Sydney Film Festival
The 42nd Sydney Film Festival, which opens on June 9, will mark the centenary of cinema. As well as the 150 plus films from 30 countries, there will be a larger group of retrospectives including a selection of underrated Australian films, a season of classic French documentaries, music documentaries, and a look at the work of directors in World War II. Special features include an evening of French and new Chinese cinema.
Other interesting-looking films include: Look Forward in Anger from Romania after the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu (directed by Nicolae Margineanu); The Garden of Eden, a drama from Mexico in which two young Mexicans stranded in Tijuana wait for their chance to cross to the US (directed by Maria Novaro); Amnesia, an evocative film about Latin America's modern history by Chile's Gonzalo Justiniano; I Like it Like That, about a Latino family in the Bronx struggling to survive, by Darnell Martin, the first US black woman to write and direct a feature for a Hollywood major; The Troubles We've Seen, a two-part exploration by Marcel Ophuls of journalists at war; MGM Sarajevo — Man, God, Monster, from Bosnia-Hercegovina, three films made by the Sarajevo Group of Auteurs; Moving the Mountain, Michael Apted's account of the democracy movement in China after 1989; and Mother Dao, a film by Vincent Monnikendam of the colonial history of Indonesia, composed of archival footage from early this century.
For more information on tickets, passes and film details, phone the festival office on (02) 660 3844.