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Films I'll Be Checking Out At BIFF 2011
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- Written by Matthew Toomey
The Brisbane International Film Festival starts on Tuesday (November 1) and runs for 12 days. If you want to know what’s on offer, you can check out my blog from a few weeks ago – 10 Reasons To Get To BIFF 2011 – by clicking here.
Tickets are selling fast and I believe some sessions are already close to sold out. Opening night should be particularly big with two cinemas showing Attack The Block up at the Palace Barracks.
In this week’s Film Pie blog, I thought I’d run through the films I’m booked in to see at the Festival. My tickets are already secured and if all goes to plan, I’ll be at each of these films. Hopefully I’ll see a few followers from Facebook / Twitter there as well. BIFF is always a fun event and there are plenty of films worth seeing.
On that note, here’s my program for 2011 (with plot descriptions from the BIFF website)…
Tabloid – Tuesday, 1 November at 7pm (Palace Centro)
In 1977, an American beauty queen named Joyce McKinney travelled to England, kidnapped her Mormon ex-lover, bound him to a bed and kept him as a sex slave for three days. The British tabloid press went bananas, turning the titillating tale into a media frenzy, and McKinney became notorious overnight. Now the ever-incisive Errol Morris (The Fog of War) brings us McKinney's side of the tale - but who, if anyone, is giving us the straight story?
Attack The Block – Thursday, 3 November at 7pm (Palace Barracks)
For Moses and his gang, an ordinary evening of time-wasting and petty felony takes an unexpected turn when they stumble across an intergalactic interloper. It's safe to say that ET isn't phoning home once the crew are done with him, but it isn't long before a whole legion of interstellar invaders are crashing to earth around the council estate, with the youths gearing up to defend their tower block against the alien menace.
Higher Ground – Friday, 4 November at 6:30pm (Palace Barracks)
Based on Carolyn Briggs's memoir, This Dark World, Higher Ground follows the life and passions of Corinne Walker (played by actor-director Vera Farmiga) as she moves from childhood to maturity, and with it from the ecstatic embrace of Christian fundamentalism to a state of secular doubt.
A Dangerous Method – Friday, 4 November at 9pm (Palace Barracks)
Under the lengthening shadows of the impending Great War, a young, ambitious Carl Jung (Michael Fassbender) takes on the unbalanced Sabina Spielrein (Keira Knightley) as a patient, a student and eventually a lover. When Jung travels to Vienna to seek the advice of the great Sigmund Freud (Viggo Mortensen), the two form a fledgling friendship - one soon to be threatened by jealousy and obsession.
Le Harve – Saturday, 5 November at 7pm (Palace Barracks)
When a cargo-load of illegal immigrants mistakenly lands in the port town of Le Havre the authorities capture all but one: wide-eyed Idrissa, a young African trying to make his way to London. Local shoe shiner Marcel enlists the townsfolk to help hide him, as they try to raise the money needed to help him escape - meanwhile a snitch neighbour and a hard-nosed inspector do their best to hunt down the refugee.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – Saturday, 5 November at 9pm (Palace Barracks)
British intelligence officer George Smiley (Gary Oldman) finds himself yanked out of retirement, charged with unearthing a Soviet spy who has seemingly infiltrated the upper echelons of the secret service. Swedish director Tomas Alfredson (Let The Right One In) has turned his unerring hand to this adaptation of John le Carré's tangled novel of cold war espionage, portraying a chilling world of ambiguity and paranoia.
The Human Centipede 2 - Saturday, 5 November at 11:59pm (Tribal Theatre)
Inspired by watching of The Human Centipede, a depraved actor decides to emulate the film and construct his own human centipede, only this time with twelve people instead of three. And... that's about it for the plot.
Take Shelter – Sunday, 6 November at 1:30pm (Palace Barracks)
A film that walks the line between fear and paranoia, this taut thriller is set partially inside the mind of family man Curtis LaForche (Michael Shannon). Or is it? That is the question before the audience: are the dreams and visions of an apocalyptic storm real or imaginary?
Happy Happy – Tuesday, 8 November at 6:30pm (Tribal Theatre)
Desperately lonely Kaja and hyper-repressed Erik share a marriage as frosty as the Norwegian winter they're currently suffering through. However, when the urbane Sigve and Elisabeth move in next door - ostensibly to escape Elisabeth's recent affair - a powder keg of repressed sexual energy is unleashed, with devastatingly comic consequences.
