Sydney Film Festival 2017
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- DirectorNick BroomfieldRudi DolezalStarsWhitney HoustonMichael BakerWayne LindseyTells the story of Whitney Houston's extraordinary life and tragic death.SFF#01: WHITNEY: CAN I BE ME. Director Nick Broomfield abandons the bumbling verite approach that has become his trademark in favour of talking head and archival footage to explore the tragic life of a singer with tremendous talent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Z8KhRuBMns - DirectorWarwick ThorntonStarsTrevor 'Reg' AbrahamsAdam BriggsTimmy BurarrwangaWarwick Thornton investigates our relationship to the Southern Cross, in this thought-provoking ride through Australia's cultural and political landscape.SFF#02: WE DON'T NEED A MAP. The Sydney Film Festival has set the bar low with its Opening Night film. Warwick Thornton's dull documentary is better suited to late-night SBS than the spectacular State Theatre. The film is ignorant, condescending, devisive, one-sided and, ultimately, racist. Fortunately the quality of the SFF Opening Night films is never an indication of the line-up ahead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34yhOtFUa6s&t=2s - DirectorJeffrey WalkerStarsOsamah SamiDon HanyHelana SawiresAfter telling a white lie which spirals out of control, a neurotic, naive, musically gifted Muslim cleric's eldest son must follow through with an arranged marriage, even though he's madly in love with an Australian born-Lebanese girl.SFF#03: ALI'S WEDDING. It's another case of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl in this well-intentioned but utterly formulaic Australian romantic comedy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iT9m2huUTgA - DirectorAmat EscalanteStarsRuth RamosSimone BucioJesús MezaA couple in a troubled marriage locate a meteorite, initiating an encounter with a mysterious creature. Their lives are turned upside down by the discovery of the creature, which is a source of both pleasure and destruction.SFF#04: THE UNTAMED. A Mexican love quadrangle. Explicit sex scenes. A slimy creature with tentacles in a remote cabin. This is art cinema at its very worst.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--6yDOoQ0mw - DirectorTarik SalehStarsFares FaresMari MalekYasser Ali MaherA maid witnesses a murder at an upscale hotel and a policeman is assigned to the case, but it soon becomes clear that important people don't want the case solved.SFF#05: THE NILE HILTON INCIDENT. A corrupt cop investigates the murder of a woman at the Hilton Hotel in this stylish and riveting Egyptian crime thriller.
- DirectorJan HrebejkStarsZuzana MauréryZuzana KonecnáCsongor KassaiThe arrival of Maria Drazdechova, associated with the Communist party, to a school in Bratislava in 1983 worries parents, students, and colleagues.SFF#06: THE TEACHER. From corrupt cops to corrupt school teachers. A teacher in Czechoslovakia exploits her students. If their parents can help her, the students will be rewarded with good grades. If they can't, they will suffer. This should be funnier. Much funnier. But it's not, it's dull and depressing.
- DirectorBenedict AndrewsStarsRuby StokesRooney MaraRiz AhmedWhen a young woman unexpectedly arrives at her much-older former lover's workplace, looking for answers, the secrets of their dark past threaten to unravel his new life. What follows is an emotional and unflinching excavation of inappropriate love, with shattering consequences.SFF#07: UNA. A woman tracks down the man who abused her as a child. Despite fine performances, it's slow, miserable and far too dialogue-heavy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og-N-8Xxn78 - DirectorAisling WalshStarsSally HawkinsEthan HawkeZachary BennettAn arthritic Nova Scotia woman works as a housekeeper while she hones her skills as an artist and eventually becomes a beloved figure in the community.SFF#08: MAUDIE. Sally Hawkins plays an arthritic artist living with an abusive man in this moving but relentlessly bleak drama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6D_7M7lq9Qs - DirectorGregory ErdsteinStarsAlice FoulcherNikita Leigh-PritchardJanine WatsonPolly's dreams of making it as an actor are shattered when her twin sister catapults to international stardom. Scrambling to catch up - Polly juggles woeful auditions, painfully awkward dates and her underwhelming job at the local cinema.SFF#09: THAT'S NOT ME. An Australian actress lives in the shadow of her successful twin sister. What could be depressing becomes hilarious as identities are mistaken. Tropfest finalist Gregory Erdstein has made the transition to a feature film and the result is impressive.