix of diverse creative voices who made [it] possible, most of whom are emerging talents within the industry. A World Premiere at Canneseries will be an opportunity to showcase that talent and get people to see more of what Australia has to offer.” (Pictured, right; clockwise from top left - Rachele Wiggins, Megan Riakos, Rosie Lourde, Joshua Long, Enzo Tedeschi and Denai Gracie).
‘That talent’ includes Rosie Lourde, who directs Naomi Sequeira in the unsettling ‘Dashcam_013_20191031.mp4’, a car-crash drama told completely from the perspective of a dashboard camera (pictured, below); Megan Riakos, writer and director of ‘No Pain No Gain’, the story of a competitive runner desperate to win at any costs; Denai Gracie, whose ’The Staircase’ follows a group of adventurers as they face what lurks in the supernatural darkness; and, Joshua Long, director of ‘My Empire Of Dirt’ about a ‘death midwife’ tasked with helping a woman ease into a peaceful death despite being haunted by her past.
Principal funding was sourced from Screen Australia, with support granted from Screen Queensland and Silent Assassin Films. Especially developed for an online audience, Deadhouse Dark reflects the changing nature of industry investment, with government funds for the sector increasingly slated for non-theatrical projects. The project provides further evidence of Screen Australia's ongoing re-definition of the production sector, as detailed by Screen Australia's CEO Graeme Mason's recent comments regarding funding and sector development at the Berlin Film Festival.
Established in 2018, the Canneseries Festival was formed with the aim of becoming the voice of the new, popular and ultra-creative short-form visual storytelling, by spotlighting new, promising and innovative formats. The award of Best Short Form Series will be handed out during the festival's Closing Ceremony, which will be broadcast on French broadcast giant, Canal +.
The new film from Australian filmmaker Benedict Andrews explores a time in modern American history when those elected to enforce the will of the people instead turned on society’s progressive left. It was 1969, and the symbolic target of the conservative law enforcers was actress Jean Seberg, an expat American adored by those of her adopted homeland, France, but targeted by The F.B.I. for her views on racial injustice. Starring a remarkable Kristen Stewart, SEBERG captures an America at the dawn of a new, darker time and the young woman who bore the brunt of that shift in values.
Fittingly, SCREEN-SPACE spoke to Andrews as the impeachment proceedings against Donald Trump kicked off. “Over the course of production, history felt like it was accelerating at such a terrifying pace and things in the movie seemed to become more and more relevant,” said the director, from his home in Iceland, “It reflected a deliberate manipulation and lying and you see that in an institutional way.”
SCREEN-SPACE: At the Deauville Film Festival press conference, your leading lady defined Jean Seberg as impulsive, idealistic, naive, but well intentioned. Was Seberg the right sort of superstar at the wrong point in American history?
ANDREWS: Oh, that's an interesting question. The movie is certainly quite transparent about impulsive aspects of her behaviour that might have led her into the mixing up of her romantic life and her political life. But I don't believe that that was what caused the FBI to destroy her. The character ‘Hakim Jamal’ (played by Anthony Mackie) says that she got caught in the crossfire of white America's war on black America. You had a very conservative, reactionary, racist FBI mandate in the COINTELPRO program to basically destroy any chance of black power and change in America, and she allowed herself to be involved in that. Her husband, Romain Gary, said that she had a case of sympathy at first sight and I think she genuinely couldn't stand the injustice in America and unequal playing field in terms of race. So I believe everything that she was doing there was actually extremely well intentioned and from a really strong, clear place. And I think she believed in truth and she believed in having a voice. (pictured, above; Kirsten Stewart as Jean Seberg)
SCREEN-SPACE: Her activism had a public face, via her celebrity, but also a very private, personal aspect…
ANDREWS: I think she genuinely couldn't stand the injustice in America and unequal playing field in terms of race. And, yes, a lot of her activism was relatively private if you compare to her to a much more outspoken, perhaps even grandstanding figure like Jane Fonda. The activism is very much of her time too. It's what became derided by Tom Wolfe [who] invented this derogatory term of ‘radical chic’ for the big Hollywood people being involved in politics. But I think that was very much a move of the Conservative Right’s to undercut [activism], certainly in Jean's case. He wrote that about a buddy of Leonard Bernstein's case and I think there were just attacks on an engaged left within the cultural industry. (Pictured, above; Jean Seberg)
SCREEN-SPACE: Your film comes along at a time when US politics and its very dark undercurrent is being exposed. Does that put a spotlight on this film's view on American politics? Does it give it a pertinent relevance that you may not have otherwise counted on?