My America – Tuesday, 8 November at 8:30pm (Tribal Theatre)
Growing up in the gloomy socialist backwaters of 1980s Hungary, Peter Hegedus looked to America and Arnold Schwarzenegger for his dream of a better world: a world of justice, explosions and freedom. But 30 years later, everything has changed. America is failing, Arnie's best days are behind him and Peter, now living in Brisbane, is not entirely sure he's still allowed to believe in the USA.
Melancholia – Wednesday, 9 November at 6:30pm (Palace Barracks)
Celebrating her lavish wedding, Justine (Kirsten Dunst, in a performance that won best actress at Cannes) notices something amiss in the evening sky: a prominent star has been blocked out. As her wedding falls apart, and her life spirals downward into misery, the astrological anomaly is explained: the star was blocked by the planet Melancholia, which is now hurtling toward a collision with Earth.
Goodbye, First Love – Thursday, 10 November at 6:30pm (Palace Barracks)
Fifteen-year-old Camille tumbles headlong into a passionate relationship with the older Sylvain, and when he leaves for South American she is shattered. Over the years she gradually repairs her heartbreak, but when Sylvain unexpectedly reappears, the flames of her youthful passion flicker painfully back into life.
The Trouble With St Mary’s – Thursday, 10 November at 8:30pm (Palace Barracks)
Same-sex marriage. Questioning the Pope. De-virginising Mary. This is the story of a rogue Brisbane priest, Father Peter Kennedy, and his breakaway flock. Excommunicated by the Vatican in 2009 for his apostasy, Kennedy led his one-thousand-strong flock on to a new religious life. But as these parishioners follow their fallen priest, are they moving closer toward God or constructing a new messiah in His absence?
Martha Marcy May Marlene – Friday, 11 November at 7pm (Tribal Theatre)
After escaping from an abusive cult run by a charismatic Charles Manson-esque leader (played for maximum creepiness by John Hawkes of Winter's Bone and Deadwood), Martha reconnects with a sister she hasn't seen in two years. As she attempts to re-assimilate back into society, she finds her past reaching out to claim her.
A Bitter Taste Of Freedom – Friday, 11 November at 9pm (Palace Barracks)
When Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered in 2006, her death became a symbol of the unravelling state of Russia's democratic experiment. Vaunted for her courageous investigations into Russian crimes in Chechnya, Politkovskaya in the end paid for her idealism with her life. Directed by close friend and acclaimed documentary maker Maria Goldovskaya, A Bitter Taste of Freedom provides a deep personal insight into the final years of Politkovskaya's life.
The Skin I Live In – Saturday, 12 November at 6:30pm (Palace Barracks)
Brilliant plastic surgeon Robert Ledgard (a commanding performance from Antonio Banderas) splits his time between work and experimenting on Vera (Elena Anaya), the beautiful woman he has locked away on his second floor, whose skin he is slowly replacing with a new synthetic substance. Driven by love and something far, far darker, their experiments threaten to erase the very essence of their humanity.
Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope – Sunday, 13 November at 12pm (Palace Centro)
Straight from its sell-out sessions at Toronto Film Festival last month, the latest doco romp from Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) explores the pop culture phenomenon of the annual San Diego Comic-Con. Spurlock reportedly had as many as 26 cameras rolling at any one time to capture the thousands of cosplay enthusiasts, über-fans, gamers, cult movie buffs and anime nerds who swarm Comic-Con in the hope of glimpsing heroes like Joss Whedon, Kevin Smith, Stan Lee and Frank Miller.
Australian Shorts 2 – Sunday, 13 November at 3pm (Tribal Theatre)
Will you find the next Scorsese, Tarkovsky or Charles Chauvel amongst this all-Australian selection of shorts? You wont know until you try.
Tune Into My New Radio Show On ABC Digital
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- Written by Matthew Toomey
In this week’s blog, I wanted to mention that I’ve launched a new radio show on ABC Digital. We’ve actually done a few shows already but I wanted to get the format settled before I started promoting it.
Every Sunday afternoon between 1pm and 3pm (AEST), the ABC studios in Brisbane run two hours of programming across Australia on the ABC Digital channel. This can be accessed online (at www.612live.com) or by anyone with a digital radio.
You’d normally find sports aired on your local ABC station on a Sunday afternoon but the purpose of this new programming is to give listeners an alternative. The sport can now be heard on ABC Grandstand.
