Media Release Thursday 1 May 2008 Sydney Film Festival 2008 announces Official Competition films Sydney Film Festival today announced the 12 films selected for the inaugural Official Competition. The films include three films selected for Cannes Film Festival 2008. Of the twelve films, three are World Premieres and nine will have their Australian Premiere at Sydney Film Festival. The Sydney Film Prize is for ‘new directions in film’. Selected films must ‘have emotional power and resonance; be audacious, cutting edge and courageous; and go beyond the usual treatment of their subject matter’. SFF is the first Australian film festival to have an Official Competition accredited by FIAPF (International Federation of Film Producers Associations). The Official Competition is supported by the New South Wales government, which pledged AUD$1.8 million over four years in September 2007. The winning film will receive AUD$60,000, generously provided by SFF’s Principal sponsor, Hunter Hall Investment Management and a unique award created by Dinosaur Designs. The Official Competition Jury, comprising two Australians and three internationals, will be announced at Cannes Film Festival in May. All Jury members will attend SFF in June and each of the 12 films will have a red-carpet Gala Premiere at State Theatre within the first 12 nights of the festival. SFF will be hosting guests representing the competition titles. On 16 June, Sydney Film Festival, in conjunction with Opera Point Events, will hold an Awards Ceremony at Sydney Opera House Northern Foyer to announce the Official Competition Award and the Dendy Awards for Australian Short Films. “It is the character of our Sydney – audacious, cutting-edge and courageous – that we are seeking among the films competing in our Official Competition for the Sydney Film Prize. It has been a privilege to work with such enticing criteria and I am proud to launch the inaugural line-up with a selection of films that truly deliver on these qualities in a range of ways,” said SFF Executive Director Clare Stewart, speaking from Sydney today. “The selection reflects our ambitions to grow Sydney Film Festival’s international standing by presenting three World Premieres; it brings local audiences three films direct from Cannes and the line-up is rounded out with highly anticipated Australian Premieres from significant directors”. The 12 Official Competition films are: 3 World Premieres: Vincent Ward’s Rain of the Children, Nash Edgerton’s The Square, Matthew Newton’s Three Blind Mice 9 Australian Premieres: Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky, Steve McQueen’s Hunger, Martin McDonagh’s In Bruges, Fernando Eimbcke’s Lake Tahoe, Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg, Antonello Grimaldi’s Quiet Chaos, Carlos Reygada’s Silent Light, Kimberly Peirce’s Stop-Loss and Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s Tokyo Sonata Mike Leigh’s Happy-Go-Lucky will also be the Opening Night film for Sydney Film Festival 2008. Page 1 of 5 The 12 Official Competition films are (in screening order): Happy-Go-Lucky Wednesday 4 June at 7.30pm Dir-Scr Mike Leigh | Prod Simon Channing-Williams | With Sally Hawkins, Alexis Zegerman, Eddie Marsan | UK | 118mins | Rialto Distribution Mike Leigh defies all expectation with this sparkling film about the relentlessly cheerful Poppy (Sally Hawkins), a London teacher whose boundless optimism protects her from the darker things in life. Overly effervescent at first, Poppy’s spritely, joking, bounding way becomes increasingly endearing as she prevails through a series of uproarious encounters with a bigoted, uptight driving instructor (Eddie Marsan), parties with her housemate and best friend Zoe (Alexis Zegerman) and plots the rescue of a troubled little boy. Sally Hawkins positively shimmers in a performance that won her Silver Bear for Best Actress at Berlin International Film Festival. Australian Premiere Born in Salford near Manchester, Mike Leigh trained as an actor, subsequently taking up studies at London Film School before becoming a director and screenwriter, as well as a playwright and stage director. Features include Bleak Moments (71, SFF 1973); Life Is Sweet (90, SFF 1991); Secrets and Lies (96, SFF 1996); Vera Drake (04); Happy Go Lucky (08). Silent Light (Stellet Licht) Thursday 5 June at 6.30pm Dir-Scr Carlos Reygadas | Prod Jaime Romandia, Carlos Reygadas | With Elizabeth Fehr, Jacobo Klassen, Maria Pankratz | Mexico, France, Netherlands, Germany | Plautdietsch, Spanish, French, English | 142mins | Kojo Pictures The films of Carlos Reygadas render magisterial themes – death, sex, love, fidelity and redemption – with a sharp, appraising eye for the banal. Based in a contemporary Mennonite community on the outskirts of Chihuahua in northern Mexico, Silent Light is about the consequences of an adulterous relationship. Arresting cinematography, nuanced performances from the non-professional Mennonite cast and symphonic use of natural sounds propel this languid, poetic work to celestial heights. Australian Premiere After studying and