Friday, 7th October 2016, 7.30pm
OPENING NIGHT LIFE ANIMATED IMDB listing / Official site / Review Studio: The Orchard Release: July 1, 2016 Country: USA Director: Roger Ross Williams Writer: Roger Ross Williams, Ron Suskind Cast: Jonathan Freeman, Gilbert Gottfried, Alan Rosenblatt |
From Academy Award® winning director Roger Ross Williams, Life, Animated is the inspirational story of Owen Suskind, a young man who was unable to speak as a child until he and his family discovered a unique way to communicate by immersing themselves in the world of classic Disney animated films. This emotional coming-of-age story follows Owen as he graduates to adulthood and takes his first steps toward independence.
Saturday, 8th October 2016, 11am
THE MUSIC OF STRANGERS, YO-YO MA AND THE SILK ROAD ENSEMBLE IMDB listing / Official site / Review Studio: The Orchard Release: June 10, 2016 Country: USA Director: Morgan Neville Writer: Morgan Neville Cast: Yo-Yo Ma, Cristina Pato, Wu Man, Kinan Azmeh, Kayhan Kalhor |
From the director of the Oscar-winning documentary 20 Feet from Stardom and the critically acclaimed Best of Enemies, the new film The Music of Strangers: Yo-Yo Ma and the Silk Road Ensemble tells the extraordinary story of the renowned international musical collective created by legendary cellist Yo-Yo Ma. The feature-length documentary follows this group of diverse instrumentalists, vocalists, composers, arrangers, visual artists and storytellers as they explore the power of music to preserve tradition, shape cultural evolution and inspire hope.
Saturday, 8th October 2016, 2pm
NAHID - CANCELLED. FILM DID NOT ARRIVE IN TIME REPLACEMENT FILM: WEDNESDAY, MAY 9 (Chaharshanbeh, 19 Ordibehesht ) IMDB listing / Official site / Review Release: 2015 Country: Iran Director: Vahid Jalilvand Writers: Vahid Jalilvand, Hossein Mahkam Stars: Kataneh Afshar Nejad, Amir Aghaei, Borzou Arjmand |
Why would someone give money away? Jayal Ashtiyani (Vahid Jalilvand), a middle class teacher, offers to provide a significant sum of money to a worthy person in need. His advertisement in the local newspaper on Wednesday, On May 9, has encouraged a large crowd to come to his office and make a convincing appeal. But how will he, and the police, deal with the throng of needy candidates who assemble? How does he decide who is actually the most worthy?
Saturday, 8th October 2016, 4pm
LAND OF MINE (Under Sandet) IMDB listing / Official site / Review Studio: Nordisk Film Release: December 2015 Country: Germany Director: Martin Zandvliet Writer: Martin Zandvliet Stars: Roland Møller, Louis Hofmann, Joel Basman |
A young group of German POWs are made the enemy of a nation, where they are now forced to dig up 2 million land-mines with their bare hands.
Saturday, 8th October 2016, 7pm
FRANCOFONIA IMDB listing / Official site / Review Studio: Music Box Films Release: April 1, 2016 Director: Aleksandr Sokurov Writer: Aleksandr Sokurov Cast: Louis-Do De Lencquesaing, Benjamin Utzerath, Vincent Nemeth, Johanna Korthals Altes, Andrey Chelpanov, Jean-Claude Caër, Aleksandr Sokurov, Francois Smesny, Peter Lontzek, Catherine Limbert, Adolf Hitler, Eric Moreau, Marika Rökk |
Set against the backdrop of the Louvre Museum’s history and artworks, master director Alexander Sokurov (Russian Ark) applies his uniquely personal vision onto staged re-enactments and archives for this fascinating portrait of real-life characters Jacques Jaujard and Count Franziskus Wolff-Metternich and their compulsory collaboration at the Louvre Museum under the Nazi Occupation. These two remarkable men - enemies then collaborators - share an alliance which would become the driving force behind the preservation of museum treasures. In its exploration of the Louvre Museum as a living example of civilization, Francofonia is a stunning and urgently relevant meditation on the essential relationship between art, culture, and history.
