Films from Europe, the Middle East and Australia dominate the fiction and documentary competitions at the Adelaide Film Festival (AFF), the first since an injection of government funding enabled the event to step up from being biennial to annual.
The festival will take place in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, from October 18-29.
The opening film will be the Australian premiere of Kitty Green’s Toronto premiere and awards hopeful The Royal Hotel, produced by UK-Australian outfit See-Saw Films. The world premiere of Scott Hicks’ music documentary My Name’s Ben Folds – I Play Piano, is the closing film.
A second world premiere by Hicks, The Musical Mind, A Portrait In Process, a study of Folds, Daniel Johns, David Helfgott, and Simon Tedeschi, is also screening. Both received support from the Adelaide Film Festival Investment Fund (AFFIF).
AFFIF also part-financed a number of other films in the programme, including the world premieres of Jolyon Hoff’s You Should Have Been Here Yesterday, a poetic homage to early local surf culture, Rhys Graham’s Rewards For The Tribe, which follows a collaboration between abled and disabled contemporary dancers, Daniel King’s Her Name Is Nanny Nellie, a story about reclaiming indigenous representation, Marion Pilowsky’s Isla’s Way, a tribute to an amazing woman in the final chapter of her life,and Luke Rynderman and Adam Kamien’s docu-drama Speedway, based on the burger chef murders that occurred in Indiana in 1978.
International competition
Feature debuts are well represented in the fiction competition, including Julia de Castro and María Gisèle Royo’s wacky, experimental, funny Spanish road movie On The Go, which features a woman wanting a baby, her Grindr-addicted friend and a mermaid, Behrooz Karamizade’s German-Iranian Empty Nets, about an Iranian couple struggling to stay together in the face of opposition, which won the special jury prize at Karlovy Vary earlier this year, and Mumbai/Sydney filmmaker Raghuvir Joshi’s Sahela, about a gay man in love with his wife.
Sahela, previously titled Knot, stars UK-based Antonio Aakeel (a Screen 2018 Star Of Tomorrow) and New York- based Anula Navlekar. The film is in English and Hindi and set in Sydney’s western suburbs, known for its diverse population. It is the first film for Picture Work Australia, founded in 2017 by Tayyab Mani, who produced the film alongside Radhika Lavu.
Scroll down for the full list of competition titles
Filmmakers Green and Goran Stolevski, whose Housekeeping For Beginners (also backed by AFFIF, and a Venice premiere earlier this month) has its Australian premiere in Adelaide, are on the competition jury. Further jurors are critic David Rooney, Sally Riley, recipient of the 2023 Donald Dunstan Award for her significant contribution to the rise of indigenous cinema, and Indonesian film curator Alexander Matius.
Indonesia
The festival is staging a spotlight on the cinema of Indonesia, one of Australia’s nearest neighbours. Director Adriyanto Dewo’s Galang, Gina S. Noer’s Like & Share, Riar Rizaldi’s Monisme, Theogracia Rumansara Orpa, Yuda Kurniawan’s The Tone Wheels and Lola Amaria’s the Jogja-NETPAC Asian Film Festival’s Indonesian Screen Award winner The Exiles will all be screened.
“We are thrilled to confirm the filmmakers will be official guests of AFF, generating a unique opportunity to cultivate friendships, stronger connection, understanding and insight,” said Mat Kesting, AFF’s creative director and CEO.
The festival has strong ties with Indonesia: The Indonesian features Autobiography by Makbul Mubarak and The Seen and Unseen by Kamila Andini won the competition in 2022 and 2018 respectively.
FEATURE FICTION COMPETITION LINE-UP
Blaga’s Lessons (Bulg-Ger)
Dir: Stephan Komandare
Embryo Larva Butterfly (Gre-Cyp)
Dir: Kyros Papavassiliou
Empty Nets (Ger-Iran)
Dir: Behrooz Karamizade
On The Go (Sp
Dirs: Julia de Castro, María Gisèle Royo
Sahela (Aus)
Dir: Raghuvir Joshi
You’ll Never Find Me (Aus)
Dirs: Josiah Allen, Indianna Bell
DOCUMENTARY COMPETITION
Apolonia, Apolonia (Den-Pol-Fr)
Dir: Lea Glob
Hollywoodgate (US-Ger)
Dir: Ibrahim Nash’a
Lakota Nation vs United States (US)
Dirs: Jesse Short Bull, Laura Tomaselli
Mutiny in Heaven: The Birthday Party (Aus)
Dir: Ian White
Seven Winters in Tehran (Fr-Ger)
Dir: Steffi Niederzoll
The Mountains (Den)
Dir: Christian Einshøj
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