I’ve been lucky enough to secure a 30 minute segment every second Sunday at 1:30pm AEST (or 12:30pm Brisbane time).
As part of the show, I’ll be getting in a special guest critic to co-host. We’ll talk about some of the better films that have been released, play a few clips, chat to some filmmakers and debate what’s happening in the industry. I’ve also included a special spot where I’ll play one of my favourite film scores. The name of the film isn’t revealed until after it’s played so hopefully it’ll keep you guessing.
So many major film critics are based in Sydney or Melbourne so hopefully this will allow Brisbane critics to find their voice and get people enthused about going to the movies.
The show isn’t currently podcasted but I’m hoping to remedy that early next year. In the meantime, make sure you tune in on Sunday afternoons! You won’t regret it. This Sunday, I’ll be talking about Drive, Contagion and Midnight In Paris and also having a fun chat about movie trailers and how much they should give away.
Whilst there are no official podcasts as yet, I was lucky enough to get Spencer Howson to upload by 1 hour Toronto Film Festival spot onto the 612ABC Breakfast Blog. We couldn’t include the music segments (due to copyright) but you can listen to it by clicking here.
It’s a long show so here’s an index if you want to jump to a particular bit. The show came together quite well and I hope you enjoy it. It’s a great way of summing up the amazing 8 days that I spent in Toronto.
00:00 – Introduction
06:30 – Talking with director Fernando Meirelles (City Of God) about his new film 360.
08:30 – Review of The Artist
10:00 – Review of The Descendants and talking with director Alexander Payne (Sideways) and George Clooney
13:30 – Review of Albert Nobbs
16:00 – Review of 50/50 and talking with writer Will Reiser, director Jonathan Levine and star Seth Rogen
21:00 – Review of Take This Waltz
23:00 – A funny Q&A story at Violet & Waltz with Saoirse Ronan
24:00 – Talking about the Australian films screening at Toronto
25:30 – Review of Eye Of The Story and talking with director Fred Schepisi and star Charlotte Rampling
28:30 – Review of The Hunter
32:00 – Talking about the many programs that make up the Festival each year
33:00 – Talking with programmer Kate Lawrie Van De Ven about how she picks films to screen at the Festival
34:30 – Review of The Student and talking with director Santiago Mitre
37:30 – Talking about the importance of the People’s Choice Award
40:00 – Talking with Geoffrey Rush about last year’s TIFF success story, The King’s Speech
42:00 – Talking about this year’s People’s Choice Award winner, Where Do We Go Now?
44:00 – Talking about what else I got up to in the USA
A quick reminder in case you haven’t seen it already, but you can check out all my video blogs from Toronto by clicking here.
Talking With Stephen Curry & Simon Wincer About The Cup
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- Written by Matthew Toomey
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The Cup has now been released in Australian cinemas and it’s one of our biggest releases of the year given its $15m budget. I recently had the chance to speak with the director and star of the film to find out how it all got made.
You can download an abbreviated version of the interview on my website by clicking here or you can listen to the full version on 612ABC Breakfast Blog by clicking here.
Matt: We’re talking this morning with actor Stephen Curry and writer-director-producer Simon Wincer about the latest Australian film, The Cup. Guys, good morning.
Stephen: Thank you very much for having us.
Matt: The film is based on the 2002 Melbourne Cup. Jockey Damien Oliver rode Media Puzzle to victory just a few days after his older brother was killed. So even without the benefit of the movie it is an event that I can remember from 9 years ago and I know a lot of other people would as well. I guess I’ll start by asking if you guys are horse racing fans?
Simon: I’m not particularly a horse racing fan. I follow the Melbourne Cup as every Australian does. I just think it’s a great background for a film. This isn’t so much a film about horse racing but it’s about triumph over tragedy and the triumph of the human spirit.
Stephen: I’m a fan of big horse races but have been to the races and not seen a horse. So I’m more a fan of dressing up in a nice suit.
Matt: That seems more common than not these days. It’s why a lot of young people go to the races.
Stephen: Look, it’s been a big learning curve for me. To be able to get a look at what happens inside the racing world has been really fascinating. It’s been an amazing experience.
Matt: Simon, where did you start from trying to put this script together as the event itself would have already had a lot of documented footage and a lot of media interviews and such? How did you get to know the key characters in this story and put a screenplay together?
