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It was an accident film still |
Monday, 16 June 2025
Sydney Film Festival 2025 - Film Review - It was just an accident
Sunday, 15 June 2025
Sydney Film Festival 2025 - Film Review - Orwell 2+2=5
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Orwell 2+2=5 still slide |
Saturday, 14 June 2025
Sydney Film Festival 2025 - Film Review - The Blue Trail
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The Blue Trail - Rodrigo Santoro and Denise Weinberg |
Wednesday, 11 June 2025
Sydney Film Festival 2025 - Film Review - Vie Privee
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Still from Vie Privee - Jodie Foster |
Evaluation:
Monday, 9 June 2025
Sydney Film Festival 2025 - Film Review - Mr Nobody Against Putin
Mr Nobody against Putin - Pavel Talakin |
Russian school teacher, Pavel "Pasha" Talakin enjoyed his job teaching at a primary school in the small Russian town of Karabash, famous only for its polluting copper smelter, the largest in Russia. Everything changed when Russia invaded Ukraine and the war began. The Russian state started to increasingly intervene into the curriculum and classrooms promoting nationalism and the war to the dismay of Talakin. Determined to ensure this situation was both documented and opposed, Talakin filmed the events as they occured eventually leading to police surveillance of his activities until he was forced to flee his country.
His film documents the progressive requirements placed on teachers to recite propaganda against the West and Ukraine, the institution of military training for children and the shock appearance of uniformed Wagner mercenaries to provide weapons instruction to the school children. As the timeline of the film progresses, the sadness of former school graduates being killed in action in the war emerges. This is a heartfelt, sentimental and personal voyage documented by Talakin and serves again to reinforce the tragedy that authoritarian regimes can inflict on their communities.
Often filmed using a handheld camera, the documentary had post production assistance including historical footage added once Talakin reached the West.
Evaluation:
Sydney Film Festival 2025 - Film Review - The Golden Spurtle
Still from The Golden Spurtle |
Sunday, 3 July 2022
Sydney Film Festival 2022 - Film Review - Fire of Love
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Fire of Love |
Documentary film maker, Sara Dosa, has compiled this portrait of the late vulcanologists, Katia and Maurice Krafft based on thousands of hours of spectacular 16mm footage that the couple shot on numerous volcanoes before their deaths in an eruption near Japan's Mount Unzen in 1991. The Kraffts were prolific in their filming and recording with Katia in particular spending considerable time after expeditions converting their work into books, films and lectures. They were almost fearless in coming in close proximity to the objects of their study whether it be camping on a solid crust plateau inside an active volcano, rowing in a rubber boat on a lake of sulpheric acid, avoiding flying boulders, standing in the sea close to a small lava flow meeting the ocean or simply cooking eggs in a fry pan on the crust of a slowly cooling lava flow.
Sydney Film Festival 2022 - Film Review - The Phantom of the Open
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Mark Rylance (right) in The Phantom of the Open |
Monday, 20 June 2022
Sydney Film Festival 2022 - Film review - Navalny
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Alexei Navalny with photos of his would-be assassins |
With the assistance of online investigation agency, Bellingcat, all four agents were completely identified and shown to have stalked Navalny for a number of years. With key contact details sourced by Bellingcat journalist Christo Grozev during this film, Navalny was able to phone each of them direct until one agent, under the impression that Navalny was from within the security service, divulged most of the details of the operation. It's a stunning and breathtaking set of statements captured during the filming.
Also interviewed in the film are Navaly's wife, Yulia (a key person in her own right) their adult children, his media adviser and his chief-of-staff. Navalny is shown to be a charismatic lawyer who does not shy away from difficult questions and enjoys strong support in Russia. This makes him the key target for Russian president Vladimir Putin who refuses to even mention his name when asked. On arrival back from Germany, Navalny was arrested and sent to a penal colony facing 20 years imprisonment.
Given Putin's autocratic rule in Russia and the war again the Ukraine, this documentary could not be more pertinent. It is a must-see film to better understand the severity of the forces that Putin deploys in Russia.
Saturday, 18 June 2022
69th Sydney Film Festival - 2022 - in full swing
The Sydney Film Festival has returned in full for 2022 shaking off the effects of COVID-19 and being staged with 14 screens in multiple locations in Sydney including its main venue, the State Theatre with satellite film screenings located at Event Cinemas, Dendy Newtown, Palace Cinemas, Ritz Cinemas Randwick, Hayden Orpheum Cremorne, Casula Powerhouse and the Art Gallery of NSW.
Thursday, 16 June 2022
Sydney Film Festival 2022 - Film Review - Baz Luhrmann's "Elvis"
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Austin Butler as Elvis Presley in Elvis |
For any film director the prospect of creating a biopic around a cultural icon such as the late Elvis Presley is always a daunting and high risk venture. Will the film do justice to its subject ? Will the legion of Elvis fans accept the representation of 'The King of Rock and Roll' as shown in the film ? Is there a proper balance between the undoubted talent of the man and his ultimate decline ? Australian film director, Baz Luhrmann has made a valiant and generally successful effort with this high production values film which focusses on the ascent of Elvis Presley from his initial performances to becoming a major international star prior to his decline in health and ultimate death in 1977. Presley was only 42 years of age.