ANDREWS: I always kind of knew that 1969 was going to speak to 2019. Jean says, "America, this country's at war with itself." On one hand, the unresolved questions of racial injustice in America, but more especially the question of what we see in the movie, in an embryonic DNA form, the culture that we now live in. You see all the seeds of a culture of mass surveillance. In a very personal way, our narrative shows what happens when privacy is violated and weaponized and turned against somebody for their beliefs. And we see the horrific cost of that in the emotional toll on Jean and the political cost of that in terms of the relationships that are undermined and destroyed. That's something that in a terrifying way is speaking to our times.
SCREEN-SPACE: I get the feeling that there's a lot of people in Washington at the moment who are a lot like FBI agent Jack (played by Jack O’Connell) – patriots torn between allegiance and morality.
ANDREWS: That's what I think is really interesting. There's an echo of an Edward Snowden in there and I was quite aware that the story was ultimately, in a way, going to be about truth. In these early stages of the impeachment hearings, we’re seeing these career bureaucrats stepping up and saying, "Actually I have to speak the truth, even if I'm going to risk something in that. I don't believe in what's going on." And Jack goes from [being] a soldier who believes in the war, to realizing that the institution he's in is fighting a dirty war that he can't believe in any anymore.
SCREEN-SPACE: I'm hopeful that if any good is going to come out of the current political climate, it will be a return to what I think is the last great era of American filmmaking, the 1970s, and cinema's strength at interpreting the times; films like The Parallax View, The Conversation, All the President’s Men. Hopefully Seberg is at the forefront of a new introspection in our cinema.
ANDREWS: I hope so. They were very important movies for me in this. I mean you've touched upon nearly all of them. Medium Cool was also really important for me, which is a little looser, freer film, in a way. I love the tensions of those cooler thrillers. Klute was really important, too, because it has a woman at the centre of it and that strange relationship with her and Donald Sutherland that reminded me of the Jean/Jack relationship. Those films are so important because they come at a time of absolute crisis in the political identity of the country. We used the similar lenses, the Panavision C-series lenses in order to reference them and we have a couple of nods to The Conversation. One of my favourite shots in the movie is where the camera drifts through the van, Jack's there and the two black girls come up and do their makeup. That's a really deliberate homage to a scene where Gene Hackman's looking out and you see the two women come and do their makeup. It's just a beautiful metaphor for the screen of cinema, but also it shows us the drug of surveillance that Jack has there, which you don't want the audience to think about this while they're watching It's exactly the same drug they have watching on a screen. (Pictured, above; Stewart and Andrews, on-set)
SCREEN-SPACE: We should have a chat about your leading lady. I love the line describing Jean that says she's bigger in France than she is here and that talks very much to Kristen. What was the methodology you and she employed in crafting the Seberg character?