Simon: Mainly by talking to everybody. The idea ironically came from an American from Dallas, Texas called Eric O’Keefe who I co-wrote the screenplay with. He was a journalist who had interviewed me in America about a western I was doing with Tom Selleck. I was finishing that film in Los Angeles when the 2002 Melbourne Cup was run.
Eric rang and asked me to look into the Cup. He said that some of his friends had just gotten back from Australia and they’d told this story about a jockey that had ridden back to scale and 100,000 people were crying. He said I think there might be a magazine article in it.
I went back to Australia and I looked at all the footage and media coverage and thought wow, this is unbelievable. I rang Eric and said this is a Hollywood movie, not a magazine article! He wasn’t sure how to write a screenplay so we agreed to write it together and that’s how it came into being.
Matt: So how easy was it getting in touch with the key characters in the film? Like Damien Oliver and Lee Freedman and Dermot Weld?
Simon: The Victorian Racing Club (VRC) has been fantastic. They introduced me to Damien and to Dermot Weld and all the various players in the piece. Everyone was on side because they saw this as a very positive look at the racing world but as I said, racing is the background to the movie. The foreground is Damien’s anguish during this terrible time in his life and how he overcame it.
Matt: Stephen, did you get to speak to Damien before the film to work out how to play him?
Stephen: Yeah, I did. He was very generous. I spent a lot of time with him and he let me tag along like his little annoying brother who would come and nip at his heels at race meetings, barrier trials and various things. Also, his mate and manager Neil Pinner was a big help. They have as vested an interest as anybody as seeing this story told in the right way.
They were fantastic from the “get go” and no question was too prickly. They were so open and honest about something that was such a horrible time in their lives. Ultimately it was a triumphant moment but at it’s core is this tragic story of not only Jason’s death but Ray’s death 25 years earlier.
Matt: Did you get to talk to Damien after he saw the film for the first time?
Stephen: I did and it’s a bit of a story actually. I watched it for the first time in its entirety with Damien watching it for the first time with his wife Trish. They were in front of me and I was kind of swapping between the screen and them.
It was really quite confronting because I knew that if they didn’t like it then we’d failed. If they don’t think that it pays due homage to Jason and to Ray and to the entire family then we shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Thankfully at the end of it, we all kind of shed a tear. Both Damien and Trish said they loved it and that Jason would have loved it. That was the feedback we needed.
Matt: I have to admit that I shed a tear as well. The ending of the film comes together so well.
Simon: It’s very powerful. The key is that if you can share this emotional journey that Damien goes through, you’ll share in the triumph at the end of the film as well.
Matt: Stephen, can you talk us through the weight loss? I just went and saw Hugh Jackman in Real Steel where he had to build himself up for the role.
Stephen: Yep, I’m very similar to Hugh Jackman in terms of looks and body. In fact, I got down to the last two for Australia but he just pipped me.
I guess it’s part of it for any role and that you have to be prepared to play the character as honestly and convincingly as possible. Part of this one was looking like a jockey. You just put it down to one of those occupational hazards of dieting and I have to say that I’ve never felt healthier and I’ve never eaten healthier. It took a while and it was a bit of a yo-yo kind of effect because the film got up and fell over a few times before we actually got to the starting line.
Ever since then I’ve managed to put it all back on and maybe an extra gram or two over the last few days.
Matt: So what did you get down to?
Stephen: 59kgs which is top racing weight apparently. That’s where the similarities between me and real jockeys end.
Matt: What are you back to now?
Stephen: 74kgs. That’s my “donut weight”. I’ve got to make the most of any film where I can take my top off because it won’t happen again.
Matt: It’s tricky to tell how much time you spend on a horse during the film, particularly during the race sequences given the special effects and creative camera angles. How did those scenes play out? Did you have to do a lot of race riding?
Stephen: I did a little bit of the riding. Legally, there are certain bits that I can’t do. You need a professional jockey to be riding. There was a guy called Matty Allen who is one of Damien’s great mates and is one of the top professional jockeys going around in Melbourne. He did a lot of my more dangerous riding for me and fortunately, from a distance, we look pretty similar.
Simon: To give you an idea about how dangerous their business is, Matty fractured his skull in a bad riding accident literally a week after we finished filming. He’s back racing now but shows why it’s recognised as the world’s most dangerous job.
Matt: How did you create these races? You can see the footage on Melbourne Cup day with the huge crowds. Was this shot during last year’s Melbourne Cup?
