By Travis Johnson
Matt Murphy’s New Zealand road movie Pork Pie has been selected to open the Gold Coast Film Festival.
A remake of the 1981 cult classic, Goodbye, Pork Pie, the film sees three misfits – drunk writer Jon (Dean O’Gorman), reluctant criminal Luke (James Rolleston) and fast food cashier Kiera (Ashleigh Cummings) on a ragged road trip from Auckland to Invercargill so that Jon can try and win back his estranged girlfriend. Murphy’s father, Geoff, directed the original film, which became New Zealand’s first domestic box office hit.
Pork Pie heads an impressive roster of films this year, including the WA serial killer thriller, Hounds of Love, which just played SXSW over the weekend; lesbian coming of age drama First Girl I Loved, starring Deadpool‘s Brianna Hildebrand; Australian shark-centric horror movie Cage Dive; and French period drama Planetarium, starring Natalie Portman and Lily-Rose Depp.
Classics getting a fresh airing include Pulp Fiction, playing at the Burleigh Brewing Co. Taphouse, and Pixar’s The Incredibles, while the closing night film is Enzo Tedeschi’s Event Zero, an action thriller described as “…a season of TV’s 24 set in Sydney and crammed into a breathlessly paced 100 minutes.”
The Gold Coast Film Festival runs from April 18 – 30. For full info, session times and tickets, head over to the official site.