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbFknwblbd0 - DirectorMichael GlawoggerMonika WilliStarsBirgit MinichmayrFiona ShawRobin A Townsend"I want to give a view of the world that can only emerge by not pursuing any particular theme, by refraining from passing judgment, proceeding without aim. Drifting with no direction except one's own curiosity and intuition." (Michael Glawogger) More than two years after the sudden death of Michael Glawogger in April 2014, film editor Monika Willi realizes a film out of the film footage produced during 4 months and 19 days of shooting in the Balkans, Italy, Northwest and West Africa. A journey into the world to observe, listen and experience, the eye attentive, courageous and raw. Serendipity is the concept - in shooting as well as in editing the film.SFF#10: UNTITLED. My most eagerly anticipated film of the festival. Ten years ago, I was introduced to the work of Austrian documentary director, Michael Glawogger, at the Revelation Film Festival. His obsession with the disadvantaged, the wretched and the miserable in films like MEGACITIES, WORKINGMAN'S DEATH and WHORE'S GLORY is strangely hypnotic. With this documentary, he set out to travel the world and photograph anything and everything but he died of malaria in the process. His editor, Monika Willi, has finished the film and it's haunting. I'm not sure what Glawogger would make of all the poetic voice overs but the images are powerful. We see children and goats searching through piles of garbage, a dead animal covered in maggots on the side of a road, a lone tree in the desert, wrestlers fighting in the sand and amputees on crutches playing football. There's no connection, that's the point, it's just a look at lives elsewhere that we wouldn't otherwise see. Glawogger paid the ultimate price making this film and I'm grateful for his potent contribution to cinema.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOJE6juP-Uo - DirectorSteve JamesStarsThomas SungHwei Lin SungCyrus Vance Jr.A small financial institution called Abacus becomes the only company criminally indicted in the wake of the United States' 2008 mortgage crisis.SFF#11: ABACUS: SMALL ENOUGH TO JAIL. The big banks were too difficult an opponent in wake of the 2008 mortgage crisis, so the U.S. government bailed them out and went after one small, family-run community bank instead. The result was a lengthy and complicated court case where nothing was black and white, as detailed in this fascinating documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD4MlanbeB4 - DirectorMichael HanekeStarsIsabelle HuppertJean-Louis TrintignantMathieu KassovitzA well-to-do French family deals with a series of setbacks and crises.SFF#12: HAPPY END. Michael Haneke has really let his fans down with this dull and directionless family drama. No one cares about extended, artistic shots if there's no narrative. Walking out, I bumped into one of our top film critics, who also found the film banal.
- DirectorWilliam OldroydStarsFlorence PughCosmo JarvisPaul HiltonIn 19th-century rural England, a young bride who has been sold into marriage discovers an unstoppable desire within herself as she enters into an affair with a worker on her estate.SFF#13: LADY MACBETH. A young woman is expected to be subservient to her new husband and his father but she proves even more vile. Part Shakespeare, part ANIMAL FARM, this film works so well because it keeps the audience on its toes with completely unexpected twists and turns.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOI8BJfnn1o - DirectorEleanor CoppolaStarsDiane LaneArnaud ViardAlec BaldwinThe wife of a successful movie producer takes a car trip from the south of France to Paris with one of her husband's associates.SFF#14: PARIS CAN WAIT. The wife of a successful film producer travels the French countryside with their endlessly annoying chauffeur. Directed by Eleanor Coppola, wife of Francis Ford Coppola, one has to wonder how much of this is autobiographical. And while the scenery is spectacular, the film is naive.