Simon: No actually. We shot the 2006 and 2007 Melbourne Cups. I had 8 cameras there to get it from every angle. Luckily, in 2006 it was their biggest ever crowd at the Cup and Derby Day was the same. It was a nightmare with 8 cameras as you can imagine.
Then, with the magic of CGI, we could put the audience at the top of the biggest grandstand and see the horses by combining the footage with own restaging of the 2002 race.
We restaged the whole race from a variety of angles. Normally on television, the race is filled with wide shots because punters get mad when you show a close up because they can’t see where their horse is. We were able to get amongst it and make it a lot more thrilling and exciting.
Matt: So if you were shooting footage way back in 2006, how long has this project been on the cards? A long time from the sounds of it?
Simon: It has. We wrote the first draft of the screenplay in 2003. We almost got it up when we cast Stephen in 2006 because Village Roadshow had enough belief in the project to allow us to shoot these sequences.
We shot an AFL football game between the Eagles and the Kangaroos in 2007. Chris Judd and Ben Cousins were still playing for the Eagles back then which helped a lot.
Stephen: It’s interesting to think that all of that footage stood a real chance of sitting on a shelf forever. This film at one stage, just before we started shooting, looked dead in the water.
Simon: Last February I thought the last door had closed but a very good friend of mine came to our rescue. He put some money to make up for the shortfall and the next day we had a movie.
Matt: I have to ask about Brendan Gleeson who plays Dermot Weld. He starred in one of my favourite films of the year so far, The Guard. What was he like to work with?
Simon: Brendan was great. He’s one of the world’s great actors and he has an extraordinary body of work. One thing about Brendan was that I got him on the telephone so I could convince him to be in the movie. He said that he liked the piece but he wasn’t sure about the Irish dialogue. He thought it could be improved a little.
I laughed and said to Brendan that this is Irish dialogue written by a Texan and an Australian who think they know how you guys speak.
Stephen: In the first draft of the opening scene he says “they’re always after my lucky charms” (laughs) and that was just ridiculous so that had to be taken out.
Matt: Is it just me or is every Australian sports commentator in this film? There’s Bruce McAvaney, Stephen Quartermain, Eddie McGuire, Dennis Cometti, Gerard Whatley and even The Coodabeen Champions. How did they all get involved?
Simon: I wanted to ground the film in reality and they’re all so good at playing themselves. There’s nothing worse than seeing an actor who’s obviously an actor trying to act like a media person. They all nailed everything in one and two takes because that’s what they do for a living.
They were thrilled to be a part of it as well. I guess this is a story that has captured everybody’s hearts. They all wanted to be involved.
Matt: The film has a fairly distinctive Australian flavour and of course, we here in Australia know the significance of the race and people like Bart Cummings and Lee Freedman. Is there a chance that the film might be taken overseas to a wider audience?
Simon: Oh yes. We’ve made quite a few foreign sales already. We’re currently finalising an American version of the film that I’ve previewed over there and received a similar reaction sitting in the audience. There are a few little cultural things that they don’t get and so we’ve made changes for that market which is a fairly standard procedure.
Matt: I’m curious about that. A lot of changes?
Simon: No. Relatively minor. It’s about 8 to 9 minutes shorter. We’ve chopped things here and there because it doesn’t work. They won’t get it unless they’re an Aussie. The film still delivers the same punch and in fact there are some things that I prefer in that version. That’s the beauty of being able to go back and tinker with a film after it’s been finished.
Matt: I guess I’ll finish up by asking what’s next in the pipeline for you both?
Stephen: I’m off to India to do a cricket film. That’s going to be a little bit of fun. It’s called Save Your Legs and it’s based on a real live D-grade cricket team from Melbourne called the Abbotsford Anglers who decided to buy themselves some lovely outfits so they could be taken seriously in the sub-continent.
It turns out they were taken seriously and they found themselves playing on these amazing arenas against these teams they had no business playing against. This film follows their story through India.
Matt: So you’re continuing with the sporting theme?
Stephen: Yeah. Well, I’m going from an elite sportsman to a completely useless one. This one’s a bit better for me because I can actually look a little more like a useless cricketer than a jockey.
Matt: What have you got coming up Simon?
Simon: I do the Australian Outback Spectacular shows on the Gold Coast which I write and direct. There’s a new one opening around Christmas. That’s keeping me busy.
