Sydney Film Festival
It's the jewel in Australia's cinema crown and this year it's competing internationally, with global stars, huge prize money and a treasure trove of talent in town. Who better to front such a stellar shindig than a kinky prince, a burlesque queen and one blind mouse?
By Ruth Hessey
Check out poster artwork from festivals past!
Pumped with fresh blood, Australian film has many faces today: well seasoned, ever hopeful, and not a hint of botox anywhere: the playwright Brendan Cowell, squints into the crisp June sunshine; the director Matt Newton exchanges hearty backslaps and "G'day brothers!" The actress, Christa Hughes sashays into shot, a splash of red-hot glamour.
Given the swordplay required every night by his role as Hamlet for Bell Shakespeare, Cowell cuts quite the rug, hunched inside a green tweed jacket to beat an icy June breeze. Ten Empty, the film he wrote, and compadre Anthony Hayes directed, will premiere at the Festival. "We said we'd make it, even if it meant borrowing from our parents!" he says. "We knew it was a tough sell, but we had to do it so we could move on with our lives."
Newton strides across the cobbled courtyard of the Argyle in the Rocks, managing to look both slick and doubtful in a suit and silky shirt. Newton's festival offering is Three Blind Mice, which he wrote, directed, stars in, and raised the funds for himself.
Screening in official international competition, the film follows three young soldiers through "that brief period before they go to war. It's about what it feels like to square up to your own death and the killing of others. We shot it quickly," says the son of Moonface earnestly. "I wanted it to feel as little like a commercial exercise as possible."
Christa Hughes stars as the sassy, strident showgirl sister in Julien Temple's noir opera The Eternity Man - possibly the most risky Australian film at the festival. On stage since she was 15 (often clad in nothing more than a neon-lit bikini), Hughes infamously fronted the late-90s art-pop band Machine Gun Fellatio.
Crunching into a convict-sized doorway with the boys, she works the camera like a pro. "I feel like a cheezel!" she laughs, as the three unlikely bedfellows face up to the future.
Check out poster artwork from festivals past!