The Adelaide Film Festival (ADLFF) has long been a showcase for new Australian cinema, and their announcement Tuesday of some of the gala highlights has confirmed their reputation as one of the world’s must-see festivals. THE NIGHTINGALE and a super-early screening of I AM MOTHER have been announced as part of the ADLFF Fund’s line-up for 2018.
Together with the recently announced Opening Night Hotel Mumbai Australian Premiere, the first weekend of the 2018 Adelaide Film Festival boasts three of the most hotly anticipated Australian films of the year alongside documentaries, shorts, VR, and the world premiere of the spy thriller TV series Pine Gap.
Other films announced as part of the ADLFF 2018 line-up include:
THE NIGHTINGALE – Australian Premiere
The new feature from writer/director Jennifer Kent, THE NIGHTINGALE marks a cinematic return to Adelaide for the director of the international hit The Babadook, which was made at Adelaide Studios. THE NIGHTINGALE is the only Australian film in the prestigious Venice Film Festival competition in 2018, and only the fifth Australian film selected this decade, following in the footsteps of previous Adelaide Film Fest FUND titles Tracks in 2014 and Special Jury Prize winner Sweet Country in 2017.
The Nightingale stars Aisling Franciosi (Game of Thrones) and Sam Claflin (The Hunger Games) alongside Australia’s Baykali Ganambarr (from the internationally acclaimed Djuki Mala dance group), Damon Herriman (Justified, Breaking Bad), Harry Greenwood (Hacksaw Ridge) and Ewen Leslie (Sweet Country). The Nightingale is produced by Kristina Ceyton (Cargo, The Babadook), South Australian-born Bruna Papandrea (Wild, Big Little Lies), Steve Hutensky (2:22) and Jennifer Kent (The Babadook).
Saturday 13 October 6pm – followed by premiere party
I AM MOTHER – Gala work-in-progress screening
Starring two-time Oscar® winner Hilary Swank and newcomer Clara Rugaard, I AM MOTHER is a thought-provoking sci-fi thriller that brings a dark and electrifying edge to a unique mother-daughter story. Based on an original concept by West Australian director Grant Sputore, here making his directorial debut, and writer Michael Lloyd Green, the script was one of the most sought after on the 2016 Black List. I Am Mother tells the story of a lonely teenage girl, the first of a new generation of humans to be raised by Mother – a kindly robot designed to repopulate the earth after the extinction of mankind. Their unique bond is threatened when a blood-drenched woman (Swank) inexplicably arrives at the bunker, begging for help. Overnight the stranger calls into question everything Daughter has been told about the outside world and her Mother’s intentions. Produced by Kelvin Munro and Timothy White, co-produced by Anna Vincent and Michael Lloyd Green.
Friday 12 October 6.45pm – followed by premiere party
SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED
The ADL Film Fest Fund will world premiere the feature documentary, SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED. Directed by her daughter Erica Glynn, it tells the epic life story of Freda Glynn – 78-year-old Aboriginal woman, stills photographer, co-founder of the Central Australian Aboriginal Media Association (CAAMA) and Imparja TV, mother of Erica and Warwick Thornton, grandmother, great grandmother, radical, pacifist and grumpy old woman. The film also details what drove Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander people to stake a claim to Australia’s media landscape.
Saturday 13 October – 2pm, followed by premiere party
THE WAITING ROOM
The ADL FF, together with Samstag Museum of Art, is proud to present the world premiere of THE WAITING ROOM, a newly commissioned Adelaide Film Fest FUND work by internationally celebrated filmmakers Molly Reynolds (Another Country) and Rolf de Heer (Charlie’s Country, Ten Canoes). A modern fable, The Waiting Room redefines the boundaries of VR by dispensing with conventional VR headsets. It is a cinematic installation in five dimensions, traversing the audio-visual realm through space and time. It speaks to the time in between the before and the after: the time before we, the real aliens on planet Earth, arrived; and the time after, once we are done colonising and have gone. What are the realities that we must transcend to avoid arriving at the inevitable?
THE WAITING ROOM World Premiere season: Fri 14 Sept – Fri 30 Nov at Samstag Museum of Art
PINE GAP
In a special big screen exclusive, ADL FF will screen the first two episodes of the six-part spy thriller PINE GAP, giving audiences the chance to preview and share in the experience of the new series, starring Parker Sawyers (Southside With You), Jacqueline McKenzie (Romper Stomper), Steve Toussaint (Fortitude), Tess Haubrich (Alien: Covenant, Wolf Creek Season 2) and produced and filmed in South Australia. Set in the intensely secretive world of intelligence and the enigmatic US/Australia joint defence facility in central Australia, this timely series delves into the famously strong alliance between the two countries. Pine Gap is a Screentime production (a Banijay Company) for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation & Netflix, with additional finance from the SAFC, in association with Screen Territory.
Thursday 11 October 6.45pm – followed by premiere party