- DirectorDoug LimanStarsAaron Taylor-JohnsonJohn CenaLaith NakliTwo American Soldiers are trapped by a lethal sniper, with only an unsteady wall between them.SFF#15: THE WALL. A soldier is pinned behind a crumbling brick wall by an unseen enemy sniper. The sniper is in radio contact with the soldier and so the men exchange words as well as bullets. A tense two-hander, expertly executed by the director of EDGE OF TOMORROW.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhNKocdV17o - DirectorSang-il LeeStarsKen WatanabeMirai MoriyamaAoi MiyazakiA grisly unsolved murder links three seemingly unrelated stories in three different Japanese cities.SFF#16: RAGE. There's a murderer on the loose in this overlong Japanese drama that is repulsively violent in some places and embarrassingly melodramatic in others.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gim4YU3z4H0 - DirectorShahrbanoo SadatStarsQodratAminaSaharBased upon unpublished diaries, the film assumes the role of an anthropologist observing remote shepherd communities in Afghanistan where wolves and sheep have equal importance.SFF#17: WOLF AND SHEEP. A boy is hit in the eye by a slingshot. Shepherds try to get a bull to mate. Children steal and eat potatoes. These are some of the moments in this charming and disarmingly simple film that takes place in remote parts of Afghanistan.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZUwKRxlknY - DirectorAki KaurismäkiStarsSherwan HajiSakari KuosmanenKaija PakarinenA poker-playing restaurateur and former traveling salesman befriends a group of refugees newly arrived to Finland.SFF#18: THE OTHER SIDE OF HOPE. A man seeking asylum in Finland gets a job working for a man who has just bought a restaurant. The dialogue is deliberately stilted, the humour is stone dry and the film is made to look decades old. I just wish it had more to offer.
- DirectorTim GoldenRoss McDonnellStarsRaúl EsparzaELIÁN is the remarkable story about Elián González, a five-year-old Cuban boy plucked from the Florida coast in 1999, and how the fight over his future sparked a flashpoint for simmering US and Cuban tensions.SFF#19: ELIÁN. A five-year-old boy becomes the centre of a tug of war between his Cuban father and relatives who live in Florida. This thoroughly absorbing documentary explores the insane circus that followed.
- DirectorJulian RosefeldtStarsCate BlanchettErika BauerRuby BustamanteCate Blanchett performs manifestos as a series of striking monologues.SFF#20: MANIFESTO. Cate Blanchett plays thirteen different roles, delivering various manifestos as monologues. It may be art but it's certainly not entertainment.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UKTbk2f7GY - DirectorTusi TamaseseStarsFrankie AdamsLagi FaraniBeulah KoaleWhen a father reconnects with his estranged teenage daughter, he is given a rare chance to reshape the future of his family in unexpected ways.SFF#21: ONE THOUSAND ROPES. Ghosts, domestic violence and dough kneading machinery all feature in this slow and gloomy Samoan drama.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCbQWHbJb_c - DirectorDavid LoweryStarsCasey AffleckRooney MaraMcColm Cephas Jr.In this singular exploration of legacy, love, loss, and the enormity of existence, a recently deceased, white-sheeted ghost returns to his suburban home to try to reconnect with his bereft wife.SFF#22: A GHOST STORY. A husband comes back from the dead and wanders around in a bed sheet. Casey Affleck, Rooney Mara and AIN'T THEM BODIES SAINTS director David Lowery have reteamed to challenge even the most patient audiences. Uninterrupted shots of 4-5 minutes needlessly draw the film out and dissipate any emotion. But we do see Rooney Mara do something she's never done before and that's eat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ui92Scs8Mns - DirectorSally PotterStarsTimothy SpallKristin Scott ThomasPatricia ClarksonJanet hosts a party to celebrate her new promotion, but once the guests arrive, it becomes clear that not everything will be going down as smoothly as the red wine.SFF#23: THE PARTY. A celebration turns violent as secrets are revealed. Sally Potter's latest film is witty and has a terrific cast. Patricia Clarkson, Timothy Spall, Kristin Scott Thomas, Emily Mortimer and Cillian Murphy have, over the years, come to feel like old friends and it's great to see them all on screen at once.
- DirectorIldikó EnyediStarsAlexandra BorbélyGéza MorcsányiRéka TenkiWhen slaughterhouse workers Endre and Mária discover they share the same dreams, where they meet in a forest as deer and fall in love, they decide to make their dreams come true, but it's difficult in real life.SFF#24: ON BODY AND SOUL. This quirky Hungarian love story set in an abattoir is beautifully shot, overlong and sure to be too offbeat for audiences outside the film festival circuit.
- DirectorTaylor SheridanStarsElizabeth OlsenJeremy RennerGraham GreeneA wildlife officer, who is haunted by a tragedy that happened because of him, teams up with an FBI agent in solving a murder of a young woman on a Wyoming Native American reservation and hopes to get redemption from his past regrets.SFF#25: WIND RIVER. From the screenwriter of SICARIO and HELL OR HIGH WATER. A veteran hunter helps an inexperienced FBI agent on a case involving a death in the snow. Easily among the best films at this year's festival.