I’m doing my next Australian film on the story behind the song Waltzing Matilda. It’s an epic romance set at a torrid time in history when the country was on the brink of civil war with the shearer’s strike. It’s a wonderful story.
Matt: Fantastic. Thanks very much for joining us this morning and best of luck with the film.
You can read my review of The Cup by clicking here.
10 Reasons To Get To BIFF 2011
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- Written by Matthew Toomey
The Brisbane Film Festival is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2011 and I can’t wait to get amongst it in a few weeks time. I can still remember seeing my first film at BIFF (The Basketball Diaries) way back in 1995.
The Festival runs for 11 days and commences on 3 November 2011. The same three venues as last year will be used – the Tribal Theatre, the Palace Centro and the Palace Barracks. The program isn't as "busy" as it has been in year's past so hopefully that will avoid film clashes. I also note that there seems to be a "rest day" mid way through the Festival (Mon, Nov 7) where there's only one set of screenings at 7pm. Nothing else is shown that day.
What’s great about any Festival is that you are spoilt with choices. Instead of being limited to the 3 or 4 new films that come out in the major multiplexes each Thursday, you get to choose from a wide array of genres. This year’s Festival is no exception with 135 feature films being shown (of which more than 50 are Australian premieres). If you pick up the program and can’t find something you want to see then I’ll be very, very surprised.
Tickets are on sale from October 9 and the best way to buy them is online at the BIFF website - http://www.biff.com.au/. You can also pick them up at the BIFF box-office which is located in the foyer of the Regent Cinema. It’s tragic that the Regent has now closed but it’s a nice touch that the foyer is still open and will play a small role in this year’s Festival.
On that point, it is disappointing that Brisbane doesn’t have a big theatre that it can use during the Festival. Having just come back from the Toronto (a city with only 500,000 more people), I was amazed to learn that they have 5 theatres in their city that can seat over 1,000 people. The largest is Roy Thomson Hall which can seat 2,600.
Given the closure of the Regent in mid 2010, the largest theatre in use during the Festival is at the Palace Barracks and it seats just 265 people. This makes it a lot harder to attract big name films and stars to the Festival when we can cater for so few people. It’s sad really.
Now that I’ve had my vent, it’s time to get you excited about BIFF for 2011. It’s my goal to get as many Film Pie readers as possible to the Festival – particularly those that have never been before.
On that note, here are 10 reasons why you need to get to the 2011 Brisbane International Film Festival…
1. Warming Things Up With A “Curtain Raiser”
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It can often take a little while for a Festival to gather momentum. Word of mouth doesn’t kick into full swing until the Festival is well underway. By this time, many of the great films have already been screened and some future sessions will be sold out.
In a new move this year, BIFF is having “curtain raiser” films on the two nights prior to the official opening night. For those ready to dive head first into BIFF, it’s a nice way to “ease yourself” into the Festival. For newcomers, it’s a chance to see what BIFF’s all about and what kind of films you can see.
Four great films have been chosen.
Take Shelter stars Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road) and Jessica Chastain (The Help) and is about a man who has visions of an impending natural disaster and so he builds a storm shelter in his backyard. It leaves everyone, including his family, questioning his sanity.
Tabloid is the latest documentary from Errol Morris (The Fog Of War). It’s the story of an American beauty queen named Joyce McKinney who abducted a young Mormon missionary and used him as a sex slave for 3 days in 1977. The British tabloids went crazy and many differing versions of events have been told but Morris has gone in search of the truth. McKinney is not pleased with her portrayal in the documentary and was turning up at many screenings in the U.S. to protest against the film. It would be hilarious if we saw her in Australia.
Restless (pictured above) is a film I saw in Toronto
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I’m not quite sure how the BIFF team have pulled this off but they’re creating a makeshift drive-in theatre at Hamilton – not too far from the Dendy Portside. It will be used for 3 nights and they hope to be able to fit in roughly 200 cars. It’s a tribute to drive-in cinema and I’m sure it’ll be a great way to reminisce for those who frequented them regularly in their youth. It should offer some great views too of the Brisbane skyline.
6 different films are being shown at the drive-in theatre and it launches with a BYOD to Red Dog. What does that acronym stand for? Well, it’s “bring your own dog”. Sounds like it’ll be a howling success.
