by Dov Kornits
Co-directed by Maxine Williamson and Richard Sowada, the Brisbane International Film Festival [BIFF] returns on Thursday August 17 with Ruben Östlund’s The Square, starring Claes Bang, Elisabeth Moss and Dominic West, in a biting black comedy which satirises the art world, which its hunger for publicity and pretensions towards smug altruism. The film won this year’s Palme d’Or at Cannes, and is arguably a highly appropriate opener for a festival that replaces the Brisbane Asia Pacific Film Festival, whose aim was to screen the best cinema from the Asia Pacific, making Brisbane the centre of the region, but unfortunately the lacklustre attendance of the festival has opened up an opportunity for the more populist BIFF.
Equally poetic is the closer on Sunday, September 3, Kriv Stenders’ stylish, nuanced documentary The Go-Betweens: Right Here, which charts the rise and fracture of one of this country’s most beloved pop bands, who originated in Brisbane and even have a bridge named after them. Stenders is also originally from Brisbane, and also has his film Australia Day, produced by Brisbane-based production company Hoodlum, screening at the festival.
The Centrepiece Gala and Retrospective of the festival centres around Russian filmmaker Andrey Zvyagintsev, whose Cannes Jury Prize winner Loveless will screen at the festival, along with his past films, Return, The Banishment, Elena and Leviathan.
The festival will also host events around contemporary world cinema with films from Hungary (Ildiko Enyedi’s Sydney Film Prize winner On Body and Soul), Vietnam (Festival guest, Pham Thi Hong Anh’s The Way Station), France (Agens Varda’s Faces Places) and Iran (Abbas Kiarostami’s final film, 24 Frames).
Other Australian films confirmed for the festival include Ali’s Wedding, That’s Not Me, the enviro-documentary Blue, the world premiere of Les McLaren and Annie Stiven’s doco life is a very strange thing, and the Queensland premiere of the impact documentary Namatjira Project, which explores the legacy of the late great watercolour painter Albert Namatjira and the mission to regain copyright to his work by his ancestors who are still actively painting in his style, but living in third world conditions. The festival will host a special exhibition in the Namatjira style and will also have filmmakers and family members in attendance.
Films featuring Australians working abroad include Broken Ghost by Richard Gray, Final Portrait starring Geoffrey Rush, Manifesto featuring Cate Blanchett, Fun Mom Dinner, starring Toni Collette and directed by Alethea Jones and Patti Cake$ starring Danielle Macdonald.
Other highlights include Andrzej Wajda’s final film Afterimage, Takashi Miike’s 100th (!!) film, Blade of the Immortal , Michael Haneke’s Happy End, Sally Potter’s The Party, Song to Song by Terrence Malick, and Wonderstruck from Todd Haynes.
On the human rights front, audiences will not want to miss Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize winner Last Men In Aleppo, directed by Syrian filmmaker Feras Fayyad, and the international premiere of an extraordinary series of short films from emerging Turkish directors, produced by Turkey’s Sabanci Foundation’s ‘short film, long impact’ project Refugee Women – History’s Silent Heroes. And Brisbane-based Tibetan composer and musician Tenzin Choegyal will perform music he composed, alongside the legendary Philip Glass, for the The Last Dalai Lama? ahead of the Australian premiere screening of the film.
Full Program and ticketing information at: www.biff.net.au
