It’s that time of the year again for Sydney cinephiles: when memories of summer begin to fade and the idea of gorging on local and international cinema grows ever more appealing. As always, the 2018 Sydney film festival is choc-a-block with cinematic treats, featuring more than 250 films from 60 countries, in more than 160 languages. Here are 10 films to see at this year’s festival.
1. Terror Nullius
Directors: Dan and Dominique Angeloro / Country: Australia
The hullabaloo surrounding the Ian Potter Cultural Trust withdrawing support from Terror Nullius, a film it financed, was nothing compared with the excitement of watching the film itself – a fiercely contemporary and thrillingly revisionist head trip from the two-person art collective Soda_Jerk. The film-makers apply sample and remix techniques synonymous with electronic music to Australian cinema, reconfiguring classic texts to create new meaning and reflect contemporary sensibilities. SFF will mark the first time Terror Nullius has been screened outside Melbourne’s Acmi cinemas. Soda_Jerk will also take part in an extended Q&A session at Sydney Town Hall on 7 June at 8.30pm.
2. The Pure Necessity
Director: David Claerbout / Country: Belgium
The directorial debut of David Claerbout – who, like Soda_Jerk, is known for video installations – also reworks classic source material to create a kind of meta deja vu. In The Pure Necessity, Claerbout and his team remove the humans from the classic Disney animation The Jungle Book. This involved painstakingly redrawing each frame, the rejigged work presented in the style of a nature documentary. What did Claerbout prove, and why did he bother? Presumably (hopefully) the film itself will provide some answers.
3. Three Faces
Director: Jafar Panahi / Country: Iran
Breathtaking drama, political critique and a searing, self-reflexive style defined the brilliant previous film by Jafar Panahi: Tehran Taxi. The Iranian film-maker, who was placed under house arrest in 2011 and banned from making movies, continues nevertheless to find ways to do so, putting an almost absurd spin on Orson Welles’ famous quote about how “the enemy of art is the absence of limitations”. Panahi’s latest cri de coeur is Three Faces, which follows the stories of three actors at different points in their careers.
4. Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot and You Were Never Really Here
Directors: Gus Van Sant and Lynne Ramsay / Country: US
In her review of Casablanca, the great US film critic Pauline Kael described Humphrey Bogart the following way: “There isn’t an actor in American films today with anything like his assurance, his magnetism, or his style.” The same could be said of Joaquin Phoenix, who stars in two new films at this year’s SFF.
In the comedy-drama biopic Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot – from the director Gus Van Sant – the actor plays real-life cartoonist John Callahan, who was paralysed from a car accident at the age of 21. In You Were Never Really Here, from the We Need to Talk About Kevin director Lynne Ramsay, Phoenix plays a former soldier and law enforcement officer who tracks down missing teens on behalf of wealthy parents.
5. Half the Picture
Director: Amy Adrion / Country: US
In the era of #MeToo and widespread, ongoing calls for gender equality in Hollywood and beyond, Amy Adrion’s documentary arrives well-timed to explore the question: why are there so few female directors? According to one study from San Diego State University, women accounted for just 11% of directors working on the top 250 films of 2017. Talking points in Adrion’s film include sexism, harassment and discomfort at the idea of female leadership.
6. Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno
Director: Abdellatif Kechiche / Country: France
The Tunisian-French film-maker Abdellatif Kechiche directed one of the best LGBT dramas in recent years: 2013’s evocative, immaculately framed and directed, Palme d’Or-winning film Blue Is the Warmest Colour. His new project is a three-hour romantic drama revolving around Amin (Shaïn Boumedine). This dude is retro: a budding screenwriter who bangs away on a typewriter and watches movies on VHS. Mektoub, My Love: Canto Uno is the first in a planned trilogy.
7. Searching
Director: Aneesh Chaganty / Country: US
The 2015 thriller Unfriended, which unfolded entirely on its protagonist’s desktop computer, was one of the most visually audacious scary movies in recent years. And yet the film was nothing if not aesthetically familiar, using ubiquitous screen elements such as browser tabs and Skype windows. Can this approach be taken to other interesting places or is it simply a gimmick? Enter Searching, the directorial debut of Aneesh Chaganty, starring Debra Messing and John Cho, which was shot entirely from the point of view of computer screens and smartphones.
8. Skate Kitchen
Director: Crystal Moselle / Country: US
Continuing the theme of contemporary, digitally connected concepts comes the first narrative feature from Crystal Moselle, who directed the fascinating 2015 documentary The Wolfpack. Skate Kitchen, about an all-girl New York skate crew, is reportedly the world’s first movie to be adapted from an Instagram feed. If that sounds like a ghastly foundation for a film, Skate Kitchen has nevertheless generated strong word-of-mouth buzz after its premiere at this year’s Sundance film festival.
9. Number 37
Director: Nosipho Dumisa / Country: South Africa
The Award-winning South African writer/director Nosipho Dumisa launches her feature film career with a movie certain to be compared to Hitchcock, which is not exactly a safe or cautious path to tread. Number 37 relocates the premise of Rear Window to urban Cape Town. A small-time burglar, Randal (Irshaad Ally), is in a wheelchair and, James Stewart-style, picks up a pair of binoculars. Will he witness nothing remotely eventful and undergo a smooth and trauma-free recovery? Of course not.
10. My Brilliant Career
Director: Gillian Armstrong / Country: Australia
The first novel by Australia’s Miles Franklin, published in 1901, launched more than a single brilliant career. As well as being one of that author’s most famous novels, the 1979 feature film adaptation made a star out of Judy Davis, who plays the bull-headed protagonist Sybylla Melvyn, and launched the career of Gillian Armstrong, who became the first Australian woman to direct a feature film in almost 50 years. My Brilliant Career made an indelible impression on Australian cinema and returns to the big screen in a digitally restored new print, courtesy of the NFSA Restores program.
