Feb 16th - March 7th
Sydney (Ritz Randwick) and Melbourne (Lido and Classic)
After its inaugural run last year this very special festival is back, bringing you the best of European cinema from countries as diverse as Croatia, Slovenia, Finland, Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Estonia and more. 29 films from 24 countries include every genre your heart desires from comedies, to thrillers, period pieces, relationship dramas, feel good films . . . and 8 of them are their country's submission for Best International Feature Film at the Oscars. The festival's artistic director, Thomas Caldwell, has a great eye for choosing wonderful arthouse films. Many of them don't end up on the mainstream circuit, so here is your chance to catch them. And for fans of the Kieslowski trilogy Three Colours (Blue, White and Red) there will be a screening of each in glorious 4K restoration.
Here are some recommendations from those I've been lucky enough to preview. And not to labour the point, these are outstanding films that you may never get the chance to see elsewhere, so get your act in gear!
Aurora's Sunrise (Armenia, Germany, Lithuania)Without a doubt one of the most affecting and heart-breaking films I've seen in a long time, it tells the true story of Arshalouys (Aurora) Mardiganian, who escaped Armenia during the genocide that began in 1915 and ended up as an actress and author in the USA. The film is a genius blend of exquisite animation, archival footage, interviews with Aurora as an old woman, and excerpts from rediscovered scraps of a lost film, Auction of Souls, made in 1919 and in which Aurora played herself. The film, the memoir she wrote, and Aurora herself became a rallying point for a huge charity that raised money for orphans. This is not for the faint-hearted; although the animation will lift your heart, the depictions of the atrocities inflicted by the Turks upon the Armenians, especially the women, are ghastly. But ultimately it is a story of resilience and hope, and remains ever timely in our world today.
More than Ever (France/Norway)Helene (Vicky Krieps) has been happily married to Mattthieu (Gaspard Ulliel) for years. But now she has a terminal lung illness and is faced with a decision that threatens her relationship; she wants to die on her own terms, alone and preferably in Norway where she will meet up with a stranger she has met on an internet blog. That man, Bent (Bjorn Floberg), shares and has empathy for her experience of life-threatening illness and imminent death. The film is suffused with heartbreak, but without ever stepping into mawkish territory. The scenes of the Norwegian fjord landscape are magnificent, and all performances are beautifully understated. As a reflection upon whether you can still enjoy life, with death around the corner, this intense, moving and beautiful film makes for highly emotional viewing.
My Love Affair with Marriage (Latvia/USA/Luxembourg) Another very creative animation, but more light-hearted than Aurora's Sunrise, this is nevertheless an exploration of love and relationships that will resonate deeply, especially with many women. The main character Zelma has been raised believing girls should behave in a certain way, and that love and marriage with make her life fulfilled. But two marriages later this is not the case. The animation is imaginative, fanciful, a bit quirky, and features an intriguing chorus of harpy-like creatures who do a lot of great harmony singing.
The Beasts (Spain/France) Antoine (Denis Menochet) and Olga (Marina Fois) have moved from France and bought a small plot of land which they farm ecologically in a remote Galician village in the north of Spain. But their neighbours, uneducated farmers, are very keen that the locals all sign up to having a wind farm put on their land. When Antoine refuses to sign, two brothers, Loren and Xan begin to threaten them. This is an intensely powerful film, very subtle, but also strong in its sense of constant menace, and exploration of how people can deal psychologically with such a threatening situation. Everything abut this film feels 100% authentic from the script to the characters, each impressively portrayed by a superb cast. No wonder this film has 30 big awards to its name.
Alexandre (Ben Attal), who studies in the US, is visiting his divorced parents in Paris. Claire Farel (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and husband Jean (Pierre Arditi) are well known and respected in the media. Claire is living with Adam Wizman (Matthieu Kassowitz), estranged from his ultra-Orthodox wife. When Alexandre takes Adam's daughter Mila (Suzanne Jouannet) to a party, the girl returns and accuses Alexandre of having raped her. A protracted trial ensues. Everyone's lives are irrevocably altered. Much-awarded director Yvan Attal has come up with a gripping, intelligent and thought-provoking film that is spot-on timely, with the many current cases around sexual assault and the legislation around consent. The film has a three-part structure of interpretations of the events, the accused's, the victim's, and the courtroom arguments. After hearing testimony that could in fact imply several versions of "the truth", the moral choices are left to the audience. The actors inhabit their roles, legal arguments on both sides are compelling, and the non-judgmental scripting allows audiences to come up with their own conclusions. One of the finest legal films I've seen in a long time.
A bit of light relief with this one. Moha is an immigrant from Morocco to Spain. He joins a small firm running a plumbing and electrics business. One co-worker Pep is a gentle older man, about to retire but the other, Valerio, is bombastic, outspoken, prejudiced and intolerant and believes Spaniards won't accept an immigrant worker. The film follows one week in the lives of these men. The film has plenty of humour as Moha tells, in voice-over how he views Spain, life and his co-workers, but underneath are the serious issues of the migrant experience along with insight into the topic of what it means to be a man. The film is fun, and extremely entertaining, with a terrific performance from the three leads, along with a motley crew of fascinating clients they meet along the way.