ANDREWS: Yeah, she was the perfect fit. There is no version of this movie without her in it. I think that the movies happen when they're meant to happen. This was a story that people have been trying to get made at different points in time and the script had a couple of other lives before I came on board. I really believe that things come to life when the film gods want them to; the political relevance of the movie is one of those reasons, but the other really is Kristen. It's kind of a miracle to have this young American actress who has an understanding of what it means to work in mainstream Hollywood and to work in French cinema. I think she and Jean Seberg, and maybe Jane Fonda, are the only people to achieve that. For both of them to be style icons, for both of them to have this forward looking yet classical fashion sense and both of them have such a singular idiosyncratic and androgynous look was also just incredible. They were both thrust into the public eye at a very tender age, Jean with the competition for the Saint Joan film of Preminger and Kristen obviously following on from the Fincher movie (Panic Room) with the Twilight films and both of them, perhaps Jean more so, had a tough time with the domestic press, were both treated a bit unfairly. (Pictured, above; l-r, Anthony Mackie, Zazie Beetz, Stewart, Andrews, Jack O'Connell and Margaret Qualley)
SCREEN-SPACE: Her unconventionality suits a film that is an unconventional biopic.
ANDREWS: I'm bored shitless of one-way biopics. And I was never interested in an actress who would only do an impersonation. I knew very quickly from Kristen and just also having an impulse about the type of actress that she was that that wasn't really the case. We were going to be able to find Jean together from the inside out. And I'm just so incredibly impressed and proud of how she puts herself on the line and how in this performance she transforms in a way that she hasn't in other movies. She has a huge emotional range in it. We watched a lot of Jean's films together. She had a voice coach, but we decided to only make the smallest alteration to her voice. She was just really prepared to put herself on the line and to really go there. And I felt we just had a really good trust and then this special thing happened that you hope for in a director, actor relationship, where it starts to become a dance.
SEBERG is in selected Australian cinemas from January 30 through ICON Films.
‘Marjoe Gortner’ is not a name often mentioned when the Hollywood A-list of the swingin’ ‘70s and ‘80s is recalled, but at the time, the Californian native was very much part of the scene. Having soared to notoriety/fame in the wake of the Oscar-winning documentary Marjoe (1972), the gripping expose of the boy-preacher whose name is an amalgam of ‘Mary’ and ‘Joseph’, the charismatic showman turned to acting. His golden mane and pearly whites were seen in Earthquake (1974), Bobbie Jo and the Outlaw (1976), Food of The Gods (1976) and Viva Knievel! (1977); in 1978, he made his worst film, the now infamous Star Wars rip-off, Starcrash, and his best, When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? The enigmatic star then spent three decades guest-starring in episodic television and riding the home video boom years with bit parts in B-movies with names like Mausoleum (1983), Jungle Warriors (1984), Hellhole (1985) and American Ninja 3: Blood Hunt (1989).
John Harrison has been intrigued by the larger-than-life presence of the child-evangelist-turned-movie star for all of those decades. The Melbourne-based author, whose encyclopaedic knowledge of and passion for the pulp extrtemiries of society has made him one of the most respected figures in Australia’s counter-culture community, examines the actor’s early life and filmography in his recently-published book, WILDCAT! The Films of Marjoe Gortner. “His story is a unique one,” Harrison (pictured, below) told SCREEN-SPACE, “so he will endure.”
SCREEN-SPACE: Why does Marjoe Gortner hold such a fascination for you?
JOHN: I guess my fascination with Marjoe Gortner began from the first time I saw him, when I snuck off into the city as a kid to see a double-bill of Squirm(1976) and Food of the Gods(1976). Marjoe’s leading role in the later really appealed to me, as did his striking looks and rather exotic name. There just seemed to be a unique air that surrounded him on screen, and whenever I saw his name show up on a movie poster or as a guest star in the opening credits of a TV show, I always made it a point to watch it, even if it was something I wouldn’t normally have much interest in.
However, it wasn’t until I accidently caught a late-night TV screening of When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? (1979) in the late-80s that I really began to investigate Marjoe’s career further. That film had such an impact on me, I was working part-time at a video store in St. Kilda at the time, and when I went in to work the next day and discovered we had the Roadshow VHS of When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? on the shelf, I pretty much played it on the shop’s TV constantly, and took it home at least once a week to watch and study it properly. When the video store eventually closed its doors, the owner said I could take any five VHS tapes from the shelves, so of course Red Ryder was the first tape I went for, and still have it in the collection today.
