10 09 2015 - Media release
Australian film continues incredible year with 13 films selected for London Film Festival 2015
The program for the 59th British Film Institute’s (BFI) London Film Festival will feature a record-breaking 13 Australian films, with Simon Stone’s The Daughter included in the Official Competition. Furthermore, Bentley Dean and Martin Butler’s Tanna and Ariel Kleiman’s Partisan are both in consideration for the Sutherland Award in the First Feature Competition. Jennifer Peedom’s Sherpa will have its European Premiere at the Festival and will compete for the Grierson Award in the Documentary Competition.
As the Toronto International Film Festival opened overnight with the biggest Australian contingent since 2009, the films selected by the BFI represent a diverse range of Australian content. Ten of the BFI-selected Australian films received funding from Screen Australia.
The London Film Festival (7-18 October, 2015) is one of the world’s oldest film festivals and represents a chance for Australian talent to showcase their work in Europe. For more information visit www.bfi.org.uk/lff
A selection of Festival reviews are posted by Screen Australia on Twitter as well as the News section of industry website www.australiaonscreen.com
The 13 Australian films selected are:
Feature films
The Daughter
A young man returns to his hometown and discovers a dark family secret that could tear apart the lives of those he left behind, in this contemporary Australian adaptation of Ibsen’s The Wild Duck.
Director: Simon Stone
Producers: Jan Chapman, Nicole O’Donohue
Screenwriter: Simon Stone
Cast Includes: Geoffrey Rush, Ewen Leslie, Paul Schneider, Miranda Otto, Anna Torv with Odessa Young and Sam Neill
More Info: Harriet_Dixon-Smith@roadshow.com.au
Funded with assistance from Screen Australia.
Sherpa
Tragedy and mayhem on Mount Everest incredibly captured in this gripping and urgent documentary.
Director: Jennifer Peedom
Producers: Bridget Ikin, John Smithson
More Info: Bethany Bruce +61 2 8571 9080 beth@felixmedia.com.au
Funded with assistance from Screen Australia.
Tanna
Based on the true story that took place in 1985, this is a stunningly photographed, evocative tale of two star-crossed lovers fighting the laws of ancient tradition and tribal custom.
Directors: Bentley Dean, Martin Butler
Producers: Martin Butler, Bentley Dean, Carolyn Johnson
Screenwriters: Martin Butler, John Collee, Bentley Dean
Cast Includes: Mungau Dain, Marie Wawa, Marceline Rofit
More Information: Alicia Brescianini +61 400 225 603 alicia@abcgfilm.com
Funded with assistance from Screen Australia.
Partisan
A charismatic papa leading a band of women and children in a concrete hideaway that is part utopian refuge and part training ground for adolescent assassins.
Director: Ariel Kleiman
Producers: Sarah Shaw, Anna McLeish
Screenwriters: Ariel Kleiman, Sarah Cyngler
Cast Includes: Vincent Cassel, Jeremy Chabriel, Florence Mezzara
Funded with assistance from Screen Australia.
Gayby Baby
Four delightfully astute, amusing and articulate Australian children describe their lives with same-sex parents in an insightful and heart-warming account of modern families.
Director: Maya Newell
Producer: Charlotte Mars
Screenwriters: Maya Newell, Charlotte Mars, Billy Marshall Stoneking
More Info: Tracey Mair +61 419 221 493 traceym@tmpublicity.com
Funded with assistance from Screen Australia.
Observance
Joseph Sims-Dennett’s surrealist horror head-scratcher defies easy categorisation, resulting in an experience that can be both exhilarating and exasperating at the same time.
Director: Joseph Sims-Dennett
Producers: Joseph Sims-Dennett, Josh Zammit, Stephanie King
Screenwriters: Joseph Sims-Dennett, Josh Zammit
Cast Includes: Lindsay Farris, Stephanie King, Brendan Cowell
More Info: Alice Collins alice@insightcommunications.net.au 0414 686 091
Ruben Guthrie
To win back his fiancée, a cocky, fast-living advertising executive resolves to give up alcohol for one year – but an entire drinking culture has other ideas.
Director: Brendan Cowell
Producer: Kath Shelper
Screenwriter: Brendan Cowell
Cast Includes: Patrick Brammall, Alex Dimitriades, Abbey Lee, Robyn Nevin, Jack Thompson
Short films
Ernie Biscuit
The clayography of a lonely Deaf Parisian Taxidermist whose life is turned upside down and back to front when a dead pigeon arrives on his doorstep.
Screenwriter/Director/Producer: Adam Elliot
More Info: info@adamelliot.com.au
Early development funding assistance from Screen Australia.
Oscar Wilde’s The Nightingale and the Rose
A Nightingale embarks in the perilous quest to find a single red rose for her beloved - so that he may win the heart of the Professor’s Daughter. But such a gift comes at a chilling price.
Directors: Del Kathryn Barton & Brendan Fletcher
Screenwriters: Del Kathryn Barton & Brendan Fletcher
Producers: Angie Fielder & Brendan Fletcher
Cast includes: Mia Wasikowska, Geoffrey Rush, David Wenham, Benedict Samuel, Sophie Lowe
More Info: Bec Cubitt bec@aquariusfilms.com.au
Funded with assistance from Screen Australia.
The Face of Ukraine: Casting Oksana Baiul
Adorned in pink sequins, little girls from across a divided Ukraine audition to play the role of Olympic champion figure skater Oksana Baiul.
Screenwriter/Director: Kitty Green
Producers: Philippa Campey, Kitty Green, Michael Latham
More Info: Kitty Green kittygreen@netspace.net.au +61 400 050 850.
Funded with assistance from Screen Australia.
Let’s Dance: Bowie Down Under
The fascinating story behind one of the most celebrated music videos ever made.
Director: Rubika Shah
Screenwriter: Ed Gibbs
Producers: David Jowsey, Ed Gibbs
More Info: Ed Gibbs edinkgibbs@gmail.com
Funded with assistance from Screen Australia.
Slingshot
An analogy of modern love in a trailer park, with young Frankie and Tayla.
Director: David Hansen
More Info: David Hansen +61 404 238 638 info@theperfectworld.com.au
SMUT HOUNDS
Featuring David Stratton and a mash-up previously unseen censored archive, SMUT HOUNDS tells the story of seventy-seven seconds of celluloid that scandalised a government and transformed Australian cinema.
Screenwriter/Director: Sari Braithwaite
Producer: Britt Arthur
More Info: Britt Arthur
+61 414 746 059 brittarthur@gmail.com
SMUT HOUNDS was produced with the assistance of Open Channel, through the Screen Australia funded Raw Nerve initiative.
Docu-drama Truth which features Cate Blanchett, Robert Redford and Dennis Quaid was also partly filmed in Australia.
MORE INFORMATION
Scott Dawkins 0403 937 074 scott.dawkins@screenaustralia.gov.au
Imogen Corlette 0410 520 776 imogen.corlette@screenaustralia.gov.au