Adelaide Festival Highlights

The Adelaide Film Festival’s program has several spotlights to illuminate the range and possibilities of global cinema to an Australian audience. In a region where the commercial distribution of genuine art cinema is limited, both the diversity and quality of the schedule has a particular resonance with local and international cinephiles. Of particular note is the focus on some strong recent Asian art cinema. Documentaries also run strongly throughout the fortnight, not only as a reflection of the recent international success of wide theatrical release non-fiction films, but as a complement to the Australian International Documentary Conference also unfolding in Adelaide. To mark its own identity the festival has also secured numerous world premieres of local productions ranging from features, documentaries and cross-platform works.

The program’s slant towards contemporary Asian cinema is an opportunity to introduce the uninitiated to a range of works from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, China and Hong Kong. Whilst genre films such as the disturbing “Tale of Two Sisters” (Kim Jee-won) serve as an identifiable access point for viewers, it is in the crafted and measured direction of filmmakers such as Wang Chao (“Day and Night”) and Hirokazu Kore-eda (“Nobody Knows”) where further delights lie. Hou Hsiou-Hsien’s “Café Lumiere” further confirms his status as a significant auteur on the world stage. His homage to Yasujiro Ozu contains the spare, stripped-back narrative, meticulous composition and dreamlike pacing that the viewer’s memory savours. At the time of writing, the screening of the crime film “One Night in Mongkok” Derek Yee) is also eagerly anticipated. One hopes that these films reach and entice the regular Australian film viewer, rather than continue to preach to the converted.

Running in parallel with its sister event of the documentary conference (primarily a marketplace with numerous domestic and international commissioning editors), it is to be expected that the festival contains a strong non-fiction film component. From Bahman Kiarostami’s twin projects “Infidels” and “Pilgrimage” which investigate the fringes of Iranian cultural life, to the glib hipness of the life of LA cable TV executive Jerry Harvey in Z Channel (Xan Cassavetes), to the epic-length cine-essay The Ister (David Barison and Daniel Ross) based on Martin Heidigger’s lectures, a globalization-themed strand of documentaries, and a collection of Dennis O’Rourke’s observational films, at once sensitive and harsh, there is enough breadth of subject to appease the hundreds of documentary broadcasters and filmmakers staying in the city as well as a general audience.

It is probably noticeable that this Festival, in its infancy stage and timed at the beginning of the year, relies on the playlist of much of last season’s European circuit to stock its program. In this way, Adelaide catches up with the world of cinema rather than positioning itself as a major trendsetter. However, there are also some fresh offerings to the world exclusively launched at the Adelaide festival. Cathy Henkel’s documentary on Spike Milligan “ I Told You I was Ill”, which also has an impressive web presence at www.spikemilliganlegacy.com, and the interactive docu-drama about the indigenous lifestyle in Hidden Valley, www.usmob.com.au, will be launched on Friday. Similarly to the opening night feature “Look Both Ways”, these projects’ budgets had some contribution from the festival itself. It is heartening for both the festival and the local industry that the Australian productions have attracted the most interest in terms of audience numbers.

Sandy Cameron