Commencing on the 8th June,
the Annual Sydney Film Festival (now in its 58th year) promises to be a sterling celebration of modern cinema from around the world. Perhaps not as glitzy as Cannes, nor as iconic as Sundance or Toronto, the SFF has in any case plenty to recommend it, with one of the most impressively diverse film line ups I've had the pleasure of glancing over in a long time. Fifth generation Chinese director
Chen Kaige (Farewell My Concubine) is Jury President of the Official Competition where 12 films will be in competition for the $60,000 film prize. The festival will open with a Gala premiere of
Joe Wright's (Atonement, Pride and Prejudice) pursuit thriller
Hanna, with Aussie's answer to Meryl Streep actress
Cate Blanchett in attendance on the red carpet and will close with
Mike Mills' (Thumbsucker) Toronto Film Festival triumph, the drama of later life-changing surprises
Beginners that stars
Ewan McGregor and a nicely offbeat
Christopher Plummer. Alas my press pass doesn't allow me to attend either film (or bask in the drink swigging allure of the after parties) but there's so much good quality meat on the proverbial bone in between that this is but a minor qualm.
First we have the ones we all know about. From the return of everyone's favourite cult charismatic Dutchman -
Rutger Hauer in lead acting form with the Grindhous-esque 70s vigilante teaser
Hobo with a Gun. Then we have
Martin Scorsese's doco love
Letter to Elia' Kazan,
Werner Herzog's well publicised foray into 3D glory with
Cave of Forgotten Dreams,
Morgan Spurlock's conceptually brilliant
Greatest Movie Ever Sold and, then, an ode to all things horrorifically cheap and deliciously tacky with
Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel - a full on praise singing doco of B-movie king
Roger Corman that is littered with talking heads as diverse as Dick Miller, Eli Roth and Jack Nicholson. Even more eye-opening are the tempting surprise possibilities.
Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy Mary Marlene is a trailer intriguing Funny Games influenced US thriller that appears to blend Lynchian nightmarish intrigue with Haneke haunting paranoia.
Tucker & Dale vs Evil has the allure of a teasingly funny US horror full of tick box, nod and wink references to classic seventies horror lure, while on the slightly serious side
Stake Land continues the contemporary Vampire craze but with an 'end of the world' The Road type epidemic premise.
Tyrannosaur will no doubt be a no less than stellar directorial debut by indie friendly
Paddy Considine, while
Take Shelter sees the welcome return of always impressive character actor
Michael Shannon - this time in an ideal lead role as a could-be- completely-nuts Armageddon theorist in
Jeff Nichols family drama thriller.
Then there's
Michelle Williams in modern western
Meek's Cutoff,
Ben Foster on-the-road with
Here and
Brendan Gleeson coupled with
Don Cheadle in comedy drama
The Guard which is set in Wales but has an encouraging In Bruges twinge. On the non-western front we have the deliciously off-beat prospects of Japanese coming-of-age 'Asia with attitude' action beastie
Mutant Girls Squad,
Takashi Miike's feudal sword slicing remake
13 Assassins and in the other arena social injustice Mao regime feature
The Ditch and Still Life director
Jia Zhangke's poetic portrait of the ever evolving Shanghai in
I Wish I Knew. On the Aussie front is
Third Star, expat Aussie editor turned debutante director
Hattie Dalton's Wales-set drama comedy, the culture clash drama and
Guy Pearce starrer
33 Postcards and
Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure - an eighties set documentary recording phenomenon for the YouTube generation. And these films are only a few plucked from a promising Ozexcellianto line-up.
Here's hoping there will also be plenty of time to touch base on
Target - a Russian future-fi Battle Royale themed thriller,
Corridor a Swede claustrophobic Hitchcockian apartment-confined thriller or a host of Iranian (Crimson Gold, The Circle...), Mexican (Even the Rain with Gael Garcia Bernal), South African, Argentinean and European exploits that look set to stagger the cinema-going world. Stay tuned for daily coverage of as much of these slices of celluloid that I can muster from the biggest Film Festival down under...