Sydney Film Festival

Sophisticated and Austen-worthy, Love and Friendship is a must see. Based on Jane Austen’s epistolary novella Lady Susan, the film centres on the original story’s namesake, played by Kate Beckinsale, a widow with a chain of scandals following her. She arrives at her in-laws’ home and is in search of husbands for her and her daughter. And…

Gimme Danger turns the amp up to 11 and never turns down for a second in its nearly two hour running time. Super loud, super charged, and super excellent, this documentary charting the rise, quick demise, and subsequent reunion of The Stooges is one hell of a good time. Written and directed by super fan…

Dark and clever, What’s in the Darkness is in a league of its own being a mixture of crime and coming of age story. Directed by first-time director Wang Yichuan, the story follows teenager Jing (Su Xiaotong) who’s discovering her identity and sexuality. Soon she gets tangled up with a case involving a serial killer…

Unapologetic, bold Australian “black comedy” Down Under had its world premiere this past week at the 63rd annual Sydney Film Festival, the only logical platform for Writer/Director Abe Forsythe to debut his second feature film seeing as it concerns one of the most talked about and shameful moments in the city’s history. This inevitably controversial…

There’s a lot going on around Sydney, and while most of it’s fun there’s some tearful goodbyes too as we farewell two of the city’s biggest events – Sydney Film Festival and Vivid Sydney – for yet another year. This is your last chance to charge up with the energy of both events while also…

Craig Boreham’s Teenage Kicks made its worldwide premiere last weekend as part of this year’s Sydney Film Festival. Our reviewer, Simon, called it, “a beautifully filmed coming of age tale…that leaves you thinking long after the final credits have rolled.” Fergus Halliday caught up with the director himself and star Miles Szanto to talk about the film, the ideas…

Director Argyris Papadimitropoulos has a darkly comical voice with which he approaches his new film Suntan, willing to lighten the mood with a playful, enjoyable middle but never quite losing focus of the uncomfortable message at the end of it all. His style is most evident in the cautionary tale of Kostis (Makis Papadimitriou), a…

Rock & roll conquers all in John Carney‘s latest film, Sing Street, where the young and introverted Conor (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo) starts a band in order to impress a girl (Lucy Boynton). It’s to the film’s credit, however, that this is only the spark that sets off the movie and there’s a lot more going on here than just…

Defusing an explosive in western cinema is very rarely as tense as it should be. With the exception of brilliant films The Hurt Locker (Kathryn Bigelow) and Gallipoli (Peter Weir), the suspense surrounding characters handling something so volatile, which with the slightest fault could literally blow them apart in an instant, is often suppressed by…

Paterson is the new film from acclaimed auteur (and Iggy Pop fan) Jim Jarmusch. A man who enjoys character studies that are never rushed for the sake of plot progression, existing in some semblance of real time, watching a Jarmusch film involves a lot of patience on behalf of the viewer. If you’re a fan of…

Sharon Jones isn’t a household name, nor an artist with a breakout radio hit. But those who do know of her and her talent, will attest to her brilliance. She has been likened to a female James Brown, belting out soul and funk tunes and thrashing and shimmying like a pint sized Tina Turner. However…

Following its Australian premiere at this year’s Sydney Film Festival, Fergus Halliday sat down with director Rokhsareh Ghaemmaghami  to talk about her award-winning documentary, Sonita. Winner of the Audience Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, Ghaemmaghami’s documentary explores Sonita’s journey as a young undocumented exile living in Tehran, with big dreams of breaking into the rap industry. What drew…

Quietly unnerving films like The Loved Ones and Wolf Creek (the first one, not the horrendous sequel) have come to define Australian horror to an international audience, but this country has produced just as many louder, bloodier, and faster entries into the often overcrowded genre, and most of that quality is found on the lower…

Clever and dark, High-Rise (directed by Ben Wheatley) is a dystopia to remember. The story follows surgeon Laing (Tom Hiddleston) who moves to a tower far from civilisation. This tower has everything you need from a supermarket to a gym, but no contact with the outside world. Laing adjusts to life at the tower and…

Far from Disney’s little mermaid, The Lure is a film that mixes musical, comedy and horror together. The story centres on a family of entertainers who find a pair of mermaids and decide to take them in since they have beautiful singing voices. The mermaids immerse themselves in the human world, but soon one of…

