The 2010 Sydney Film Festival has been unleashed, and this year’s program has films to make you laugh, fire you up, freak you out and push you to the edge.
Amongst the first films to be announced are highly anticipated Australian Premieres of:
- Roman Polanski’s The Ghost Writer starring Ewan McGregor
- Exit Through the Gift Shop by art prankster Banksy
- Gérard Depardieu as a beer-bellied biker in Mammuth
- Kristen Stewart as Joan Jett in The Runaways
Get in early and pre-purchase a FlexiPass to kick-start your festival experience. A FlexiPass isa fantastic way to see a variety of festival films at a discounted price. Be ahead of the pack and purchase yours here.
The 57th Sydney Film Festival runs from 2 to 14 June 2010. For more information visit http://www.sff.org.au.
Foxtel Australian Documentary Prize
Since its opening year, the Sydney Film Festival has showcased Australian documentary filmmaking. Now in its second year, Australian documentaries of any length can compete for the FOXTEL Australian Documentary Prize.
The line-up of films competing for the $10,000 prize is diverse and dynamic, with productions by first-time filmmakers as well as established documentarians. The shortlisted titles tackle hard-hitting subjects, examine fascinating characters and momentous events, and take audiences on a journey across the globe.
Screening over 10 days of the Festival, audiences have a unique opportunity to view the best Australian documentaries of 2010 on the big screen, with guest introductions and question and answer sessions following each film.
Ian McPherson Lecture
Documentary Film as a lens on the state of war
3.30pm Friday 11 June, State Theatre (49 Market Street, Sydney)
FREE
Sydney Film Festival has unleashed its 2010 program, which runs from 2 – 14 June. This year’s festival is jam-packed with a spectacular variety of features, documentaries and short films from Australia and around the globe.
Every year the festival presents the Ian McPherson Lecture; a tribute to the late Sydney Film Festival board member. This year’s lecture will be presented by American documentary filmmaker Judith Ehrlich whose film The Most Dangerous Man in America is screening at the festival.
Ehrlich has focused her career on films that explore questions of war and conscience and will discuss whether historical documentary film can offer a useful perspective on the perennial state of war in the world?
The lecture will be punctuated by film clips and will aim to uncover the narrative of war making and war resistance through Ehrlich’s films and others that focus on the question of war and its impact on individual warriors and resisters and their governments. Does the reality and/or the threat of war make transparency and truth in government impossible? What can film tell us about why we fight? And why is it so difficult to question the morality of war? Can our understanding of the inevitability of war be altered by the images of documentary film? Indeed, can the legitimate role of historical documentary film move beyond entertainment and education and inspire some to activism?
Ehrlich’s film, The Most Dangerous Man in America, Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers was nominated for the 2009 Academy Award and has won eight International film festival awards. It will screen at the Sydney Film Festival on 10 and 14 June and begins a theatrical run on 20 June at the Chauvel Cinema. Her previous film for U.S. Public television, The Good War and Those who refused to Fight it the story of conscientious objectors to WWII won both major American film history awards.
Ian McPherson, who died in 1980, helped found the Sydney Film Festival in 1954 and served on the Festival Board until 1977. Previous McPherson lectures have been given by John Gillett, Lindsay Anderson, Joseph Skrzynski, Ulrich Gregor, Susan Dermody, Moya Wood, Peter Watkins, Kim Williams, Peter Sainsbury, George Miller, Dennis O’Rourke, Donald Richie, David Robinson, John Flaus, Liz Jacka, David Stratton, Ian David, Professor Marcia Langton, David Marr, Professor Tom O’Regan, Bob Connolly, Nik Powell, Dr. David McKnight, Brian Rosen, Bird Runningwater, John Hartley, Deepak Nayar and Peter Carlton. The 2010 lecture will be the 30th in the series.
A program of public talks and forums will be announced online later this week. For more information and tickets visit http://www.sff.org.au