Sydney Film Festival 2004

Venue:
The State Theatre, Dendy Opera Quays and The Studio, Sydney Opera House

Dates:
June 11– 26, 2004

Cost:
A range of ticketing options is available. Visit the Festival Web site for more details

Visiting

Flights: Qantas, Virgin Blue, Jetstar and their affiliates fly to Sydney several times a day from capital cities and regional centres

Accommodation: Try the Intercontinental Hotel (top end)
Novotel Century Sydney (mid range) or Metro Inn Edgecliffe (budget)

Also, check out lastminute.com.au for bargains

Public transport: Full details are at www.131500.com.au or call the Transport Infoline on 131500 (local call cost from anywhere in Australia)

Cinema unearthed

The Sydney International Film Festival winds up again this June for the city's annual celebration of fine cinema from around the globe. With last year's festival unearthing cinematic gems including Raising Victor Vargas, American Splendor, Spellbound, Confessions of A Dangerous Mind and The Spanish Apartment, 2004 promises to reveal another round of hits.

This year, the festival promises to be bigger than ever with films from as far afield as Mongolia, Egypt, Bhutan and Bolivia, and the addition of several new venues, including more screenings at the Dendy Opera Quays, and special events at the Opera House and The Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The festival starts off with a bit of drama from across the Tasman, with New Zealand film In My Father's Den promising to keep audiences on the edge of their seats on Opening Night. A cavalcade of the world's most challenging and intriguing films will ensure cinephiles are well occupied for the following fortnight, with a number of international award winning films on offer. Winner of this year's Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival, the beautiful Russian work The Return is scheduled, as is Sundance audience favourites Born Into Brothels, a touching depiction of the children of Calcutta's prostitutes, and the moving coming of age drama Maria Full of Grace, the emotional Croatian tale of atrocity and Berlin Peace Price winner Witnesses, and Cannes pick Reconstruction, a stylish Danish love story set on the streets of Copenhagen.

The festival casts a special spotlight on Canadian cinema, featuring Woody Harrelson's environmentally friendly trails in Go Further, Cube director Vincent Natali's latest offering Nothing and Allan King's moving documentary Dying at Grace among others. Also on the program are spotlights on Korean morality tales with Memories of Murder, high costume drama in Untold Scandal and sexual escapades in A Good Lawyer's Wife, as well as some kinetic kung fu fighting with Hong Kong's Intimate Confessions of a Chinese Courtesan, Clans of Intrigue, the prequel to the Hong Kong's biggest grossing film of 2002 in Infernal Affairs 2, and Zhang Yimou's highly anticipated Hero.

Not to be missed are Ken Loach's Ae Fond Kiss, the controversial biopic The Life and Death of Peter Sellers, Iranian director Abolfazl Jalili's autobiographical work Abjad, the spiritual Korean flick Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, and to cap off the festival on closing night, Takeshi Kitano's much awaited first period piece, Zatoichi.

For the more adventurous, Mario Van Peebles takes a step away from directing straight-to-video B-grade schlock, in BAADASSSS!, a highly person tribute to his father Melvin, the godfather of black independent cinema, tales of the grisly appear in Grimm, a modern take on illicit sex, car theft and organ transplants, and Kevin Bacon tackles paedophilia in The Woodsman.

As usual, there is a strong field of documentary films, with topics ranging from the Philippines’ first lady in Imelda; an intimate look at the confessional in the Austrian doco Jesus, You Know; the glamour and grunge of tinseltown in Los Angeles Plays Itself; the Taliban's destruction of Afghanistan's historic 1600 year old religious statues in The Boy Who Plays on the Buddhas of Bamiyan; and the consumer culture goes under the spotlight in the Swedish Surplus: Terrorised into Being Consumers. Not to be missed on the political side, is Control Room, Jehane Noujaim's exceptional look at the Iraq war from all sides of the story and a trip through Tibet's tragic history in Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion.

There is also a broad selection of Australian documentaries, including Beyond Sorry, the story of two Aboriginal women who reunite over fifty years after one of them taken away from her family; a behind the scenes look at the Australian pro-wrestling circuit in Big Men: Bigger Dreams; Sydney At War: The Untold Story of Japanese submarines' 1942 entry into Sydney Harbour; a sneak peak into Darlinghurst courtrooms in Secrets of the Jury Room; a disturbing look at the euthanasia debate in Mademoiselle and te Doctor; and impressive young director Ivan Sen, who wowed audiences with (last year's?) moving drama Beneath Clouds, tackles the documentary style in Who Was Evelyn Orcher?

For musos, there is a range of docos on the bill, including Sundance favourite Metallica: Some Kind of Monster, a look at the inspiring Russian conductor Valery Gergiev and his students in The Master and His Pupil, some hard rocking with End of the Century: The Story of the Ramones, a portrait of American composer Cole Porter in De-lovely, guns, gangs and rap in Tupac Resurrection, and Haunting Douglas, chronicling the life of New Zealand dynamic dancer choreographer Douglas Wright.

The festival is also holding a retrospective of films by Michelangelo Antonioni, featuring some of this legendary Italian directors memorable films, including Blow Up, L'avventura, La Notte, Red Desert, Beyond The Clouds and Chung Kuo Cina, as well as screenings over a dozen of Antonioni's short films. Accompanying these are two documentaries, Making a Film for Me Is to Live, a personal look at the making of Beyond the Clouds by Antonioni's wife Erica, and Antonioni: The Gaze That Changed Cinema, a rich visual journey through half a century of Antonioni's films.

For fans of the classics, there are also special screenings of Australia's quintessential 1919 masterpiece, The Sentimental Bloke, the notoriously salacious silent film The Merry Widow, complete with a live musical accompaniment, and for fans of monster movies, the original Japanese Godzilla is set to stomp, chomp and roar its way through the State Theatre.

As always, the Dendy Awards for Australian Short Film offers some well known treats, including Harvie Krumpet, Birthday Boy and Cracker Bag as well as some undiscovered diamonds, and the digital arts gets a run at the Scope and d>art04 programs.

Rebecca Whalen

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