Marjoe was still just an actor in my head at this point. It was in the early-90s that I first became aware of his past as a child preacher and evangelist, which naturally only made him more interesting to study, since acting and preaching both involve performance and playing a character and convincing people you are something or someone that you really aren’t.
SCREEN-SPACE: Was he an actor? An opportunist? A businessman, supremely skilled at selling himself? How does he fit in the landscape of 70s/80s Hollywood?
JOHN: I think the most accurate answer would be that he was a combination of these things. He was certainly an opportunist, using his notoriety as a child preacher and the success of the 1972 documentary about him as a springboard to Hollywood. But it certainly wasn’t just a chance thing, he had been taking acting and singing lessons well before the documentary hit. He was also definitely a businessman, and a pretty good one. After seeing none of the untold sums of money that he brought in during his child preaching days (most of which was taken by his father after he spilt), Marjoe made sure people never took financial advantage of him ever again. Bobbie Bresse, the actress he starred opposite in Mausoleum (1983), once relayed in an issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland that Marjoe told her to always get the money up front, and said every week a long black limo would pull up onto the set and two guys would step out and deliver a big black bag, filled with what she assumed was money, directly to Marjoe’s trailer! (Pictured, above; Gortner as 'Jody' in Earthquake)
As for how he fits into the overall landscape of the Hollywood of his era, I would say that he has definitely earned his place in pop culture. His early years were well documented on film, in print and on record albums, and a lot of the films and television shows he worked on have become cult classics of a kind. He was definitely of his time, and the fact that he completely turned his back on performing in the late-90s and now refuses to talk about or even acknowledge his past as either a preacher or an actor, only adds to his mystique.
SCREEN-SPACE: For those new to the Greatness of Gortner, which film should be the entry point?
JOHN: I would have to go with When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder (1979; pictured, right, Gortner with co-stars Hal Linden and Lee Grant). It is easily his best onscreen performance and it’s such a galvanizing film. Marjoe is truly terrifying in it, and he is surrounded by a great ensemble cast that really breathe life and tension into the characters and story, which was adapted by Mark Medoff from his stage play.
Of course, the Oscar-winning documentary Marjoe(1972) is also essential viewing for anyone wanting to understand the Marjoe mythos, and if you want to see him in something that is just plain 70s genre fun you can’t go past watching him fend off giant chickens with a pitchfork in Food of the Gods (1976).
SCREEN-SPACE: If there is a perception of Marjoe that you hope people take from your book, what would it be?
JOHN: While my book naturally covers Marjoe’s childhood and days as a child preacher, I wasn’t interested in writing some tell-all about his private life. Wildcat! is an examination of his filmography, so I hope it will give readers an appreciation of his work and just how prolific and diverse he was during his time in Hollywood. I hope people will use it in the same way that I used books like The Psychotronic Encyclopedia of Film and Incredibly Strange Films in the 80s, as a roadmap to seek out some films or TV shows they may not have been aware of, or completely forgotten about. And to discover a new appreciation for them, and in turn, Marjoe.
WILDCAT! The Films of Marjoe Gortner is available via its publisher, BearManor Media, Amazon, and wherever all good books are sold.
The pure love for the magic of cinema with which the Screenwave International Film Festival (SWIFF) has always been curated is more evident than ever in 2020. Launching January 9 in Coffs Harbour and Bellingen on the New South Wales’ mid north coast, the 5th annual SWIFF will present 72 feature films from 20 countries over 15 days in a program that solidifies the regional community’s film celebration as one of Australia’s most important cultural events.
“For as long as I can remember, I’ve been in love with films,” says Festival Co-director Kate Howat who, with partner and fellow co-director Dave Horsley (pictured, below; left, with Howat) handling logistics, spends the best part of her year sourcing acclaimed local and international works. “This is a festival by film lovers for film lovers. Even if you don’t know it yet, I guarantee there’s something here just for you.”
