Sydney Film Festival – June 8 - 19, 2011
Sydney film critic Bryn Tilly provides a festival overview and selects his essential viewing for the festival … depending on your movie sensibilities ...
Now in it’s 58th year the SFF is proud to present eleven days of international features and short films; a wealth of cinephilia for movie buffs and film nerds, cinema enthusiasts and big screen aficionados. It’s motion picture heaven!
Festival director Clare Stewart has acquired 161 films from 42 countries, crammed into eleven days at four main venues (State Theatre, Dendy Opera Quays, Event Cinemas – George Street, and the Art Gallery of NSW). This year’s festival looks very exciting indeed! The program indulges itself by describing the festival as “765 deadly bullets, 200 litres of blood, 143 belly laughs, 113 passionate kisses, 99 scary moments, 58 epic journeys, 33 serene moments, 22 blissful reunions, 16 silent standoffs, 15 dastardly betrayals, 14 screaming car chases, 8 bloody revolutions, 7 lost fortunes, and countless tears.” It all sounds frightfully intense and melodramatic, but that’s the way we like it! Cinema is really just sex and death, laughter and tears, at 24 frames a second.
As in recent previous years the festival is separated into mini-programs called “Pathways”. There are six main pathways; Take Me On A Journey, Fire Me Up, Love Me, Push Me To The Edge, Make Me Laugh, Freak Me Out, plus three additional ones, User Generated, Scenario at iCinema, and Creative Drive. Each pathway has a different theme, technique or stylistic; whether it be documentary, comedy, horror, romance, adventure, political intrigue. There is a retrospective of Hollywood melodrama specialist Douglas Sirk.
Each year there is a selection of movies in Official Competition. There are twelve features vying for top prize with acclaimed Chinese director Chen Kaige as special guest jury president.
There are the usual industry talks and workshops, plus a filmmaker studio series, and this year the inclusion of exclusive Meet the Filmmaker talks being held at the Apple store in the CBD. There’s also what promises to be a very entertaining “debate” between veteran film critics Margaret Pomeranz and David Stratton over the clutch of movies that have divided them with polarized opinions.
The official Sydney Film Festival Lounge this year is the Grasshopper in Temperance Lane that was voted Best Small Bar of the year by Australian Bartender magazine.
Here are fifteen picks for the festival. Take them all with a grain of salt, or better yet, a marguerita.
Norwegian Wood (Japan) The director of Cyclo and The Scent of Green Papaya returns with a delicate and melancholic adaptation of Haruki Murakamni’s best-selling novel.
Sleeping Beauty (Australia) Debut feature from the 2000 Young Novelist of the Year, and mentored by Jane Campion. This promises to be a heady and sensual affair.
Take Shelter (US) From the director of Shotgun Stories, one of my favourite festival pics of recent years, and featuring one of my favourite American actors, Michael Shannon, in a psychological thriller.
The Four Times (Italy/Germany/Switzerland) A rustic Calabrian village seemingly untouched since medieval times. This is neither fiction nor documentary, but an epic meditation.
13 Assassins (Japan) The prolific and often surrealist maverick director of cult ultra-violent movies Audition Ichi the Killer and turns his hand to elegant, feudal bloodletting with stunning results.
Three (Germany) The director of Run, Lola, Run indulges in a romantic drama with his own distinct passion and style and infuses it with delicious sexual intrigue.
Brownian Movement (Netherlands/Germany/Belgium) Stripping bare the notion of female desire, this deliberately designed and minimalist feature proclaims a fresh new feminist voice.
Martha Marcy May Marlene (USA). Debut feature that has enjoyed the rare feat of receiving a directing award at Sundance and inclusion for Un Certain Regard at Cannes.
The Troll Hunter (Norway) Scandanavian mythology gets the “found footage” treatment and promises to be a real nail-biter that tickles the funny bone as well as touches the darker heart.
Tryannosaur (UK) From acclaimed actor Paddy Constatine comes a powerful drama based on his own short film; a study of hidden demons and an appetite for violence.
The Trip (UK) Prolific director Michael Winterbottom delivers a comedy of manners about a food writer inviting his friend on tour of the Lake District. Much acerbic humour and improvisational acting ensues.
Top Floor, Left Wing (France) A deft-blend of genre elements tightly edited into a white-knuckle hostage situation of claustrophobic widescreen intensity.
Kill List (UK) A nightmare thriller that begins as a domestic drama then veers off in all sorts of crazed directions. One man’s set of problems provides for a rollercoaster ride of nerve-shredding potency.
El Bulli: Cooking In Progress (Germany) Ferran Adria’s molecular gastronomy and the world-renowned establishment that houses his wild imagination is the subject of intense doco scrutiny, since the restaurant closes at the end of the year!
LBF (Australia) A highly-stylised experiment “pop art film” based on the novel Living Between Fucks by Cry Bloxsome. Expect the unexpected.
Check back here for select movie previews and reviews during the festival.
For the complete Sydney Film Festival program and all screenings times and venues please visit sff.org.au There are various ticketing options, and movies are booking fast, so get in quick!
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