One of the first thing that Blood Father makes clear is that John Link (Mel Gibson) is over being a flashy action hero type. It’s old hat to an ex-con like him and he doesn’t want anything to do with it. However, don’t be fooled, Gibson himself seems to be having a hell of a…

Craig Boreham’s beautifully filmed coming of age tale Teenage Kicks is a film that leaves you thinking long after the final credits have rolled. Writing this review two days after the film had its world premiere at the Sydney Film Festival I find myself still grappling with its expert exploration of cultural and sexual identities…

I’ve got to get one thing out of the way before I can get on with the rest of this review – who would have thought that Nick Jonas was such a good actor. I mean seriously, I’ve heard nothing of this guy since his Disney starring, purity ring wearing days but he completely knocks…

Goldstone was easily my most anticipated film of this year’s Sydney Film Festival, and it’s fair to say it did not disappoint. Written, directed, edited and pretty much everything else by Ivan Sen, it is sure to join the pantheon of great Aussie films – a triumph from start to finish. Seeing the return of…

I’d be lying if I said I was an Australian Cinema connoisseur. Despite being an avid cinephile, I guess I’ve always been a bit ignorant towards my home country’s unique brand of cinema. But Girl Asleep may have absolutely opened my eyes. Girl Asleep is set in the 70’s, as Gretta who is about to…

Closet Monster isn’t a film that succeeds because on its premise alone. It’s all in the execution. Though hardly the first drama film to concern itself with what it means to grow up queer in the 21st century, it feels rare to find a film as well realised as this one. The acting, direction, editing and music…

The Sydney Film Festival is set to be slightly-extended this year, with addition screenings announced for the event’s most popular films. The screenings will take place at Palace Cinemas in Leichhardt and Paddington across the 20th to 22nd of June. “This is the second year we will extend our run for top-selling films beyond the…

Over the course of the last century, warfare has been conducted on land, in the sea or in the air. But with thanks to our ever evolving technology there no longer needs to be a physical presence for war. It can now all be done electronically, digitally, silently and invisibly and cause irreparable damage. When…

Pausing from his planned trilogy of films with Brendan Gleeson – which has already seen the release of the brilliant The Guard (2011) and Calvary (2014) – English/Irish director John Michael McDonagh makes his debut outside of Ireland with the incredibly black comedy War on Everyone, starring Alexander Skarsgård and Michael Peña – who are both…

Larry Heath sits down with Ryan Guzman, Tyler Hoechlin, J. Quinton Johnson and Wyatt Russell to talk about their work as part of the ensemble cast of Richard Linklater’s brand new film Everybody Wants Some!! I talk to the quartet about how the film related to their actual College experience, their love of ice cream, their training…

New Zealand born Director Jake Mahaffy was trawling the news one day when he came across a chilling story from 2003 concerning the death of an 8 year old autistic boy named Terrance Cottrell. His death was seemingly the unintentional consequence of a modern-day exorcism performed by members of a small storefront Milwaukee church who…

I Saw The Light is the new feature film from second time director Marc Abraham, focusing on the short life and influential career of iconic American musician Hank Williams. It’s not the first time Williams’ story has found its home on the big screen, but it’s the first major take since 1964’s Your Cheatin’ Heart,…

Defiance in the face of constraint brought on by stringent cultural convention is a favourite topic for Sydney Film Festival year in and year out. Falling into that category this year is Turkish award-winner Mustang which, following last year’s release, picked up the coveted Cannes Directors’ Fortnight prize, four Césars and an Oscar nomination, well…

Embedded fits nicely within the growing catalog of Australian films determined to prove our country has much more to offer the world of cinema than just koalas and beaches. Part erotic thriller, part political statement. Embedded revolves entirely around the relationship between disillusioned war correspondent Frank (Nick Barkla) and Madeline (Laura Gordon), the enigmatic woman he shares…

Any documentary ambitious enough to tackle different facets and implications of the “internet” is going to fall short of something. The single most influential creation of the past few decades has grown into such an impossibly complex and overwhelming force that it would be pure insanity to think one could encapsulate all its infinite intricacies…