Adds Horsley, “In an ever-shifting cinemascape, [with] lots of interesting conversations going on between streaming services and cinemas, one thing is clear - films are playing a bigger role in our lives.” He cites the year-to-year growth of attendance numbers as evidence of just how crucial film festival culture is to the diverse demographics of the region. “To see the festival turn such a significant corner – with over 70% of all weekend sessions sold out last year – gives the greenlight for the boldest and biggest SWIFF line-up yet.”
That bold approach can be seen in the films chosen to top and tail this year’s roster. Opening Night honours have gone to Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit, a sweet natured if occasionally caustic coming-of-age tale set in Nazi Germany, featuring Der Führer (played with typical satirical verve by the director) as the buffoonish imaginary friend of an impressionable, nationalistic Aryan boy (Roman Griffin Davis).
Closing out the festival will be one of the few big screen sessions afforded Justin Kurzel’s hotly-anticipated, critically-lauded True History of the Kelly Gang, starring George McKay, Essie Davis, Nicholas Hoult, Charlie Hunnam and Russell Crowe. Festivalgoers will join the growing legion of fans of Thomasin McKenzie, with the New Zealand actress playing key roles in both films.
The World Premiere of Ryan Jasper’s debut feature doc Monks of The Sacred Valley emerges as the centerpiece film in SWIFF’s Australian film strand, which features twelve of the year’s most acclaimed domestic efforts. Set to unspool are Josephine Macerras’ festival-circuit hit, Alice; Jennifer Kent’s brutal revenge thriller, The Nightingale; the human-trafficking saga Bouyancy, with director Rodd Rathjen attending to discuss the making of his Berlinale award winner; and, Maya Newell’s In My Blood it Runs (pictured, right), an intimate study of 10 year-old indigenous boy Dujuan’s struggle to reconcile his heritage and contemporary culture.
Earning its stripes as a global film event, SWIFF will screen new works from such revered auteurs as Terrence Malick (A Hidden Life); Francois Ozon (By The Grace of God); Olivier Assayas (Non-Fiction, with Juliette Binoche); Pedro Almodovar (Pain and Glory, with Antonio Banderas and Penelope Cruz); and, Ken Loach (Sorry We Missed You). Anticipating huge demand amongst local cinephiles, three sessions have been locked in for Celine Sciamma’s Portrait of a Lady on Fire, the moment’s most talked-about arthouse hit and winner of the Cannes’ Best Screenplay and Queer Palm honours in 2019. Says Howat, “[It’s] a burning testament to love and friendship with an ecstatic ending for the ages.”
There is a darker hue to the SWIFF 2020 line-up with some of the year’s most challenging works playing in strands designed for the more fearless filmgoer. The weird and wonderful films in the ‘Wild Side’ line-up include Nicholas Cage and Joely Richardson in renegade director Richard Stanley’s adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s parasitic alien invasion head trip, Colour Out of Space and wild and crazy director Gaspar Noe’s reverse-cut re-edit of his shocking masterwork, now titled Irreversible: Inversion Integrale. The strand ‘Let’s Talk About Sects’ will feature director Ari Aster’s cut of Midsommar, with a whopping 22-minutes of flowers, folk music and full-daylight gore reinstated into the wildly-divisive original version. Also slated is Australian Pia Borg’s short Demonic, a look back at the Satanic Panic hysteria of the 1980s, set to play in a double-feature session with co-directors Britt Poulton and Dan Madison Savage’s cult-commune drama, Them That Follow, starring Australian actress Alice Englert; pictured, above).
