The Sydney Film Festival has long been a supporter of Australian films, and offers us a chance to see Australian talent that might not often make it to the mainstream cinemas. At this year’s SFF, there are no less than 22 Australian feature films on the program.
While perhaps not as prolific as previous years, some of the films are from some recognisable names in the industry: Shane and Clayton Jacobson, Steve Jaggi, Benjamin Gilmour, and, of course, Maya the Bee. As The Reel Bits has long curated a section on Australian Film, we thought we’d take a closer look at the Australian cinema screening at the fest this year.
FEATURES
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Australia’s answer to Sons of Anarchy? Stephen McCallum’s debut feature comes roaring at us with an impressive cast featuring Matt Nable, Ryan Corr and Abbey Lee. Rival biker gangs will clash in this film with impressive photography from Shelley Farthing-Dawe (That’s Not Me).
Brothers’ Nest
Shane Jacobson can’t sit still this year, having already released Guardians of the Tomb, The BBQ, and That’s Not My Dog! to cinemas. 12 years after the massive success of the mockumentary Kenny, director and actor Clayton Jacobson reunites with his brother Shane Jacobson for what is a very different film. Two brothers meet on a frosty Victorian morning in a remote house, and the film kind of unfurls from there. We were lucky enough to catch an early screening of this and let us tell you: it’s a tension bubble. It also starts Kym Gyngell, Lynette Curran and Sarah Snook.
Chocolate Oyster
Steve Jaggi’s name has appeared as a producer on so many Australian indie features in the last few years, including Rip Tide and Zelos, and this film marks his return to directing. The documentarian turns his directorial eye to his first narrative feature, following twenty-somethings Ellie (Anna Lawrence) and Taylor (Rosie Lourde), who live in Bondi apartments they can’t really afford, and pursue their dreams in a city that seems intent on thwarting them. So a quintessential Sydney story basically.
Jirga
It’s been over a decade since director Benjamin Gilmour wowed audiences with Son of a Lion, and now he’s back to tell the the story of a former Australian soldier Mike (Sam Smith) returning to Afghanistan to find a victim’s family and seek forgiveness. Backed by Gilmour’s own cinematography on a hastily bought handheld camera, this is sure to sell out quickly. It’s also the only Australian film in the running for the Official Competition prize of $60,000 cash too!
The Second
We first heard word of this “sexy thriller” back when it was announced as Stan Australia’s first original movie. Directed by Mairi Cameron, and written by Stephen Lance, it’s about two female friends whose lives entwine in the pages of an elusive second novel. It stars Rachael Blake, Susie Porter, Vince Colosimo, Martin Sacks and Susan Prior.
Strange Colours
This is perhaps one of the most original picks of the bunch. Set against Michael Latham’s (Casting JonBenet) striking cinematography of Lightning Ridge, Russian-born Australian director Alena Lodkina takes us on a journey as Milena arrives to visit her sick dad Max, but finds both the environment and her father unwelcoming.
Terror Nullius
Currently playing as an exhibit at the ACMI in Melbourne, two-person art collective Soda_Jerk deliver something that’s a mixture of film, installation art, documentary, and an exploration of the way Australia views its own past. It’s only an hour long, but expect this to pack in several hours worth of shock value.
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Blumhouse Productions is best known for their low-budget horror films such as Get Out, Split, Paranormal Activity, and Truth or Dare earlier this year. Now Saw and Insidious director Leigh Whannell is teaming up with the powerhouse horror team to craft a story about a man (Logan Marshall-Green) who gets an experimental computer chip embedded in his spinal cord to become a superhuman fighter and avenge his wife’s murder. We’re sold.
West of Sunshine
Jason Raftopoulos’ Melbourne-shot film has undergone a few title changes since we first started talking about it as Father’s Day in early 2017, and has been described as a modern Australian version of Bicycle Thieves. The cast features recent AACTA Nominee for Best Actor Damian Hill (Pawno), Arthur Angel (Red Dog), Kat Stewart (Offspring) and Tony Nikolakopoulos (Head On), and introduces young talent Ty Perham.
MORE FEATURES
While that’s pretty much it for the new Australian drama features, there’s also a restored version of the feminist classic MY BRILLIANT CAREER, offering a rare chance to see it in a cinema, and a new animated film for MAYA THE BEE: THE HONEY GAMES. So even the kids can get in on the Oz Film magic.
AUSTRALIAN DOCUMENTARIES
Documentaries actually form the backbone of the Australian features this year, and that just might speak to the number of stranger-than-fiction Australian stories out there. Not for nothing: the local documentaries are all competing for the Documentary Australia Foundation Award, a $10,000 cash prize supported by the Documentary Australia Foundation.
Backtrack Boys
The already sold-out session of Catherine Scott’s documentary follows three youths on the path to no good, until they meet Bernie Shakeshaft: a rough talking jackaroo who runs a youth program from a shed on the outskirts of Armidale. Scott is a familiar name in the Australian production industry, with her previous feature Scarlet Road (2011) following Australian sex worker, Rachel Wotton.
Ghosthunter
Ghosts aren’t real, but personal demons might be. A part-time ghost hunter begins to search for his father in Ben Lawrence’s documentary, he discovers that his own trauma comes with a mystery that he must slowly piece together. This totally sounds like it will be right up the alley of true crime junkies who have run out of things to binge on Netflix or are out of episodes of Serial to download.
I Used to Be Normal: A Boyband Fangirl Story
If you think boy band mania has been confined to the post-Bieber generation, then think again. Jessica Leski (2010’s The Ball) documentary follows four Melbourne women whose lives were changed forever by their love of respective boybands Backstreet Boys, One Direction, Take That and The Beatles. Which pretty much sounds like a wedding playlist. We now patiently await the documentary on the people who had their lives changed by Du Jour.
Teach a Man to Fish
…and you feed him for a lifetime. Grant Leigh Saunders explores his own struggles with identity as a fair-skinned Aboriginal man of Biripi country with a Norwegian wife and two young ‘Koori-Wegian’ children. Returning to his home country of Taree to spend time with his father, what begins as a simple fishing trip reveals so much more.
MORE DOCUMENTARIES
Some text goes here. For cinephiles, theres a collection of clips that were once excised by the OFCS in [CENSORED], while a different kind of editor extraordinaire is explored in JILL BILCOCK: DANCING THE INVISIBLE. In ROCKABUL, Australian musician, journalist and debut director Travis Beard travels to Afghanistan to cover their only metal band, while Grace McKenzie documents the lives of a small Georgian village for IN THE LAND OF WOLVES. It’s closer to home for the portrait of an oyster farmer on the NSW coast in (you guessed it) OYSTER. Richard Todd explores organ donation in Australia in DYING TO LIVE. Director and racer Dylan River heads out across the country in the Finke Desert Race doco FINKE: THERE AND BACK, and Olivia Martin-McGuire takes aim at the billion-dollar pre-wedding photography industry in CHINA LOVE.
