June 10th 
Resistance
Sydney Film Festival
St Kilda Film Festival
Citizen Jane - DocPlay
Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes  - Netflix series

Wow, cinemas are getting geared up to open again. Maybe that's for the young and brave. Meantime I've been previewing countless films from two festivals online as of today, and stay tuned next week for the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival, also coming online. The overriding theme in many of today's reviews seems to be a mix of fighting oppression and racism, war and empowerment of women. Is it a sign of the times? 

Resistance
Dir: Jonathan Jakubowicz
Length: 120 mins

11 June – 11 July – Available to rent from Foxtel Store

 22 June - Select cinema release in Melbourne with other states to follow

 29 July – Available to rent from  iTunes, Google Play, Sony (Playstation Network)

Microsoft (Xbox Network), Foxtel PPV, Bigpond, Fetch & Quickflix

© Rialto - the world's most famous mime artist
was a French resistance fighter,
helping to save countless orphans. 

Before he was a world-famous mime artist, Marcel Mangel (Jessie Eisenberg), was a struggling performer, doing Chaplin imitations in cabarets in Strasbourg, France. After the Germans invaded in WW2, he joined the French Resistance and helped save the lives of many Jewish orphans. This is an inspirational story, totally worth telling. It is about bravery, dedication and selflessness, as well as the genesis of an artist who became possibly the best mime the world has ever known: Marcel Marceau. Eisenberg has studied hard to capture the archetypical Marceau moves and he does it well. Matthias Schweighofer is a stand-out as the sadistic Gestapo Chief,  Klaus Barbie. One of the most tense scenes in the film is where the Resistance fighters, orphans in tow on a train, are confronted by Barbie. It's a brilliantly directed scene, but a shame that the entire film doesn't measure up to this scene. Overall the film tends towards formulaic, sentimental, and is clunkily framed by an American  General (an Ed Harris cameo) introducing Marceau to his men. As a story, Resistance is unmissable, and while the film could have been more creative, it's nevertheless well worth watching and comes recommended. 

Sydney Film Festival
June 10-21
For program and ticket purchasing, visit sff.org.au

This year is the 67th Sydney Film Festival, and it's online. Whatever package you purchase, from the smallest to the entire festival, you are free to watch at your leisure, on demand. Films are grouped into various strands. I've previewed a few. 
Documentaries

© SFF: Don't trythis at home!

Descent: Kiki Bosch is one of the world's only professional ice free-divers - that is, she dives without a wetsuit or scuba kit in freezing waters. This has helped her get over debilitating sexual trauma, and has created a determination and resilience seen in few humans. She helps train others to use her techniques for their own self-development. Inspirational, scary and fascinating viewing.  

© SFF: Tom (Balang) Lewis helps
the director shed light on
 the story of Douglas Grant

The Skin of Others: Tom Murray has researched and directed a beautiful documentary, that works on so many levels. It is the story of Douglas Grant, adopted as a toddler by Scottish parents. Grant later served in  World War 1. Straddling two worlds, upon his return, he gradually felt less and less accepted by white society. Murray made the film with indigenous actor  Balang Lewis reenacting scenes from Grant's life. Several  commentators add insight into the history and the legends surrounding Grant. With the current movement #blacklivesmatter, this and Our Law, are such important and timely documentaries.  

© SFF: This is how to police
in indigenous areas

Our Law: Though only 27 minutes long, it has  so many answers to the currently raging issue of police brutalisation of colored people, world-wide. In the remote town of Warakurna in the WA outback is Australia's only indigenous run police station.  Police officers Wendy and Revis learn to speak to locals in language, and give kindness, advice and gentle warnings rather than brutality. The doco is an insightful look at alternatives, and into the culture of remote dwellers.  (Proudly supported by NITV).   
Europe: Voices of Women in Film.  

