Dior & I could be renamed “Dior & Co.” or “Dior & Us”. The documentary film goes behind the scenes at the French fashion house as the new creative director for Dior Haute Couture, Raf Simons prepares his debut collection. After John Galliano was unceremoniously fired amid controversy (he’d made anti-Semitic comments at a Parisian…
Quickly cementing his status one of the most talented actors of his generation, Tom Hardy is currently undertaking one of his most challenging roles yet. Or rather, two of his most challenging roles yet. Hardy has started shooting period biopic Legend this week, in which he portrays real-life twins Reginald and Robert Kray. To mark the start of shooting,…
Of all of the films screened at the 2014 Sydney Film Festival, At Berkeley is perhaps the timeliest, considering the recent reveal that the budget here in Australia could see considerable changes to the tertiary education landscape. At Berkeley acts as a peek into how the University of California, Berkeley, is run in the…
The Melbourne International Animation Festival kicks off next week at ACMI (Running from June 19th until the 29th). Ahead of opening night, we caught up with Malcolm Turner, the Director of the festival, to discuss the program for 2014, his recent trip to Paris, his advice for young animators and much more… What are the…
Erin Gray may be known for her role as “Colonel Deering” within the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century franchise, but over an extensive career in television and film, Gray has been able to expand and integrate her passions as a public speaker, writer and Tai-Chi teacher into her career as well. In Australia for…
Abuse of Weakness, the latest offering by French filmmaker Catherine Breillat, is an intriguing and compelling film that unflinchingly portrays Breillat’s own curious story. The autobiographical film is based upon Breillat’s experiences, beginning with her suffering a stroke in 2004 and following her through the long recovery process and adapting to life partly crippled. During…
The theme of two lovers kept apart from their families or individual circumstances is hardly anything new. But Gabrielle is a film that deals with another rarely discussed subject and one that is infrequently depicted in cinemas. It is the love lives of the disabled and this film shows this with dignity and for the…
Fish & Cat feels like a dream that’s forever threatening to turn into a nightmare. This bizarre and unsettling film, by Iranian director Shahram Mokri, is supposedly based on true events where a restaurant served human flesh, and its roughly two hours of runtime is filmed entirely in one shot. Imagine a re-enactment of a…
With the Supanova Pop Culture Expo set to kick off in Sydney this weekend before hitting up Perth on June 20-22, the organisers have given fans in Adelaide and Brisbane a taste of their convention line ups for November. More guests are to be announced in coming months, but in the meantime get a hit…
Oz Comic-Con Melbourne just got a whole lot more exciting, with the addition of Once Upon a Time’s Jennifer Morrison to it’s July lineup! The American actress, who currently stars in the fantasy drama as ‘Emma Swan’, daughter of Snow White and Prince Charming – yeah, it’s a big mash up of a show, but…
The Queen is a gritty and dazzling short presented by Argentinean director Manuel Abramovic. I’ve called this one gritty and dazzling because it is full of sequins, incredible glittering costumes but also suffering. This film is a short 15-minute vignette of Memi’s life. Memi is only 11 years old and she is going to be…
Brad Pitt is one of those actors who can drum up a huge amount of buzz for any project that has his name attached to it. He always delivers solid performances and is endlessly watchable. Next up for Pitt is WWII drama Fury, which sees him leading a tank crew through the tail end of the war. Joining…
The 61st Sydney Film Festival comes to a close this Sunday, but you still have a chance to see some incredible films before the festival ends. Particularly exciting is the terrifying program that the Festival has in store for tomorrow, which just happens to be Friday the 13th! The Festival presents a packed program of…
Is it too much of a stretch to imagine a crowd of rabid soccer fans turning into a mob of hyper-violent, destruction-hungry rioters? Such is the question when gearing up to watch a two-part French horror film which quite proudly displays it’s mixed-genre glory in it’s trailer. It isn’t hard too understand what’s going on…
Not everything or everyone is quite what it seems in this gripping thriller that brings a wealthy American couple and a young shady tour guide together on an increasingly tense journey across the Mediterranean as they try to evade the law. Chester MacFarland (Viggo Mortensen) and his gorgeous young wife Colette (Kirsten Dunst) are holidaying…