Two very different takes on ‘Classic Cinema’ will highlight the Retrospective sessions at SWIFF 2020. The brilliance of Italian film maestro Frederico Fellini will be celebrated with screenings of his classics 8½ (1983) and La Dolce Vita (1960), while arguably the greatest silly comedy of all time, Airplane! (aka Flying High!) from the twisted minds of the Zucker/Abrahams team, will be celebrated with a one-off 40th anniversary screening.
The 2020 Screenwave International Film Festival runs January 9-24 at the Jetty Memorial Theatre, Coffs Harbour, and the Bellingen Memorial Hall, Bellingen. Full program details, session times and ticketing information can be found on the official website.
Takeaways from the year in cinema include the forced retirement of some once-glorious franchise friends (Terminator Dark Fate; X-Men Dark Phoenix; Rambo Last Blood); the resounding indifference to remakes/reboots/rehashes (Charlie’s Angels; Pet Semetary; Hellboy; Shaft); and, the struggle faced by marketers when selling specialised content (despite pre-release hype and critical buzz, Midsommar sputtered to US$43million globally). Australia produced a legitimate homegrown hit with Ride Like a Girl (US$8.5million), but otherwise found the marketplace tough (Storm Boy, US$4million; Danger Close, US$2million; The Nightingale, a paltry US$0.5million, despite critical acclaim).
But there was much to feel optimistic about. Despite what the HFPA would have you believe, women directors have made some of the year’s best films (40% of my Top 30 are female helmed); Oscars 2019 recognised diversity (in their own baby-step way) when handing out the Golden Guy, even if Best Picture winner, Green Book, carried with it some ugly baggage; and, quite hilariously, the young, white male web-overlords freaked the f*** out when the CATS trailer dropped (apparently, if you’re going to prance around in tights and makeup, you better be in a Marvel movie). Anyway, here are our favourites of 2019 (with their Rotten Tomatoes % included, to show how much we really run with the pack on this stuff)…
10. KNIVES OUT (Dir: Rian Johnson; 130 mins; USA; 97%) Starved of ol’ fashioned star-driven ensemble romps, audiences and critics alike reacted to Rian Johnson’s ripping murder/mystery yarn as if a genre had been borne. Knives Out isn’t new cinema (seek out Sidney Lumet’s Deathtrap, from 1982, for starters), but it pulsed with a crisp freshness and giddy sense of fun the likes of which rarely survive studio suits interference.
9. HOMECOMING: A FILM BY BEYONCE (Dir: Beyoncé Knowles-Carter; 137 mins; USA; 98%) The vivacity and vision that Beyoncé displayed in staging her Coachella 2018 set is captured with a potency that leaves the viewer breathless in Homecoming. Her music, her motives, her motherhood – the icon stamps this moment in her country’s history as her own in a behind-the-scenes concert film that ranks amongst the best ever.
8. WORKING WOMAN (ISHA OVEDET) (Dir: Michal Aviad; 93 mins; Israel; 97%) “The piercing humanistic precision that Michal Aviad honed with her decades as one of the world’s finest documentarians serves her well..” Read the SCREEN-SPACE review here.
7. COLOR OUT OF SPACE (Dir: Richard Stanley; 110 mins; USA; 87%) The combination of talents is irresistible to the cult cinema crowd – be he brilliant or barmy, director Richard Stanley; author of the alien invasion source story, H.P Lovecraft; and the mad maestro himself, Nicholas Cage. The finished product is a B-movie fever-dream; a twisted, terrifying, exhilarating nightmare of family angst and parasitic world domination.
6. BOOKSMART (Dir: Olivia Wilde; 101 mins; USA; 97%) A coming-of-age teen comedy with heavy doses of blue humour shouldn’t feel so fresh, be so funny, or pack an emotional punch like Olivia Wilde’s directorial debut managed. With Beanie Feldstein and Kaitlyn Dever (pictured, top; far left) inhabiting their co-lead roles and a thematic through-line in acceptance tugging at the heartstrings, Booksmart is so much more than the Superbad-for-girls the trailer promised.