Throughout his vast filmography – documentary, fiction and others somewhere in between – Alexander Sokurov has demonstrated that a museum is much more than a place to preserve art. Museums are the veritable DNA of a civilization, the living organ of the city where the heart of a nation beats. With FRANCOFONIA, he explores a historical chapter that we might know, but whose description does not take into account all the lines that run through it. Sokurov’s body of work includes his “Men of Power” tetralogy (Faust, The Sun [Emperor Hirohito], Taurus [Vladimir Lenin] and Moloch [Adolph Hitler]), Russian Ark (set entirely in St Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum), Mother and Son and Father and Son.
Throughout his vast filmography – documentary, fiction and others somewhere in between – Alexander Sokurov has demonstrated that a museum is much more than a place to preserve art. Museums are the veritable DNA of a civilization, the living organ of the city where the heart of a nation beats. With FRANCOFONIA, he explores a historical chapter that we might know, but whose description does not take into account all the lines that run through it. Sokurov’s body of work includes his “Men of Power” tetralogy (Faust, The Sun [Emperor Hirohito], Taurus [Vladimir Lenin] and Moloch [Adolph Hitler]), Russian Ark (set entirely in St Petersburg’s Hermitage Museum), Mother and Son and Father and Son.
Sunday, 9th October 2016, 10.30am
SUNSET SONG IMDB listing / Official site / Review Studio: Magnolia Pictures Release: December 4, 2015 Director: Terence Davies Writer: Lewis Grassic Gibbon, Terence Davies Cast: Peter Mullan, Agyness Deyn, Niall Greig Fulton, Ian Pirie, Kevin Guthrie, Hugh Ross, Jack Greenlees Please note: BCFFG members can use their card for entry to this film. |
Based on the classic novel by Lewis Grassic Gibbon and brought to life by master director Terence Davies, Sunset Song is an intimate epic of hope, tragedy and love at the dawning of the Great War.
Set in the rural community of Kinraddie, Sunset Song is driven by the young heroine Chris and her intense passion for life, for the unsettled Ewan and for the unforgiving land. As the approaching war brings the modern world to bear on the rural community, Chris must endure against the hardships of rural Scottish life and draw strength from this ancient land.
Set in the rural community of Kinraddie, Sunset Song is driven by the young heroine Chris and her intense passion for life, for the unsettled Ewan and for the unforgiving land. As the approaching war brings the modern world to bear on the rural community, Chris must endure against the hardships of rural Scottish life and draw strength from this ancient land.
Sunday, 9th October 2016, 1.30pm
HEAT WAVE (Coup de chaud ) IMDB listing / Official site / Review Release: August 2015 Country: France Director: Raphaël Jacoulot Writers: Lise Macheboeuf, Raphaël Jacoulot Stars: Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Grégory Gadebois, Karim Leklou |
In a small village of the South of France, life is made difficult by a sweltering heat wave and its corollary, a worrisome lack of water. Everyone is under great pressure, especially the farmers whose fields are not irrigated. Which is the reason why the residents are less and less well-disposed toward one of them, Joseph, a mentally retarded young man whose never-ending antics are becoming, in such fraught context, something of an intolerable inconvenience. The mayor tries desperately to calm things down but nothing helps.
Sunday, 9th October 2016, 4.30pm
ROSALIE BLUM IMDB listing / Official site / Review Release: March 2016 Country: France Director: Julien Rappeneau Writers: Camille Jourdy (graphic novels: "Rosalie Blum"), Julien Rappeneau Country: France Stars: Noémie Lvovsky, Kyan Khojandi, Alice Isaaz AFTER FILM DRINKS AND NIBBLES - Please stay for a bit of refreshment and to bid a fond farewell to the Wonthaggi Film Festivals. |
Vincent Machot knows his life by heart. He shares between his hairdressing salon, his cousin, his cat, and his too invasive mother. But life sometimes surprises even the most cautious - He meets up with Rosalie Blum, a mysterious and lonely woman, he is convinced to have already met her. But where? Intrigued, he decides to follow her everywhere, hoping to learn more. He did not suspect that this spinning takes him on an adventure full of surprises, where he will discover fantastic characters as endearing. One thing is certain: Vincent Machot's life will change.