latest notices
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...
Film Producing with Metro Screen
Metro Screen, Paddington Town Hall, Sydney(NSW)
Winners of Australian Directors' Guild Awards Announced
(Nationwide)
Gold Coast Indie Film & Television Network Presents 'Getting Behind The News'
Gold Coast(QSL)
latest news
The Sapphires To Open Melbourne International Film Festival
The feel-good feature is set to kick off the Melbourne film festivities.
Screen Australia Invests in 16 Features
An eclectic set of projects have been granted funding...
De Niro & Douglas To Headline ‘Last Vegas’
The two legendary gents look to be starring in this comedy centred around a Las Vegas bachelor party.
‘Housos’ Get Big Screen Outing
Writer/director/comedian Paul Fenech is set to make his debut feature.
search the site
newsletter
Enter your email address below to receive the weekly Filmink newsletter
ON YOUR MARKS – DAY 2 OF SYDNEY FILM FEST. A DAILY BLOG
After the industry and punters had partied the opening night away, it was time to settle in to some serious screen gazing.
Filmink got the ball rolling with the gripping Burma VJ which mixes compellingly raw footage and reenactments to capture a rare uprising of Burmese nationals in 2007 against one of the most repressive regimes in the world. The footage generated from Rangoon comes from video journalists (or VJs) of the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB), a covert organisation whose sole purpose is to document the horrific violation of human rights perpetrated by the government (with hidden cameras risking their own safety and indeed life).
Narrated by a man we know only as ‘Joshua’, the documentary tells how the aforementioned co-ordinated a network of illegal VJs, sending footage of the demonstrations led by Buddhist monks to the world, when internet servers were shut down and foreign journalists outlawed by the government. The scatter-shot footage, often smuggled out of the country and ultimately airing on major international networks like CNN shows the chilling development of a peaceful protest turning violent with vengeance enacted brutally by the military not only to the Burmese people but unthinkably to the monks.
While the footage contained in Burma VJ may ring true to those who remember seeing news coverage at the time, it is none the less extraordinary, not only for its breadth but for the risk taken by this band of tireless VJs in the face of extreme penalty, as they sent out a visual voice to the world and managed to have their own footage filtered back into the country. For a sobering cinematic experience, it would be hard to beat the fascinating Burma VJ.
Then it was a change of pace from France with the latest from director Claire Dennis (Beau Travail), 35 Shots of Rum. In a working class Parisian suburb, we experience the daily ritual of the protagonists’ lives; the laconic Lionel (Alex Descas, also appearing in The Limits of Control, the latest from Jim Jarmusch screening during this year’s festival) drives trains, his loyal daughter Joséphine (Mati Diop) studies at uni, their neighbour, the sunny Gabrielle (Nicole Dogue) drives taxis while another, the brooding Noé (Grégoire Colin from Denis’ The Intruder) flies in and out for work seemingly without attachment to anything. Lionel seems to be content with the life he shares with his daughter with whom he has a deep connection – “We’ve got everything here, why go looking elsewhere?” he tells her – but for others, life is less than whole. Joséphine, despite constantly doting on her father begins to feel restless, Gabrielle quietly pines for Lionel, while Noé awaits the day Joséphine will return his long standing romantic interest in any definitive way. Still, these characters, living in the same apartment in a working class suburb, are as Gabrielle says “family”, with a welcoming yet complex kinship gradually transforming as the forces of change impact each of their lives.
35 Shots of Rum is not for the impatient with its meandering pace that pays attention to the more mundane aspects of every-day life: loading the washing machine, cooking rice, smoking a cigarette. But perhaps the film’s pace is the point with Dennis and her cast bringing poignancy to those moments in life we may take for granted; the joy of eating a warm meal together, the silent communication of dance or a friendship where words aren’t always necessary. 35 Shots is a film that revels in the finer nuances of relationships. While letting the audience in, almost like voyeurs with little exposition and at times sparse dialogue, Dennis and the cast subtly tease out the complexities of what initially seem like fairly straight forward relationships. It’s not until the film’s final third that these connections, like the film’s title, can be fully appreciated. Like a train silently shuffling up to a platform, 35 Shots of Rum with its richness of warmth and humanity, slowly but surely creeps up on you.
Festival highlights in coming days include the competition contenders The Maid and the searing J.M Coetzee adaptation Disgrace, as well as local flick Van Diemen’s Land. There’s a portrait of a fashion icon in Valentino: The Last Emperor, another of a music icon and convicted murderer in The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector and the political satire of In the Loop featuring Steve Coogan and The Sopranos’ James Gandolfini. Next week sees the festival’s big guns arrive, Coraline voice star Teri Hatcher and action auteur John Woo.
For more information on films and screening times head to www.sff.org.au
