By Pip Hinman
This year's film festival, June 7-22, promises some fascinating new films from countries not often represented. Apart from a range of films from Europe, Britain, the US and Asia, films from Iceland, Brazil and Vietnam will also feature.
There will also be a special evening of Indian cinema introduced by Shabana Azmi, one of the festival's guests. A retrospective of popular Hindi cinema will also be a highlight. Azmi, a political activist fighting for justice for Bombay's urban poor, has worked with a number of Indian directors, including Satyajit Ray, as well as western directors.
Also attending the festival as a special guest is a leading director from China, Ning Ying. Her latest film, On the Beat, is a dramatic documentary about the daily life of an average Beijing cop. Ning Ying was assistant director on Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor. Her own films, including Somebody Loves Me (1990) and For Fun (1992), have won her international prizes.
One of Indonesia's leading film makers, Garin Nugroho, whose latest film, ... And the Moon Dances, will be shown, is another festival guest. Nugroho presents an intriguing three-cornered drama set in the royal palace in Yogyakarta. It's described as "one of his most mesmerising films yet".
Glancing through the program list, some of the films that grabbed my eye included: Animal Love by Ulrich Seidl, about the way humans communicate with their pets (from Austria); Bye-Bye by Katim Dridi, about a young Tunisian man who comes to live with his relatives in Marseilles (from France); Celluloid Closet, a documentary by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman about Hollywood's portrayal of homosexuality (US); The Elephant and the Bicycle by Juan Carlos Tabio Ray (Strawberry and Chocolate), about a small island that is transformed by the arrival of cinema (Cuba); Fetishes, a documentary by Nick Broomfield about New York's most exclusive fetish parlour (US); Foreign Land by Walter Salles and Daniela Thomas, in which Brazil's first civilian president after 30 years of military rule decides to confiscate everyone's savings account and the country is plunged into chaos when more then 800,000 Brazilians migrate (Brazil/Portugal); Heartbreak Island by Hsu Hsiao-Ming, about how a political activist views Taiwan after spending 13 years in jail (Taiwan); and Predictions of Fire, a documentary by Michael Benson on radical art and music in eastern Europe today (Slovenia).
There are also a number of new Australian films which will be screened. They include: Billal, a documentary by Tom Zubrycki about the trauma inside a Lebanese-Australian family when the middle son is run down outside his western suburbs home; The Converted by Kazimierz Kutz, set in Poland, about a heating plant worker who becomes the victim of the militia; Rats in the Ranks, a documentary by Robin Anderson and Bob Connolly about the 1994 mayoral election in Leichhardt as seen from the inside; and What I Have Written by John Hughes, about four people entangled by desire.
A Rosselini retrospective will be another highlight.
The festival now sells tickets on a daily, nightly, weekly and fortnightly basis. Brochures and tickets are available from the festival office on 660 3844.