Monday, 15 November 2021
Sydney Film Festival 2021 - Film Review - Blue Bayou
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Justin Chon - Blue Bayou |
Sydney Film Festival 2021 - Film Review - Parallel Mothers
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Milena Smit and Penelope Cruz - Parallel Mothers |
Acclaimed director, Pedro Almodovar wrote and directed this film which has an odd juxtaposition of a historical backstory and muddled collection of current inter-relationships. Janis (Penelope Cruz) a high end photographer becomes pregnant to her lover, a married war crimes archaeologist with whom she has arranged the excavation of a mass grave from the era of the Spanish Civil War. The mass grave is located in her grandmother's village.
Monday, 8 November 2021
Sydney Film Festival 2021 - Film Review - Undine
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Paula Beer Undine |
Director and Screenwriter Christian Petzold has used the myth of the water sprite as the basis of the story for this film. Undine (Paula Beer) is a Berlin historian and guide who endures a breakup with her lover Johannes. Oddly she informs him that any betrayal will mean his death and her return to her place in the water. Alas the relationship does breaks down, however Udine meets a professional diver, Christoph and falls into a relationship with him that changes the rules that she follows. Its a meaningful relationship and creates the possibility that Undine will stay on land. When Christoph is injured in a diving accident and left seemingly brain dead in hospital, Undine restores his life leaving Johannes lifeless in his swimming pool. Undine returns to the water leaving a recovering Christoph frantically searching for her.
Saturday, 6 November 2021
Sydney Film Festival 2021 - Film Review - Quo Vadis Aida
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Jasna Duricic and Johan Heldenbergh Quo Vadis Aida |
It's 26 years since the Bosnian war, yet for many people living in the former Yugoslavia, the impact of this conflict remains ever present. Film maker, Jasmila Zbanic has tackled the horror of the war crimes committed at the supposedly UN safe haven zone of Srebrenica by Bosnian Serb forces in this high production value film.
Sydney Film Festival 2021 - Film Review - The Power of the Dog
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Benedict Cumberbatch - The Power of the Dog |
Producer/Director/Screenwriter Jane Campion has returned to film making after a long absence with this dark Western period piece thriller set in Montana (but filmed in New Zealand) in the year 1925. With a key cast including Benedict Cumberbatch, Kirsten Dunst, Jesse Plemons and Kodi Smit-McPhee with superb cinematography, Campion demonstrates again her skill in this genre. She won Best Director at the Venice Film Festival in 2021 for this film.
Sydney Film Festival 2021 - screening in a COVID world
After several false starts for 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Sydney Film Festival has managed to return to live screenings at multiple venues with strict COVID safe planning. This is good news for both cinema enthusiasts and the wider film industry which has had to operate under severe disruptions as the pandemic has moved across the world. The impact and efficacy of vaccines has been the game changer for all large gatherings of people particularly for indoor settings.
Sunday, 23 June 2019
Sydney Film Festival 2019 - Film Review - The Souvenir
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Honor Swinton Byrne at her typewriter - The Souvenir |
The plotline follows Julie (Honor Swinton Byrne), a film student from a privileged background who meets Anthony (Tom Burke) an older, somewhat charismatic man who claims to work for the Foreign Office. Anthony seems to be interested in the subject matter of Julie's proposed film on the harsh social situation in England under Thatcher. Unknown to Julie, Anthony is a heavy heroin user which seems to register very little with Julie when the truth is revealed to her. Does she understand the drug scene ? Does she know what heroin is ? She is seemingly unaware throughout this story.
In terms of performance, the blank shopfront mannequin expressions of Swinton Byrne convey very little in meaning and emotion. Tom Burke is a more interesting performance as the foppish conman Anthony however his mannerisms become increasingly irritating. Julie's mother (Tilda Swinton, the real life mother of Honor Swinton Byrne) is wasted by being given a vacuous, unworldly character. All in all, the film looks and feels more like a graduate film student work rather than one for cinema release.
Saturday, 22 June 2019
Sydney Film Festival 2019 - Film Review - The Dead Don't Die
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(left) Adam Driver and Bill Murray - The Dead Don't Die |
In addition to the key cast of Adam Driver, Chloe Sevigy and Bill Murray as the local police, there is a parade of characters with well established names including Danny Glover, Selena Gomez, Luka Sabbat, Iggy Pop, RZA and Tom Waits. Tilda Swinton swings through as a samurai sword wielding funeral director (reminiscent of Uma Thurman in Kill Bill) decapitating zombies before being whisked off in an UFO.
Jarmusch devotees will recognise his unique social observational almost spoofish style with this film that should be viewed more than once due to the multi-layering of the script.
Sydney Film Festival 2019 - Film Review - Palm Beach
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Palm Beach |
In essence this film could be better titled 'Friends and acquaintances' for essentially it's a group of the in-crowd of the Australian acting profession. The cast includes Bryan Brown (husband of Rachel Ward), the perennial honorary Australian, Sam Neill, Greta Scacchi, Jacqueline Mackenzie, Heather Mitchell and the non local, Richard E Grant. The film is described as a light-hearted, uplifting drama/comedy but really its a bit tedious and seems more representative of the social bubble that is Palm Beach. The scripting is very so-so and fully predictable. Bryan Brown acts, well... as Bryan Brown. Sam Neill is present on-set. Perhaps the party was real and there was bit of acting thrown in for good measure ?