Other films you can check out at the drive-in include Drive (an awesome action thriller which I saw at Toronto and stars Ryan Gosling) and the Australian premiere of Crawl (a thriller put together by Paul and Ben China – two guys based on the Gold Coast).
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The old Dendy George Street cinemas closed their doors in late 2008 only to be reopened when the cinema took on new ownership. Now known as the Tribal, the cinema will again be shut down at the end of November following its recent sale. I don’t know if there’s a Johnny Farnham like comeback in store for this classic theatre and so this may be your last chance to see a movie inside its walls.
The theatre is being used throughout the Festival but it’s having a special “farewell bash” on the last Saturday night. It all starts at 6pm when film critic Bruce Redman will host a movie trivia night with heaps of prizes. I asked Bruce how he got the nod and he humorously told me “they wanted someone trivial”.
The trivia is followed by a huge movie marathon that will run until 6am. The programmers have picked out 7 warped films that few people will have seen. As an example, Manborg is about a half-man, half-cyborg solider who has been brought back from the dead to fight an army of Nazi vampires and demons lead by Count Dracula. Sounds like a crazy night of entertainment and a fitting tribute to the Tribal Theatre.
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I realise that not everyone likes Nazi vampire movies and so I should mention some of the more commercial offerings at the Festival.
There are plenty of quality films but BIFF has highlighted 5 special screenings as part of their “Bubbles At BIFF” promotion. The $20 ticket price includes a glass of champagne on arrival (which they can’t mention in the official program due to Queensland’s overly complex responsible service of alcohol laws) and you’ll be treated to a film that won’t be released widely in Australia for at least a few months. The 5 films are…
Like Crazy is the only one I’ve seen
Tinker Tailor Solider Spy has been touted as an Oscar contender and received a lot of buzz when it premiered at the recent Venice Film Festival. It is based on the novel by John le Carre and it centres on a semi-retired MI6 agent (played by Gary Oldman) who tries to discover who the Soviet spy is within their ranks.
Melancholia is the latest from off-beat Danish director Las Von Trier (Breaking The Waves, Antichrist). Star Kirsten Dunst won the best actress award at the Cannes Film Festival but Von Trier was kicked out of the Festival (rightly or wrong) for saying that he felt sympathy for Adolf Hitler. A shame we can’t get Von Trier here for BIFF – I’d love to get a few controversial sound bites from him myself.
Goodbye, First Love is the latest from French director Mia Hansen-Love. I loved her last film, Father Of My Children, and can’t wait to see this. It’s the tale of a 15-year-old trying to overcome her heartbreak when her first boyfriend leaves for South America.
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The film that seems to be generating the most of amount of pre-Festival interest is The Orator. While I was being taken through the program by the BIFF team, Sarah Ward (Marketing Manager for Screen Queensland) told me she’d received a tonne of emails from people trying to find out if it was in the BIFF program.
The interest has come from the Samoan community here in Brisbane as The Orator is the first ever Samoan feature film to be entirely shot in Samoa, in the Samoan language and with a Samoan cast and story. As it was financed by the New Zealand Film Commission, it has become New Zealand’s entry for best foreign language film at next year’s Academy Awards. It’s the first time in history that New Zealand has made a submission.
Another film to keep on the radar is Uma Lulik, the first documentary entirely filmed and made in East Timor by an East Timorese filmmaker. Focusing on one family, it looks at the way in which the people of East Timor remember the spirits of those who have passed away. I believe director Victor De Sousa will be at the Festival to talk about his film.
It’s a shame the above two films are screening on the same day at the same time. The good news is that The Orator has a second showing later in the week for those trying to get to both.
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It’s not as costly as you might think to attend a film festival. Unlike major theatrical shows or music concerts, you won’t get charged $100+ for a ticket.
The cost of a single ticket to most films this year is $16 – up slightly from last year’s $15 but still good value if you ask me. It’s just $14 if you’re a BIFF Film Club member, full-time student, pensioner or senior.
If you plan on seeing a few films, you can pick up multi-ticket passes. The prices are $84 full / $72 concession for 6 tickets, $156 full / $132 concession for 12 tickets and $300 full / $250 concession for 25 tickets.
The price for opening night has come down this year to just $30. It includes a ticket to the Australian premiere of the English comedy Attack The Block and a post-film party that will include a BMX riding display (as a tribute to the film) outside the Palace Barracks. The film is about a group of London teenagers caught up in an alien invasion.