5. WILD ROSE (Dir: Tom Harper; 101 mins; UK; 93%) The balance between dreams, talent and the roots that give them meaning have rarely been so acutely portrayed as in Tom Harper’s Wild Rose. As Rose-Lynn Harlan, the Glaswegian ex-con with a voice that fills the room and raises the roof, Jessie Buckley is a revelation; by the time she belts out ‘No Place Like Home’, her tears and triumphs bring emotions that only great rags-to-riches-to-rags stories deliver.
4. ALICE (Dir: Josephine Mackerras; 103 mins; UK | France | Australia; 100%) In this story of a French woman cocooned by the façade of a dishonest marriage and her rise to independence, Josephine Mackerras has crafted a moving, funny, immediate #MeToo superheroine. As Alice, Emilie Piponnier (pictured, right, and top right) is the Australian director’s perfect foil; her emergence on-screen as a self-reliant, sexually energised woman in charge of her own destiny is the character arc of the year.
3. AD ASTRA (Dir: James Gray; 124 mins; USA; 84%) ‘Mr Serious Filmmaker’ James Gray tackling a science-fiction story (essentially Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, with added daddy issues) had us all intrigued; most critics liked it, audiences not so much (tapped out at US$130million globally). A dark reflection on legacy, masculinity and the pain of truthful self-discovery meant Gray was in his high-minded element, but he didn’t skimp on genre prerequisites (the year’s best VFX) and a subversive ‘movie star’ presence in Brad Pitt’s nuanced performance.
2. PORTRAIT OF A LADY ON FIRE (PORTRAIT DE LA JEUNE FILLE EN FEU) (Dir: Céline Sciamma; 121 mins; France; 97%) How does the artist capture a subject who refuses to be observed, who refutes closeness of any kind? Writer/director Céline Sciamma painstakingly unravels the constraints of 18th decorum and privilege to capture a physical and spiritual connection between two women, alone on an isolated Brittany island. Embodying the soaring, doomed romantic liaison are actresses Noémie Merlant and Adèle Haenel, whose performances connect as only the greatest of screen lovers can.
1. ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD (Dir: Quentin Tarantino; 161 mins; USA; 85%) “[Tarantino’s] heart is in this film, for the first time afforded as much input as his fan-boy passion and film culture knowledge…” Read the SCREEN-SPACE review here.
The next 20 (in no particular order; with their Rotten Tomatoes %, where possible) are also great, so please seek them out…: REPOSSESSION (Dirs: Ming Siu Goh, Scott C. Hillyard; 96 mins; Singapore; N/A) LITTLE WOMEN (Dir: Greta Gerwig; 134 mins; USA; 96%) KNIVES AND SKINS (Dir: Jennifer Reeder; 112 mins; USA; 72%) ROMANTIC COMEDY (Dir: Elizabeth Sankey; 78 mins; UK; 100%) THE PEANUT BUTTER FALCON (Dirs: Tyler Nilson, Michael Schwartz; 97 mins; USA; 95%) ATLANTICS (Dir: Mati Diop; 106 mins; France | Senegal | Belgium; 95%) THE GOLD-LADEN SHEEP AND THE SACRED MOUNTAIN (SONA DHWANDI BHED TE SUCHHA PAHAD (Dir: Ridham Janve; 97 mins; India; N/A) UNDER THE SILVER LAKE (Dir: David Robert Mitchell; 139 mins; USA; 58%) READY OR NOT (Dir: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett; 95 mins; USA; 88%) KLAUS (Dirs: Sergio Pablos, Carlos Martínez López; 96 mins; Spain | UK; 92% THE BEACH BUM (Dir: Harmony Korine; 95 mins; USA; 55%) HUSTLERS (Dir: Lorene Scafaria; 107 mins; USA; 88%) CAPTAIN MARVEL (Dir: Anna Boden, Ryan Fleck; 123 mins; USA; 78%) PARASITE (GISAENGCHUNG) (Dir: Boon Jong Ho; 132 mins; Korea; 99%) TOY STORY 4 (Dir: Josh Cooley; 90 mins; USA; 97%) THE REPORT (Dir: Scott Z. Burns; 119 mins; USA; 82%) APOLLO 11 (Dir: Todd Douglas Miller; 93 mins; USA; 99%) THE FURIES (Dir: Tony D’Aquino; 82 mins; Australia; 60%) JOJO RABBIT (Dir: Taika Waititi; 108 mins; New Zealand | Czech Republic; 79%) MOSLEY (Dir: Kirby Atkins; 96 mins; New Zealand | China; N/A)