© SFF: Thomas transitions into
Agnete, causing family disruption

A Perfectly Normal Family: Based upon the director's own childhood experience, this Danish film focuses upon loving father Thomas, who is divorcing from Helle, because he has decided to transition to become a woman. Daughters Emma and Caroline cope (or don't) in their own ways. This is a stand-out film, told with sensitivity, compassion, and delicacy. Mikkel Boe Folsgaard is perfectly cast as Thomas/Agnete, and the two youngsters playing his daughters nail their roles. It's a powerful argument for acceptance, compassion, and the enduring love between parents and children. 
Charter: This disturbing and sad Swedish film explores a mother's mental state, as she abducts her two kids to take them on holiday, while in the middle of a custody battle. There are many nuanced layers here and no simple moral stance can be taken. Underpinned by terrific performances all round, this is serious Euro-cinema for fans of relationship/parental drama. 

© SFF: Nannies worked for the
colonial Dutch in Indonesia

They Call me Babu: A babu was a nanny working for Dutch families in the Dutch East Indies. The doco is based upon the testimonies of countless babus, and is narrated from the viewpoint of a composite fictional nanny. Visuals are archival footage from the Netherlands and Japan, and the whole gives voice to the experience of so many of these forgotten women. The film also goes as far as the occupation of Indonesia by the Japanese during WW2, and the country's subsequent independence from the Dutch. This is a gently told, yet powerful story, in which the old black and white footage, along with the elegaic soundtrack, pay exquisite homage to so many women who suffered oppression. 
Australian Short Films 
There are also many excellent short films to choose from. See the program (website above) for ideas.

St Kilda Film Festival
June 12-20
FREE to watch online at https://www.stkildafilmfestival.com.au/

© St Kilda FF -  revisit Philip Noyce's 
1977 Backroads, with Gary Foley. 

Now in its 37th year, the St Kilda FF is also online this year, and it's FREE! As a foremost showcase for short film, it gives audiences a chance to become acquainted with a style of film-making they may not be so familiar with. Many of Australia's top directors got their start at this festival.  Some of the viewing sessions will focus on specific themes, for example Forming Jane Campion will showcase five of the iconic director's early works. Philips Noyce's 1977 one-hour short feature film, Backroads can also be viewed. Other sessions feature animation, film-makers under 21, gender-based films, and so much more. International shorts get a guernsey, along with the top 100 Aussie short films. To pique your interest, the film Ring is shot from the viewpoint of an automated video doorbell, which records a crime going on at the other end of the corridor. Totally innovative, and surprisingly engaging for a mere 11 minutes. Or After the Away - a poignant 15-minute story of a friendship between two young boys. Open your mind to the possibility of short film having as much to say as a feature film; just in another way. 

Citizen Jane: the Battle for the City
Director: Matt Tyrnauer
Streaming on DOCPlay

© DOCPlay - Make cities more human, argued
activist Jane Jacobs in the 1960s. So
relevant today. 

Activist and author Jane Jacobs wrote "The Death and Life of Great American Cities". In the 1960s she organised many grassroots movements against ruthless developer Robert Moses, who bulldozed many urban slums and built public housing  (the projects), which took away the sense of community for locals, leading to crime and other social problems. Jacobs successfully stopped the building of a freeway which would have seen Little Italy, Lower Manhattan and SoHo devastated. In an era when so much of the history of our cities is being obliterated to make way for modern development, this is an especially important documentary. It goes to show what  individuals and community movements can achieve when taking on "the big boys".  

Conversations with a Killer: 
The Ted Bundy Tapes
Director: Joe Berlinger
4 part series on Netflix

© Netflix - chilling insight into the psychopathic
mind of a notorious serial killer

Confession: I'm a closet Dexter fan. I loved that series about the Miami serial killer, who only ever killed the bad guys who had escaped the long arm of the law. This particular killer, Ted Bundy, was no Dexter, as this grisly mini-series proves. The director draws meticulously on more than 100 hours of archival footage and  interviews with police, friends, family members. The taped conversations with Bundy in jail are interspersed with the historical retelling. They are testament to the warped psychopathic mind of a well-spoken, handsome man who presented to society as just your average guy, and with a degree in psychology to boot. He used his charms to lure more than 30 young girls to their gruesome ends, and the details are certainly disturbing. For fans of crime series, this should prove compulsive viewing.