The closing night film is also $30 and is for Pedro Almodovar’s latest The Skin I Live In (pictured above). I missed this at TIFF but my partner in crime in Toronto, Sam Dagan, went to the screening and came back with many positive things to say. He said it tells the story of a plastic surgeon played by Antonio Banderas who perversely addresses the question - as people change how much of it is really them and how much is just skin deep?
In a good move this year, the closing night festivities have been moved from Sunday night to Saturday night (similar to other major film festivals). So whilst there’s still one more day to go and the Festival isn’t officially “closed”, it’s a better time to schedule it as people can let their hair down and have a few drinks (which is often tricky late on a Sunday evening).
Another film which is slightly more expensive at $20 is Talihina Sky: The Story Of The Kings Of Leon. Fans of the band won’t want to miss this documentary and I believe the BIFF programmers are working behind the scenes to see if they can get The Kings Of Leon there for the screening. They’ll be in Brisbane performing a show at the Entertainment Centre just two days after the film is shown.
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One of my favourite movie genres is the documentary and it’s obvious that Richard Moore, the Head of Screen Culture, shares a similar love.
This year’s program includes many documentaries and to help distinguish it from other Australian festivals, there’s a $25,000 cash prize going to the doco chosen as the best of the Festival. This makes it the richest prize on offer for a documentary filmmaker in this country. A four member jury has already been selected to judge the films and select a winner which will be announced at the Festival’s conclusion.
There are too many documentaries to go through here but as a sample, you may be interested in…
Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope (pictured above) which is the latest from Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me) and looks at the crazy fans that go to San Diego’s Comic-Con each year.
The Tall Man had its world premiere in Toronto and reconstructs the events that led to the death of Cameron Doomadgee on Palm Island back in 2004.
The Trouble With St Mary’s looks at rogue Brisbane priest Father Peter Kennedy and how he and his parishioners broke away from the Catholic Church for their views on issues such as same sex marriage and the role of the pope.
A Bitter Taste Of Freedom provides an insight into the life of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya who was murdered in 2006 for her articles which criticised the Russian government for their part in Chechnya.
You’ve Been Trumped is one I won’t miss given my love for golf. It’s the story of an ordinary guy who tried to stop Donald Trump from tearing up the Scottish landscape and building a golf course.
If you’re interested in actors and filmmakers, you’ll find documentaries focusing the camera lens on South Korean director Kim Ki-duk, legendary actor Tony Curtis, renowned Australian director Paul Cox and popular English actress Charlotte Rampling.
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Fantastic Fest is an annual film festival in Texas and it’s developed a reputation as one of the biggest in terms of genre films. I’m talking about horror, science fiction, fantasy, action and cult.
Lars Nilsen, a programmer from the Fantastic Fest, will be flying out to Australia and will be bringing a film with him on the plane. No one knows what it will be – including all the members of the BIFF team.
Sounds like it could be a really fun night!
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The Human Centipede 2. The film was denied classification by the British Board of Film Classification (BBFC) as they felt the film posed “a real risk of harm”. Wow. 32 cuts were made to the film (totalling just over 2 minutes) and they managed to get it through the BBFC with an 18+ rating. It’ll be interesting to see what version we get here at BIFF and I’m sure it’ll draw a big crowd.
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The program includes many iconic films. Older audience members can relive the experience of seeing them on the big screen. Newer audience members can experience them for the first time.
There’s a tribute to director Arthur Penn and some of his best work from the 1960s and 1970s. You can see The Left Handed Gun (with Paul Newman), Bonnie & Clyde (with Warren Beatty), Alice’s Restaurant, Night Moves (with Gene Hackman) and The Missouri Breaks (with Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando).
There’s also a salute to Australian surf movies. I didn’t know we’d made this many but the list includes Puberty Blues (director Bruce Beresford will be at BIFF), High On A Cool Wave and Morning Of The Earth. Most are screening as part of a “Surfin’ Saturday” that will include a couch discussion on surfing movies with free snacks and beverages.
Frederico Fellini’s La Dolce Vita will screen along with a documentary that shows what went on behind the scenes of this landmark film. It’s a film I’ve never had the chance to see so perhaps I can remedy that at BIFF.
That’s 10 very good reasons if you ask me to get to this year’s Brisbane International Film Festival. You’ll be able to follow my own progress during the Festival on twitter at @icestorm77 and on my website at www.thefilmpie.com.
I better see you there!