THE WORST FILMS OF 2019: Todd Phillip’s Joker was a puerile, garish, tone-deaf shout-out to angry white males who responded en masse, as was the plan. Disney plundered its vaults and manufactured a series of awful live-action/CGI abominations that reeked of cash-grab cynicism and stockholder pandering - the hideous Mary Poppins Returns and unnecessarily mean-spirited Dumbo; The Lion King was ok, but ‘not as bad as we expected’ is faint praise. A lot of critics played the ‘its big, dumb, fun card’ in cutting slack to the idiotic brand-extension film, Fast & Furious Present: Hobbs & Shaw, while the more mature filmgoer had to contend with their own dire movie moments, in grotesque melodrama (Isabelle Huppert in Greta) and boomer privilege fantasy (director Rachel Ward’s insufferable Palm Beach). The Worst Film of 2019, and by some measure, is Sony’s risible attempt to rekindle the MIB franchise, MEN IN BLACK: INTERNATIONAL. Directed by the utterly disinterested F. Gary Gray, this mish-mash of poor effects and grab-bag plotting hoped to exploit the chemistry generated by Thor Ragnarok co-stars Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth, but the film leaves Thompson clutching at thin air character-wise and Hemsworth…well, he’s no Will Smith. Handing this horror-show over to Kumail Nanjiani’s comic-relief CGI alien to salvage at the midway mark is testament to the vacuum of creativity on show.
Friday, February 28, 2020 at 1:18PM 
An anthology of six interconnected horror short films, Deadhouse Dark is anchored by a narrative concerning a woman who receives a mystery box via the ‘dark web’; within the box are items that gradually unveil dark and troubling truths. Slated for an online release in late 2020, the project features actors Nicholas Hope, Zoe Carides, Lauren Orrell, Jenny Wu and Barbara Bingham and directors Rachele Wiggins, Rosie Lourde, Megan Riakos, Denai Gracie and Joshua Long. Tedeschi himself steps into the helmer’s chair for the first episode, an online dating-themed chiller called ‘A Tangled Web We Weave’.
One of the sectors’ most vibrantly creative young producers, Rachele Wiggins further enhances her industry standing with her debut behind the camera, directing the segment ‘Mystery Box’. “To be recognised internationally at such a prestigious festival is a huge boon for the Australian genre filmmaking community,” says Wiggins, who co-produced Deadhouse Dark with Tedeschi. “I’m incredibly proud of the wonderful mix of diverse creative voices who made [it] possible, most of whom are emerging talents within the industry. A World Premiere at Canneseries will be an opportunity to showcase that talent and get people to see more of what Australia has to offer.” (Pictured, right; clockwise from top left - Rachele Wiggins, Megan Riakos, Rosie Lourde, Joshua Long, Enzo Tedeschi and Denai Gracie). 
Principal funding was sourced from Screen Australia, with support granted from Screen Queensland and Silent Assassin Films. Especially developed for an online audience, Deadhouse Dark reflects the changing nature of industry investment, with government funds for the sector increasingly slated for non-theatrical projects. The project provides further evidence of Screen Australia's ongoing re-definition of the production sector, as detailed by Screen Australia's CEO Graeme Mason's recent comments regarding funding and sector development at the Berlin Film Festival. 
