James Clayden, described by Adrian Martin at this year’s Rotterdam Film Festival as ‘one of Australia’s best kept artistic secrets’, returns to MIFF following the screening of his highly acclaimed Ghost Paintings series in 2003. His latest audiovisual collage is a meditation in image and sound on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Employing a symphonic structure, this latest UFO (Unidentified Filmed Object) from Clayden is a haunting and atmospheric work.Read More »
Fascinating artifact from the period of peak European migration into Australia, which can be instructively set alongside the films of Giorgio Mangiamele (one of whose films seems a direct response to Mike & Stefani) and films like Popov’s fascinating “Australia, Australia”.Read More »
IMDB:
Newcastle’ is a coming-of-age/family drama/surfing movie. 17-year old Jesse lives in the shadow of his older brother Victor’s failure to become surfing’s Next Big Thing. Even when he’s in his natural habitat of magnificent surf breaks, his blue-collar future is brought home by the coal barges that constantly line his horizon. Jesse has the natural skills to surf his way out of this reality and onto the international circuit but can he overcome his equally natural ability to sabotage himself? A momentous weekend away with his mates that includes first love and tragedy leads him to discover what’s really important, and also to the performance of a lifetime. Written by Anonymous Read More »
THE BABADOOK was the breakout horror hit of Sundance 2014, and has been terrorising audiences around the world ever since. This creepy, expertly crafted feature has been a critical and audience scary favourite, winning a slew of awards for best film, best actress, best director etc. Which suits Mister Babadook just fine because he is a conceited asshole and loves people heaping praise on his film.Read More »
Quote:
Set in the near-future, technology controls nearly all aspects of life. But when Grey, a self-identified technophobe, has his world turned upside down, his only hope for revenge is an experimental computer chip implant called Stem.Read More »
The relationships of four couples unravel after the discovery of a young woman’s body in Lantana bush in suburban Sydney.Read More »
SHORT SYNOPSIS
A sleepy seaside town, in winter.
Emily (Victoria Thaine), a seventeen-year-old girl, lives with her mother Susan (Susie Porter). Emily never knew her father. According to her mother, he was a “tom cat” – a tourist who wandered into town one summer and was never seen again.
Susan is struggling to forget the past. She hasn’t spoken to her parents for years, not since she shamed the family by falling pregnant at fifteen.
Emily actively pursues a friendship with father-figure Stephen (Robert Mammone), who spends his days fixing boats at the harbour. But Stephen has his own troubles, constantly haunted by the past.
Stephen’s sister Elizabeth (Wendy Hughes) is married to the town policeman Carl (Philip Quast). Elizabeth suspects Carl is being unfaithful but is afraid to uncover the truth. Her son Joel (Khan Chittenden) has a secret love of his own.
When a bible turns up with an intriguing inscription, Emily is the first to realise that hoping for change is not enough.Read More »
Synopsis:
A fight on Everest? It seemed incredible. But in 2013 news channels around the world reported an ugly brawl at 21,000ft as European climbers fled a mob of angry Sherpas. In 1953, New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay had reached the summit in a spirit of co-operation and brave optimism. Now climbers and Sherpas were trading insults – even blows. What had happened to the happy, smiling Sherpas and their dedication in getting foreigners to the top of the mountain they hold so sacred? Determined to explore what was going on, the filmmakers set out to make a film of the 2014 Everest climbing season, from the Sherpas’ point of view. Instead, they captured a tragedy that would change Everest forever. At 6.45am on 18th April, 2014, a 14,000 ton block of ice crashed down onto the climbing route through the Khumbu Icefall, killing 16 Sherpas. It was the worst tragedy in the history of Everest. The disaster provoked a drastic reappraisal about the role of the Sherpas in the Everest industry. SHERPA, tells the story of how, in the face of fierce opposition, the Sherpas united in grief and anger to reclaim the mountain they call Chomolungma. Read More »
Quote:
One of the wonders that a good movie can sometimes achieve is to take us entirely outside the framework of the society to which it will eventually be shown. Fred Schepisi’s “The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith,” an Australian film about a half-aborigine who goes on a savage murder spree against whites, is a movie like that. Its story is told entirely in the moral terms of the raw Australian outback of about 1900, and the racial attitudes in the movie are firmly drawn from that period.Read More »