practicing law, Carlos Reygadas turned to filmmaking, making four short films Adult (98); Prisoners (99); Birds (99); Superhuman (99). His feature debut Japón (02) won the Caméra d’Or Special Distinction at Cannes Film Festival. Other features: Battle And Heaven (05); Silent Light (07). Quiet Chaos (Caos Calmo) Friday 6 June at 6.30pm Dir Antonello Grimaldi | Scr Nanni Moretti, Laura Paolucci, Francesco Piccolo | Prod Domenico Procacci | With Alessandro Gassman, Nanni Moretti | Italy | Italian | 112mins | Fandango Films Quiet Chaos is the story of Pietro (Nanni Moretti), a production executive, and his relationship with his ten- year-old daughter after his wife’s death. Unable to deal with his daughter’s seeming acceptance, and waiting for his own emotional response to take hold, Pietro spends the day in a park, waiting for her to finish school. This becomes habitual, and soon his life and work are run from the park bench, a nearby restaurant and his car. Co-written by Moretti and based on the novel by Sandro Veronesi, this subtle and engrossing film expertly weaves one man’s unusually manifested grief with warm humour, adult sensuality and a broader, palpable sense of social malaise. Australian Premiere Antonello Grimaldi studied law in his home Sassari, from 1980–83 and subsequently trained at Gaumont Film School in Rome. He is both a film and television director and accomplished actor. Features as director; Mulla ci può fermere (88); Il Cielo è sempre più blu (95); Un Delitto impossibile (01); Quiet Chaos (08). Rain of the Children Saturday 7 June at 6.30pm Dir-Scr Vincent Ward | Prod Vincent Ward, Marg Slater, Tainui Stephens | With Miriama Rangi, Rena Owen, Temuera Morrison | New Zealand | English, Maori | 98mins | Rialto Distribution Vincent Ward’s deeply personal and incredibly moving film unravels and re-imagines the story of Puhi, the Tuhoe woman he documented in In Spring One Plants Alone (1981). Then Puhi was 80 and caring for her schizophrenic son, and Ward, at 21, was an art student. While not the subject of the earlier film, Puhi believed herself to be cursed, and it is this curse that is the centre of Rain of the Children. An extraordinary woman, Puhi was chosen by prophet Rua Kenana to marry his son, survived the 1916 police raid on Rua’s Maungapohatu community, and bore 14 children. Cutting between early footage, Ward’s own to-camera narration, contemporary interviews with Tuhoe descendents and recreated historical sequences; Ward reveals both the heartrending background of Puhi’s belief in the curse, and her lasting power over him. World Premiere Vincent Ward began his filmmaking career at 18, making his feature debut with Vigil (84, SFF 1984). His features The Navigator (1988) and Map of the Human Heart (1993) were the first films by a New Zealander to be officially selected for Cannes Film Festival. Other features: What Dreams May Come (98); River Queen (05, SFF 2006). Page 2 of 5 Hunger Saturday 7 June at 9.15pm Dir Steve McQueen | Scr Steve McQueen, Enda Walsh | Prod Robin Gutch, Laura Hastings-Smith | With Michael Fassbender, Liam Cunningham, Stuart Graham | UK | 90mins | Becker International UK artist Steve McQueen, in collaboration with Irish playwright Enda Marsh, has created an extraordinary feature debut about IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. Establishing the conditions of Her Majesty’s Maze prison near Belfast in the early 80s, McQueen initially presents the prison cells as installation sites for articulating a series of intense and violent clashes between wardens and prisoners. In a bold narrative choice, Sands (Michael Fassbender) only emerges as a character in a punchy philosophical exchange with a Catholic priest, dissecting the political and religious implications of his decision to starve himself. Clearly influenced by McQueen’s recent stint as a war artist in Iraq, the contemporary relevance of Hunger is loud and resounding. Australian Premiere. Selected to open Un Certain Regard, Cannes Film Festival, 2008 After studying at Chelsea School of Art in England, Brit Steve McQueen graduated from Goldsmith’s College, London, where he made his first short films, before attending Tisch School of the Arts in NY. His work includes experimental short films, photography and sculpture. He won the prestigious Turner Prize in 1999. Hunger (08) is his feature debut. Three Blind Mice Sunday 8 June at 6.30pm Dir-Scr Matthew Newton | Prod Ben Davis | With Ewen Leslie, Toby Schmitz, Matthew Newton | Australia | 92mins | Dirty Rat Productions-Odin’s Eye Entertainment Deceptively freewheeling, this psychological drama follows three young Australian naval officers on shore leave before being shipped out to Iraq. The dynamic is uneasy and tinged with malice: one is looking for a way out; one is anxious to reconnect with his girlfriend; and the third is full of attitude and bent on a night of excess. The nursery-rhyme line that follows the film’s title acutely describes Newton’s punchy script, propelled by rapid-fire dialogue, growing tension between the friends and frenetic on-the-town action.