It’s hard to believe it’s been four years since we last saw Angelina Jolie on the big screen (the tepid 2010 thriller The Tourist sitting as her most recent live action affair) and in the time waiting to see her as the titular Maleficent we’ve been teased and taunted with imagery greatness, leading us to believe that…
In Lake August, screening as part of the Sydney Film Festival, what little drama occurs is almost completely subsumed by the landscapes of the film. A young man, Ah Li, drifts across a remote corner of rural China, smoking and drinking beer, but mostly just standing there, for almost two hours in a film comprised…
Since premiering at Sundance earlier this year, Lenny Abrahamson’s new film Frank has become one of the most talked about films of the festival circuit, lighting up cinemas with its iconic papier-mâché head from SXSW all the way to Sydney Film Festival, where it had its Australian premiere this weekend; the place where Abrahamson’s What…
Director David Michôd has been in high demand ever since the stunning Animal Kingdom was unleashed in 2010. So it’s pretty much a given that his 2014 follow up The Rover be met with the same ecstatic enthusiasm with which AK was received. With positive reviews pouring in from every corner in response to to…
When renegade director Anna Broinowski decided to make a film to stop a planned gas mine near her Sydney home she sought help… from North Korea? Anna gained unprecedented access to the North Korean film industry and got hot tips from Kim Jong Il’s propaganda protégés. The story makes Vice Mag’s little North Korean ditty…
“Australia – Ten Years After the Collapse” This is as explicit an explanation as David Michôd gives in terms of explaining where we find ourselves in his second full length feature, The Rover. Following on from the remarkable Animal Kingdom, this could not be more a different film. In place of a multitude of characters,…
20 years after they first hit the big screen in the much-loved comedy classic Dumb and Dumber, Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels are returning as Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne in the upcoming sequel, Dumb and Dumber To. The first full trailer for the film has just been released online, and it is such a treat to see these characters again. The…
Larry Heath caught up with producer Helen Bowden (The Slap) while at Sydney Film Festival to talk about the new Foxtel TV series Devil’s Playground. The six-part series, which will premiere in September, sees its first two episodes screen at the Festival tonight. They talk about the direction the series has taken, operating as a sequel…
Chris Singh caught up with lead actor Ellar Coltrane and producer Cathleen Sutherland of the unique film Boyhood to gain some insight into how this unprecedented project came together during the 12 years it took to make, what Ellar’s mentality was like during filming, and what they have both learnt from working on it. Directed…
It can be a bit frustrating to read about all of the awesome films that are screening at film festivals over the world if you are unable to get to any of them, and it’s a feeling that most film fans would have felt at one time or another. It’s great to hear then, that just…
Agnès Varda – the Grand Dame of French New Wave Cinema – has lived one rich and vibrant life. And in Les plages d’Agnès (The Beaches of Agnès) this is captured perfectly. The film is a strange documentary that is helmed by the doyenne art house director and lovable eccentric, as she candidly takes us…
Paula Malcomson plays Abby Donovan, the wife of the lead character and namesake of the series Ray Donovan, which will see its first season released on DVD in Australia this week. The acclaimed Showtime series follows Ray, a professional “fixer” for the rich and famous of Los Angeles, and the ongoing dramas that surround him thanks…
Supanova is set to light fires in the bellies of pop culture fanatics in Sydney this weekend and to be honest, it’s one of the strongest guest line ups they’ve pulled yet. Actors from highly successful series’ including Game of Thrones, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D, The Walking Dead and more are set to spend their weekend…
Pulp are a band of the people. So it should come as no surprise that the film about their last concert performance in their Sheffield hometown is at times more about their fans and the locals then the self-deprecating group itself. Florian Habicht’s (Love Story) documentary, Pulp: A Film About Life, Death & Supermarkets plays…
The Iris’ Larry Heath talks to Kitty Green, director of Ukraine Is Not A Brothel, about the conception and creation of the documentary, the Ukrainian protest movement, and her goal of creating a new level of intimacy within the film – “I was conscious of making it quite cinematic… I really wanted to get that…
