A gay Sliding Doors with subtitles? End of the Century is essentially a two-handed drama which serves up a meditation on relationships, the choices we make, and the fallibility of memory. Ocho (Juan Barberini), a fortysomething Argentine poet from New York on holiday in Barcelona, meets Javi (Ramon Pujol), a Berlin-based producer of a children’s…
The Nightingale (2018) rewrote the rules around brutal representations of Australia’s colonial past. Now The Furnace follows in its footsteps, albeit less successfully. In remote Western Australia circa 1897, a young Afghani cameleer, Hanif (Ahmed Malek), is determined to escape the outback and return home. Hanif has witnessed a white man murder his mentor. Now…
In the Name of the Land is the first feature fiction film for Edouard Bergeon, a former photojournalist and documentarian. It has been largely inspired by the life of his own father, a farmer who passed away in 1996, and to whom the film is fittingly dedicated. This is a grim – often bleak –…
Words on Bathroom Walls is an important movie. This mainstream dramatic teen romance normalises schizophrenia. While it’s often disturbing, it has an authenticity about it. That has much to do with the balance in the script by Nick Naveda – based on a novel of the same name by Julia Walton – and the calibre…
A low-rent Australian drama in which very little happens, How Do You Know Chris? is strictly film festival fare. It is the year 2000. Nineteen year-old (nearly 20) Emi Mustafi (Tatiana Quaresma) meets Chris (Luke Cook), 28, in a laundromat. Even though they’ve just met, the older copywriter invites the commerce student to a small…
In 2016 A Street Cat Named Bob introduced audiences to a stray ginger cat (Bob) who helped a recovering drug addict turn his life around. That movie was based on an international best seller co-written by the man whose story it told, James Bowen. It was a charmer. Now Luke Treadaway returns as Bowen in…
How tough a job is teaching and disciplining a bunch of lively, but often disinterested and unmotivated students? The engaging French dramedy School Life (La Vie Scolaire) explores that question. A new vice-principal, Samia Zibra (Zita Hanrot), arrives at a school in economically disadvantaged Saint-Denis. She wants to do all she can to make a…
A haunting tale of desperation and regret, Let Him Go packs a punch. We’re in rural Montana in the early 1960s. George Blackledge (Kevin Costner) is a former lawman, but when it comes to “my way or the highway”. His wife Margaret (Diane Lane ) rules the roost. Once she gets an idea in her…
– Words on Bathroom Walls – Only in cinemas from 10 December 2020 We have 10 double in-season passes thanks to Sony Pictures Australia. *(Tickets valid in Australia only)* Watch the trailer HERE WORDS ON BATHROOM WALLS tells the story of witty and introspective Adam (Charlie Plummer), who appears to be your typical young adult…
With stone fruit now on sale and schools this week farewelling their Senior students, it is clear that summer holidays are but a whisper away. For many in this COVID-19 year, Christmas holidays will mean a road trip to a regional destination, which makes Queensland Theatre’s world premiere production, The Holidays (which was postponed due…
