THE NEW BOY
A renegade nun (Blanchett) takes in an Indigenous boy (Reid) at a remote orphanage in,the acclaimed Indigenous director ofSamson&Delilah,Sweet Country andWe Don’t Need A Map. Festival director Nashen Moodley raised expectations when he described it as “an absolute masterpiece”. As well as being the opening-night attraction,it’s screening in the festival’s $60,000 competition for “audacious,cutting-edge and courageous” film.State Theatre,June 7,10 and 11.
PAST LIVES
An achingly beautiful romantic drama about two schoolfriends in South Korea who reconnect as adults in New York. Korean-Canadian playwright turned writer-direct Celine Song draws on her life for a film about immigration,memory,love and time. Greta Lee fromThe Morning Show plays Nora,a writer who is married to Arthur (John Magaro) when Hae Sung (Teo Yoo) visits from Korea. Debuting at Sundance,.State Theatre,June 9-10;Randwick Ritz,June 16.
RACHEL’S FARM
Rachel Ward’s move from acting into directing has included the filmsBeautiful Kate andPalm Beach. This documentary reflects a change in her life inspired by the Black Summer bushfires and the birth of her first grandchild:it’s about her move into regenerative farming in northern NSW. The optimistic tagline:“One woman’s journey from ecological despair to finding hope in the soil beneath her feet”. It screens in the $20,000 Australian documentary competition.State Theatre June 11,Cremorne Orpheum,June 12;Palace Norton Street,June 17.
REALITY
Sydney Sweeney’s star has risen with TV seriesEuphoria,The White Lotus and now this acclaimed docudrama. The young American,,plays a real-life intelligence operative who was arrested in 2017 for leaking a confidential report on Russian election interference. Her name,Reality Winner,is a spectacular irony in Tina Satter’s adaptation of her own play,which uses verbatim dialogue from FBI recordings.Randwick Ritz,June 11;Dendy Newtown,June 12;State Theatre,June 17.
FALLEN LEAVES
With his distinctive drollness and humanity,Finland’s Aki Kaurismaki has long been a filmmaker to admire with the likes ofLeningrad Cowboys Go America,Le Havre andThe Other Side Of Hope. His new film,which won the jury prize at Cannes,has been described as a comedy about loneliness. It centres on labourer Holappa (Jussi Vatanen) and supermarket worker Ansa (Alma Poysti) who both want something more than their meagre lives in Helsinki.State Theatre,June 11-12.
JANE CAMPION,THE CINEMA WOMAN
The festival’s retrospective on the great New Zealand director starts with this documentary about her life and work from French director Julie Bertuccelli (The Tree)then,immediately afterwards,David Stratton interviewing her on stage at the Festival Hub. A comprehensive survey of her films,screening in chronological order,goes all the way from the Cannes-winning shortPeel (1982) toThe Power of the Dog (2021).State Theatre,June 10;Cremorne Orpheum,June 15. The retrospective is at the Art Gallery of NSW from June 11-18.
HOW TO BLOW UP A PIPELINE
One overseas critic called it “a fiercely watchable thriller which had me biting my nails down to the wrists”. That’s a fair rap for American director Daniel Goldhaber’s film about eight passionate environmental activists who decide to sabotage an oil pipeline in West Texas. It’s based on a non-fiction book by Andreas Malm that controversially argued that destroying property is a valid way of seeking environmental justice. The cast includes Lukas Gage (The White Lotus),Sasha Lane (American Honey) and co-writer Ariela Barer (Runaways).Randwick Ritz,June 9;Dendy Newtown June 12;Event Cinemas George Street,June 14.
THE DARK EMU STORY
If there’s one film bound to spark debate at the festival,it’s Muruwari and Gomeroi director Allan Clarke’s documentary about the fierce cultural wars that have surrounded Pascoe argued Indigenous Australians were farmers with complex system of land and water use rather than hunter-gatherers. Others have questioned Pascoe’s understanding of Indigenous culture and scholarship. “It’s us trying to reclaim some of the debate around the book,” producer Darren Dale of Blackfella Films says.State Theatre,June 17-18.
MONSTER
Master Japanese director Hirokazu Kore-eda triumphed withShoplifters in 2018 then made two less successful films overseas:The Truth in France andBroker in Korea. He returned to Japan for his latest film,which won best screenplay at Cannes. It’s a poignant drama that opens with a troubled 11-year-old boy,Minato (Soya Kurokawa),watching a building on fire. With events toldRashomon-style from different perspectives,it brings in his single mother,Saori (Sakura Ando),schoolteacher Mr Hori (Eita Nagayama) and principal (Yuko Tanaka).State Theatre June 16-17;Cremorne Orpheum,June 18.
BAD BEHAVIOUR
Just over a decade ago,a teenage Alice Englert starred in Sally Potter’sGinger&Rosa. Now she has joined her mother,Jane Campion,as a writer-director with this droll comedy about the spiritual-enlightenment industry. Jennifer Connelly plays a former child star heading for a spiritual retreat in Oregon,with Ben Whishaw as the retreat’s mercurial leader and Englert as her stuntwoman daughter. Shot in New Zealand,it attracted reviews at Sundance that suggests.State Theatre June 11-12;Randwick Ritz,June 15.
Email Garry Maddox at and follow him on Twitter at.
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