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Careless Love Opening Night + Q&A
With director John Duigan ('The Year My Voice Broke') and cast Nammi Le and Peter O’Brien. THU 17 MAY – 7pm RITZ CINEMA, 45 St Pauls Street, Randwick NSW 2031 TICKETS ON-SALE – book now www.ritzcinema.com.au “Careless Love” tells the story of...
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LET THE FESTIVITIES BEGIN. A DAILY BLOG.
The 56th Sydney Film Festival kicked off last night with the festival’s director Clare Stewart calling upon punters to come and see a diverse range of films, some they may never see again.
Earlier, a strong line up of film and television stars including Claudia Karvan, Miranda Otto, Rachael Taylor, Dan Wyllie, Sacha Horler, Emma Lung, Matthew Newton, Pia Miranda, Rachel Ward and Bryan Brown walked the red carpet as did the festival’s pin-up mascot, a pug known only as well.... Pug, all bulgy-eyed and dressed to the nines in black tie.
Alongside this year’s Official Jury President director Rolf de Heer, Miranda Otto is one of the judges in this year’s competition which features 12 films vying for the $60,000 prize including the latest from Ken Loach, Looking for Eric and Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience. On the red carpet, Otto told Filmink that she was looking forward to taking in the diversity offered by world cinema. “I’ve never been asked to professionally give my opinion on other people’s work so I think it’ll be really fun,” she said. “The main thing that really interests me is actually seeing an overview of films from different countries and to see where everybody’s at and how Australian films sit in the world picture, what concerns are being brought up overseas.”
And just what is Otto looking forward to most about taking her chair on the judging panel? “I’m really looking forward to a heated discussion, passionate banging of tables and throwing wine in each other’s faces!” she laughs.
Also in official competition are Australian features Disgrace based on the Booker Prize winning novel by J.M Coetzee and starring John Malkovich, and Rachel Ward’s feature directorial debut Beautiful Kate, starring Rachel Griffiths as well as local film luminary Bryan Brown who also co-produced. “I was just very pleased for her [Ward] for the film to be in competition in her home city as well as the fact that I’m a Sydney boy and I’m really glad that I’m in a film that’s screening at the festival,” said Brown.
The third feature from former Young Australian of the Year Khao Do, Missing Water will also vie for the top prize. On the red carpet, director/screenwriter Do, reportedly in the final throes of editing with only days before the film screens, seemed chuffed to be in competition with the likes of Loach and Soderbergh while executive producer and best-selling author Matthew Reilly told Filmink what initially drew him to the project. “What really attracted me to the script at first was that here in Australia we see asylum seekers when they arrive in boats but we don’t see what happens on the boat,” he said. “It really has something to say.”
Other local films in a strong line up screening out of competition include the tragic and beautifully captured road movie Last Ride with Hugo Weaving, the hot seller Cedar Boys from writer/director Serhat Caradee, a tale of ‘truckie love in David Caesar’s Prime Mover and the claymation $9.99.
Underbelly ulumni Gyton Grantley’s pick is Prime Mover “because it’s got a great actor in it called Gyton Grantley who has a cameo with a handle bar moustache!” Claudia Karvan who lends her voice to one of the many characters in the Altman-like $9.99 told Filmink “the script was great, the story was so unusual and bleak but charming and starkly witty.”
This year’s festival opened with Ken Loach’s Looking for Eric, a poignant, at times brutal portrait of a depressed man on the brink who is inexplicably visited upon by French soccer great Eric Cantona whenever he needs guidance. While still in the working class milieu Loach is well known for dwelling, it’s a surprising and infectiously funny film with the opening night audience wrapped up in many a laugh-out-loud moment. The naturalistic performances are all strong, particularly Steve Evets who gives the beffudled soccer fan, Eric Bishop, a warmth of heart and integrity, while Cantona, admittedly playing his charismatic-self puts in an enjoyable performance. As it veers from drab melancholy to wry comedy with brutal shocks in between, Looking for Eric at times borders on the farcical and the interludes with Cantona – who himself had a hand in devising the concept for the film – take a little getting used to as do the provincial accents but overall, it’s a thoroughly entertaining look at one man’s efforts to right the wrongs of the past, to stand up for yourself and rekindle the joys of life.
